Watch the cast (Jonathan Groff, Frankie J. Alvarez, Murray Bartlett, Raúl Castillo, Lauren Weedman, Daniel Franzese) and creative team (Andrew Haigh, Michael Lannan) of Looking discuss the show at PaleyLive in 2015

From Raúl Castillo's Instagram Stories (October 6, 2019)

Jonathan Groff on Raúl Castillo's Instagram Stories (September 29, 2019)

Jonathan Groff on his Looking co-star Raúl Castillo

'Looking' Made Raúl Castillo A Sex Symbol. Sheer Force Made Him A Star.

In New York, in the middle of July, if the fickle subway system allows it, you’d be wise to arrive at a destination 10 minutes early. You’ll need that time to let the sweat evaporate, to stamp out the damp spots that have betrayed your outfit.

Raúl Castillo forfeited his chance to cool down before shaking my hand at a Manhattan hotel restaurant on a sweltering Thursday morning. I didn’t mind. It was an honest mistake.

The “Looking” star was running slightly late and looking slightly frazzled when he bounded toward our table. He’d confused this hotel for another within walking distance where, the previous night, Castillo had attended a screening of the new Alexander McQueen documentary with his girlfriend, the costume designer Alexis Forte, who has the late fashion maverick’s biography at their Brooklyn apartment.

It’s cute to see celebrities frayed, even ones who are still building their marquee value. Castillo is the type who hasn’t yet abandoned public transportation when navigating the city, even though it’s becoming harder to do so without attracting strangers’ gazes. While trekking home from the “McQueen” event, a Latina teenager tapped him to say she loved “Atypical,” the Netflix series in which Castillo played a charismatic bartender sleeping with Jennifer Jason Leigh’s married character. The teenager’s mother loved “Seven Seconds,” the Netflix series in which Castillo played a narcotics detective tending to a racially charged investigation.

Raúl Castillo: a guy you can bring home to Mom, punctual or otherwise.

We the Animals is regarded as one of the best LGBT books to be released in recent years, but you already went into this film with a big fan base in the queer community because of Looking. While filming that series did you feel pressure because there were so few TV shows about gay people?

Absolutely. We talked about that a lot among the cast and crew. There were a lot of expectations on the show. I think if it had come out this year or last year it would be received completely different. A lot of people celebrate it, and continue to celebrate it. I love running into Looking fans because they always project onto me their feelings about Richie. That character I think represented autonomy, and self assuredness, and all of these qualities that LGBT people don’t get to see themselves as on screen enough. Richie in particularly was self assured and confident, and people needed to see that.

Did you see the Richie pin that was available at the HBO pop-up space in Provincetown this summer? Richie lives on!

[Laughs] Yeah! A friend sent a picture of it to me! My girlfriend texted our friend who was in Ptown asking if they could grab one for her.

So I’m assuming you were team Richie…

Oh yeah.

Do you think Richie and Patrick would have lasted?

At the end of the day I’m a complete romantic, and I would want to believe that Richie and Patrick continued to push each other to deeper levels of intimacy. I think they drove Richie’s barber truck to Texas and started a life there together. I remember [Looking executive producer] Andrew Haigh joking he wanted to do just a whole movie about Richie and Patrick in Mexico because we had such a good time shooting their date episode during the first season. Filming that was a really intimate and special experience.

What’s it like meeting your gay fans since Looking ended and now with We the Animals about to come out?

The thing that it has taught me is that we, I mean the LGBT community, because by proxy I associate myself with the community, are everywhere. So when I go to small towns, like San Antonio, and a young Latino kid says “I loved you on Looking” to me it speaks to the importance of these stories, and it’s so exciting to see that We the Animals is starting to play in all of these little cities. I hope the Looking fans learn to love We the Animals as much as I did. I hope they think we did justice to the book.

Raúl Castillo "took full advantage" of friendship with Jonathan Groff to see Hamilton three times (x)

Looking came a little way into your career, and you’ve previously said that you “snuck in the back door” with that show. What did you mean by that?

It was a guest star, possible recurring character. They could have written [Richie] out in three episodes. But I think the chemistry just worked, between Jonathan [Groff] and myself, with Andrew [Haigh, showrunner], with everyone. And my friend Tanya Saracho, who now is a showrunner on Vida, was a writer. And speaking of representation and it mattering, we had a Latina in that writers’ room. So the Latino characters were taken care of. Someone was looking out for those characters. It matters not only on screen, but behind the screen, you know?

