Harvey Guillén, the actor beloved for his role as Guillermo de la Cruz in the hit FX series What We Do in the Shadows, has become an inspiration for body positivity, not by design, but by simply living authentically. His journey is a powerful testament to self-acceptance in an industry often criticized for its superficiality. This article explores Guillén's experiences, highlighting his struggles, triumphs, and his unwavering commitment to representing diversity in Hollywood.
From "Gordito" to Body Confidence
"I've always been myself and comfortable in my body," Harvey Guillen recalls. Growing up, he was a "big kid" but happy. It wasn't until others pointed out his "imperfections" that he began to question his beauty. These conflicting messages were mirrored by loving nicknames from his family, like gordito ("little fat one"), which, while a term of endearment, unintentionally confirmed what others with less pure intentions were telling him about his body.
Like so many, Guillen had his confidence unfairly snatched away by outside influences. He recalls bullies telling him, "You have a big butt," a message that he took to heart for years, wearing baggy pants to hide his curves. Now, he happily flaunts those curves on his Instagram to the delight of his followers. "Now people would kill for a big butt, you know what I mean?" he laughs.
This personal journey made him a perfect fit for the guest speaker panel at The BodCon conference, a virtual day of discussion about confidence and radical self-acceptance. Created by Jess Hunichen and Emily Ward, The BodCon has become a social space built around body confidence. It has also spawned a podcast and a series of mini-events held virtually throughout the year. In other words, it's the perfect venue for the kind message of confidence and body positivity that Guillen just naturally exudes because he didn't set out to be an inspiration for body positivity; it just kind of happened.
"I never noticed how, by living your life or your authentic self, or just being your true self, you inspire people," he shares. "It just gives me so much confidence in myself.'"
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Overcoming Stereotypes and Industry Expectations
Guillen's combination of confidence and talent has taken him far in an industry that's notoriously superficial. He has thrived because of his tenacity, even with the call to lower his expectations coming from inside the house. "I remember my first agent -- who was Latinx himself -- told me, 'You're only going to play these certain roles… like the janitor or the gangbanger," recalls Guillen. "Because I am Latinx, I am plus-size, and I was put into a category automatically."
Guillen, who studied Shakespeare and dance, was taken aback. "You're telling me all that training used for me to say two lines with an accent, while I scrub a toilet? That's what you think that I represent in my culture? It blew my mind."
Guillen refused to settle or give up on his dream, even when it meant fighting his own team. Ultimately, it came down to knowing who he is and his value. "I've had to go face-to-face with my agents in the past -- that was old agents because they're no longer the team," he laughs. "I have to remember that what I'm selling is myself. And my product is me. And I have to love every part of me and be and be 100 percent behind it," he says. "I bring myself to the table … I'm not wasting more time trying to convince you to like this, because I know what I'm offering."
Guillen offers this tantalizing analogy: "So if I roll down with a cart of desserts to your dinner table, and it's like, 'not tonight,' OK, I'll move on to the next table because the other table is in dire need of dessert. And that's what I have to offer -- sweet, sweet dessert."
The Accidental Audition and the Birth of Guillermo
That approach is working, because Guillen is staying very busy. His film I'm Totally Fine is on the way, as is a podcast series titled Bone, Marry, Bury. Reacher, in which Guillen plays the role of Jasper, is a huge hit for Amazon and has been renewed for season 2. And then, of course, there's Guillen's breakout role in What We Do in the Shadows. Guillermo, the vampire familiar turned vampire bodyguard (with a brief stint as an unintentional vampire hunter in between), quickly became a fan favorite with his dry delivery and knowing eye darts to camera, to the point where the show would be unimaginable without him now. However, were it not for a chance meeting at a wine and cheese party, Guillermo -- as fans know and love him -- never would have been, Guillen confides.
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"Guillermo was not written for me," shares Guillen, who adds that if he had attempted to audition for the part as it was written, he likely wouldn't have made it through the door. The chain of events that landed him the role started at a friend's party. It was there that he hit it off with a woman who turned out to be the girlfriend of a producer on the show, which at the time was still casting. She suggested him for the role and he went for it. The role was written for someone 20 years older than the 32-year-old actor.
To age himself up, Guillen recalls, "I found this nasty orange long-sleeve shirt in my closet with a brown sweater vest over it. I had these Harry Potter glasses and I popped out the lenses. I parted my hair in the middle and curled it to the sides like it was like 1994 Home Improvement. I went in thinking if this doesn't age me, I don't know what will." Guillen says he got so into the character he can't even remember the audition. He clearly nailed it, as a few days later he was on set and the Guillermo that fans know and love was born.
