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From growing up among gangs to co-starring in one of TV’s top programs, Six Feet Under‘s hotheaded “maestro of the mortuary” Freddy Rodriguez embodies the classic American success story. The former at-risk Chicago teen, now 29, resides in the spendy L.A. suburb of Woodland Hills, where he can watch his favorite films Carlita’s Way, Goodfellas and Dog Day Afternoon on his home theater’s 60-inch screen. He commutes to the studio in his Mercedes 5500 or his Lincoln Aviator.
Beyond these few movie star indulgences, though, Rodriguez is your everyday family man. He married his high school girlfriend, Elsie, and they have two boys, ages six and nine. And if that seems similar to his Six Feet Under character Federico Diaz, it’s because show creator Alan Ball—who cast Rodriguez in his short-lived 1999 sitcom Oh Grow Up—wrote Federico with Freddy in mind.
“Being a young, responsible father in Hollywood is a very uncommon thing, so my life might have inspired Alan to write that into the character,” Rodriguez considers, taking a break from painting his home office (chocolate brown with a copper wash). “But that’s the only similarity between Federico and me. That, and that he’s passionate about his occupation.”
Unlike other young actors his age, Rodriguez hasn’t made a name for himself by marrying Jennifer Lopez, passing out in neighbors’ bedrooms or filming home movies with Paris Hilton. Rather, he contends that he’s able to remain a family man in La La Land by staying out of the Hollywood maelstrom. “The key is to work in Hollywood, but not to be a part of Hollywood, if that makes any sense,” explains Rodriguez. “A lot of actors get too involved in the scene. I choose not to be part of that.”
Instead of winning acting awards playing the gifted reconstructive artist, Rodriguez could have easily ended up becoming the sort of young fatality that Rico so often puts back together in the Fisher and Diaz Funeral Home basement. He credits his family—his first-generation Puerto Rican parents and two brothers—with saving him from a misspent youth.
“My parents are immigrants who worked in factories their whole lives,” shares Rodriguez. “The reason they moved to Chicago was to provide a better life for us. They sacrificed comfort and familiarity for us to have more opportunities.
“I grew up in Bucktown. It’s a pretty nice area now, but back then it was terrible, man. You couldn’t walk through that neighborhood. The kids that I grew up with were products of their environment. Thank God for the standards that my family upheld, because if not, I would’ve definitely gone in another direction. Their guidance, and acting, is what got me out of that situation.”
As a teenager, acting with the Whirlwind Performance Company for inner-city youth and, later, at Lincoln Park High School, diverted Rodriguez’s focus. He appeared in 20 student productions, but was too young for adult roles at the Victory Gardens or Steppenwolf. After graduation, opportunity kicked down his door. He was cast as Keanu Reeves’ potential brother-in-law in A Walk in the Clouds at the same time he landed a role with the Goodman Theatre.
“I was 19 and all set to do The Merchant of Venice at the Goodman. I was finally old enough to be involved in their theater. But then I had to choose. Obviously I chose the film, but I’ve always had regrets about it because the Goodman and Steppenwolf were my Broadway. The opportunity finally came and I never did it, so that’s one goal that I still wish to fulfill.”
Regrets aside, Rodriguez earned positive reviews for subsequent supporting roles in high-profile movies. He was a Vietnam vet-turned-holdup man in the Hughes brothers’ Dead Presidents, the trigger man in the NBC biopic Seduced by Madness, and Mel Gibson’s punching bag in Payback. Now that he’s graduated from playing thugs to playing a family man, Rodriguez will reluctantly consider himself a trailblazer for Latino actors.
“There will always be Latino stereotypes in Hollywood,” says Rodriguez, “and there will always be actors who will play those characters because they need the work. And there are some truths to those characters: There are Latin drug dealers—I grew up with those guys. There are Latin maids as well. But there need to be more Latino actors willing to step up to the plate and prove to execs in the studios that they can playa mortician or a lawyer or someone other than a thug.
“When I landed Six Feet Under, I said to Alan Ball, ‘This guy has to be a straight professional. It can’t be about his ethnicity. I’m not going to play him with an accent. I’m not going to have a goatee. I just want to make him a regular guy.’”
Since Six Feet Under took off, Rodriguez has climbed out of the Fishers’ basement to land a hilarious recurring role on TV’s Scrubs, as well as parts in the Latino comedy Chasing Papi, Scott Caan’s directorial debut Dallas 362 and even the teen drama Pledge of Allegiance, in which he plays a high school senior (“Thank God for the youth gene that runs in my family!”). And on his hiatus from the show, he runs his production company ChiTown Entertainment out of his chocolate brown office with the copper wash. He’s already written two scripts that he hopes to produce in Chicago.
In the meantime, he continues to defy typecasting, ducking the labels of Latino actor, supporting actor or leading man. “I’m an actor from Chicago. There are a lot of great actors who come from Chicago: Gary Sinise, John Malkovich and the Cusacks. I want to be remembered as one of them.”