So how did it sit with you when people said that Looking was only about rich white gays?

It felt weird! [laughs] ‘Cause I was like, “didn’t you watch my scenes?” But at the same time I understand people’s frustrations. I get it, but I think that the show was a little bit ahead of its time. Like, if it came out right now, I don’t know that critics would beat us up as much. Because I think that the conversation is changing.

I think there’s more LGBTQ representation now, so people aren’t looking to one show to sum up every kind of queer experience.

Right, exactly.

Did being on Looking change the type of roles you were offered?

Honestly, it was more roles that were just not the typical thing. Richie was a romantic lead, in essence, and there’s not a lot of those roles for Latinos out there. It allowed people to view me as a person who happened to be Latino, but that was one part of it. He had all these facets, and it allowed people to view me as an everyman. People of color don’t get those opportunities a lot. Oftentimes we’re just compartmentalized into stereotypical roles.

Your character in Looking is the opposite of Paps, so stable and emotionally mature that he becomes the moral center of the story. When I interviewed Andrew Haigh earlier this year about Lean on Pete, he said he prefers passive characters to active ones because he thinks most of life is reacting to things, not making things happen. Were you conscious of playing a more passive character than usual when you played that role?

I don't think so. Andrew, like Jeremiah, has such a way of making you feel like a collaborator. Sometimes [as an actor] you come and you punch in, you punch out, you do your lines but nobody's getting personal. But Andrew was all about getting personal. He was all about us being vulnerable and ourselves. He didn't throw too much at me. He let me find the character in a beautiful way. He has a way of trusting his actors and making you feel like you have ownership of the character. And the writing was just so good. My character was always reacting to [laughs] Jonathan [Groff]'s character's sort of colorful personality. Jonathan was such a great scene partner, all I had to do was respond to him. I just had to listen and respond.

Which is actually just what Andrew was talking about in terms of passivity.

Yeah. Totally.

Is Richie [in Looking] still the role you're recognized for the most?

Oh yeah. Definitely. Sometimes people project their feelings of the role onto you. When my mom met Jonathan after the first season, she was angry at him. [laughs] She said, “You hurt my son!” I said, “Mom, that's Jonathan. That's not Patrick!” I got really lucky because my character draws such tender feelings out of people. I think a lot of people connected to that character because he does have a real strong backbone and he's really clear about what he wants. He symbolizes, for a lot of people, maybe what they want or what they want to be. I don't know what it is, but when I meet people who are fans of the show, I have such warmth and tenderness projected at me because of that character.

Do you feel like you're more of a sex symbol in the gay community than the straight world at this point?

[laughs] Yeah yeah yeah. I'm always surprised when I meet fans of the show, who are so loyal. We weren't Game of Thrones, but people really cared about the show and the characters. I think it had something to say about our culture. It was maybe perhaps a couple years ahead of the times. It got a lot of flak. It couldn't do everything, and I think there were a lot of expectations for the show, because it was representing a community that was underserved. I think if it came out today, it'd have a different kind of reception.

Do you feel like you're entering a new phase of your career? It seems like you have a lot of work coming out this year or next.

Looking helped to open a lot of doors for me. Richie, when all is said and done, is a romantic lead. There's not a lot of romantic leads out there for Latino actors, and it allowed the industry to sort of see me as an everyman. I did this film last fall called El Chicano, which is playing at the LA Film Festival next month. I'm El Chicano. It's the first Latino superhero film. It's my first time being number one on a call sheet. I texted Jonathan because I thought of him a lot while I was doing it. He taught me a lot about what it is to be number one on a call sheet, to lead a cast and to rally everyone around you, how you can do that through your grace and your warmth and your work.

officialraulcastillo: Wow. Y’all don’t play. Someone sent me this photo from Ptown this weekend. 🙄 #hbopopupshop #teamrichie #lookinghbo

From @officialraulcastillo's Instagram Stories

alexisforte5: These two dream boat chorus boys just had birthdays 🎁 to celebrate here’s a video we made for my other favorite guy @dannyglicker. As a side note, Raúl and I aren’t great at harmonizing we’re just here for the food and good times. Happy New Birth-year Jonathan and @murray__bartlett ❤️🎂🎈”Auld Lang Syne" #tomanymoregoodtimes

Raúl Castillo's Instagram Stories about Jonathan Groff's new Netflix series, MINDHUNTER