Interestingly, the character's outfits were modeled after what he wore to the audition. He was too young for the role, so he tried to age himself up. He found these Harry Potter glasses and popped the lenses out, and parted his hair. There's a drawing of Guillermo del Toro on the back of his At Home with Monsters book. He has his hair parted in the middle, so he mirrored his actual look after Guillermo del Toro's hair and his glasses, and wore a sweater vest and long-sleeve shirt to the audition, thinking, This looks like a Guillermo.
If you look at the pilot, Guillermo has these gold glasses that are really kind of comical and a little bit oversized. They found out after they shot the pilot that the gold on the glasses would reflect the light of the camera, and there would just be these rings of gold around his eyes. The show was shot in very dark rooms, and the camera has a light like a documentary. Whenever he looked at the camera, it would shimmer too much, and it would be distracting. So if you notice, from the pilot to the ongoing seasons, his glasses change. There's two pairs of glasses that Guillermo wore: the original glasses with gold, and then the other ones were bronze, kind of like toned down, so the light wasn't picked up as harshly.
Representing His Heritage: The Importance of Authenticity
Speaking about his character, in the past Guillén has discussed having a hand in giving Guillermo life behind-the-scenes, specifically his Mexican American roots. For fans that might not know, he picked his last name (De la Cruz), ensured the actor cast as Guillermo’s mother was also Mexican, and even paid attention to the prop food in that Season 2 finale scene, ensuring it was accurate to his heritage.
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Guillen ensured the dialogue should be authentic, and that the verbiage feel like a Mexican household. Spanish is a beautiful language, but it's spoken differently in different countries and different cultures. Paul and Stefani Robinson were nice enough to let him be in the writers' room to kind of write those scenes alongside them, to make sure that they're authentic.
"I was very adamant about having the mom be a Mexican actress. At one point, it was going to be like, "Oh, do we get Sofía Vergara?" - who would be a great choice as well - but we know Sofía, and we know she's Colombian, and we've already established a Mexican household. What a great opportunity to give an actress who may not have that name and that clout to shine. Truth be told, I think I ruffled feathers with that request, because it would have been easier to give it to an actress who had been established already, and it would have been brand recognition. At that point, we had so many actors with [big] names who were trying to be on the show, so it would have been easy to go with a name, but I just kind of stood my ground that it should be someone that you believe is [Guillermo's] mom. I felt this great connection with the actress. We've had lunch and hung out after we stopped filming, just because it felt real… There were just all these emotions that we got to play together. It was really great."
For the buñuelos - I made the buñuelos myself. I literally - in the middle of doing the scene - and while they were setting up the lights - I got tortillas, canola oil, some sugar, and cinnamon. I made the buñuelos myself, because I wouldn't be okay to just have those be props. It's easy for an actor to be like, "That's not my job," but [when] you're in the scene, that means, by association, you checked off on it.
The original buñuelos that they had [on set] were from El Salvador. Their prop master googled buñuelos, and the first thing that came up was Salvadorian buñuelos. She had them shipped, because they shot in Toronto. When they got to set, she was very carefully holding them until it was time for the scene, and Guillen was like, "What are those? No, those are not buñuelos." She was panicking, too, because it's her job. He was like, "It's okay. We can fix it. I can make them right now. They're not that hard to make." And they made it happen. It was a collaboration, and it's about learning, too, you know? My mom would have been so mad if she saw [the Salvadorian buñuelos in] that episode. I could not [laughs].
Embracing Sexuality: Guillermo's Coming Out Story
In Season 4 of the show, Guillermo comes out as gay at the same time as he reveals to his family that he not only works for vampires, but wants to become one. It was very therapeutic in a way. He defends his housemate, Nadja, and comes out to protect his family from his housemates and the people that he loves. His chosen family and his blood family, all under one roof, attacking each other - that's what made him come out.
The idea that he had a problem with was the phrasing of coming out. It doesn't sit well with me, because when a queer person tells someone that they're queer, it's not like they woke up that morning and said, "You know what, I think I'm gay. I'm gonna call my mom, I'm gonna call my friends. Hey everybody, I'm gay!" It doesn't work that way. When people come out, they're not really coming out. The phrase I like to use is "they're letting you in."
When people let you in, what you do with that information can determine if they let other people in. It's like inviting someone into a home, and you open the door and you say, "Step in. Please wipe your feet. Here's my furniture. Here's my couch…" When you are vulnerable enough to let someone in your home and they tornado through everything and traumatize you for even opening the door, people lock that door and never let people in. Or it might be a while before they do it again, because they'll be peeking out the window, terrified that it's going to happen again. And so the coming out story was very important to me, because he's being forced to come out. Guillermo didn't choose to come out at that moment. He did it out of fear, because Nadja was in danger, and his mom and his family were going to kill her. He loves Nadja, but he also loves his family. He says, "Stop, I'm gay," and that freezes everyone. It's not even about him, he knew what he was. He just didn't feel like he needed to share it, and here he's forced to say it. But in a weird way, it's a relief, because by doing so, his family just says, "Oh, we don't care." Nadja and his chosen family, they're all queer. They didn't even blink an eye. And then for his Mexican biological family to be so accepting was very nice.
Guillen was very lucky that it resonated with the way that he came out to his family. Again, it was more like a coming out for their sake. He remembers having the conversation with his mom in the kitchen. She would always try to, like, [set me up with my friend], like, "Oh, tu amiga Adriana es muy bonita. ¿No tiene novio?" And I was like, "No, she doesn't have a boyfriend, Mom," knowing that she was a lesbian. I was like, What are you doing? You know the old saying that Juan Gabriel quoted, "Lo que se mira, no se pregunta," (What is seen, is not questioned). It was kind of an unspoken rule. I thought it was, like, obvious [that I saw queer], but I had to spell it out. I literally blurted it out. I was like, "Mom, you know, I'm queer, right?" She needed to hear it to have confirmation. Coming out is never for the queer person…it's for the comfort of someone else. Queer people know who they are, and they've been struggling with it, and [coming out] is just another layer of anxiety. Once you start that tour of coming out, then it's an ongoing [thing]. Every friend you've ever made has to be aware.
Body Confidence in Dating and the Queer Community
It's not just in his professional life that Guillen's body confidence has paid off, but in his dating life as well. "The more confident I got in my body, the more people are attracted to [me]. Because oozing confidence is sexy," he shares. "The more confident you are, that's so appealing. You walk around with that, because it's contagious, and having that confidence is contagious, you want to be around positivity."
That's not to say that the queer community doesn't have its own issues with body shaming and prejudice about body size, something Guillen has witnessed and experienced firsthand. "The queer community is like, 'Please love us. Love is love, love is-- eww, get away from me, fat person,'" says Guillen. "We can be very judgmental in our own community. We have so much division." It's not unlike how, early in his career, the roles given to Guillen were assigned to him by others -- and just as limiting.
"We start putting people in categories, and it's like twinks and bears, chub chaser, all these terms that I didn't know until I was in high school, like why?" he asks. "People come up to me like, 'Are you chub for chub? Or are you a chub for chaser?' And it's just like, 'What are you saying?'" asks Guillen. "Oh, so I'm automatically a chub because I'm already a person of size," he recalls with a sigh.
This need to put queer individuals in boxes goes against Guillen's ethos and his romantic history. "I look at the background of who I'm attracted to and it's been a rainbow of people. I've dated people of bigger size, people with different backgrounds. I can't put myself in a category, because at the end of the day, that's not reality," he shares. It's time to do better, Guillen says, because it's not healthy for queer folks. "In queer culture it's like 'no femmes, no fats.' That's damaging and just kind of ridiculous." It is getting better in his eyes, however. "I feel like we're getting better at having a conversation about things," he says. "it's a conversation that's being had even in the queer community." For Guillen, everything comes back to his guiding philosophy: "Lead with empathy, and lead with empathy with yourself and with others."
A Changing Hollywood and a Legacy of Representation
Evolving attitudes about body diversity are also positively impacting Guillen's career. "I remember a time not too long ago, some of the roles that I will be playing now wouldn't have been an option for me," he says. Guillen also hopes that he's been able to open doors that will allow more people to follow after him. "Now when I do [conventions] for Shadows, I get people who come up to me, people from different backgrounds and sizes. They're like, 'I literally didn't see myself on television, and I saw you and I was like, yes, he can do it. I can do it.'"
While his confidence hasn't kept some in the public and in the media from commenting on his body -- a practice that Guillen says he finds "to be very American to talk about people's bodies" -- he's no longer bothered. The same is true for what the bullies used to say about what's become his favorite feature, his butt. "It's funny," says Guillen, thinking back to a time when he was ashamed of his body, "the other day someone said, I found a picture of you online where it's just you and you're dressing like … sexy Pugsley Addams. The photographer had ideas like why don't we make you goth and scary. You're like if Pugsley Addams was all grown up and living his best sexy life," he laughs. "And it's just me holding a cherry and twisting around and seeing my backside -- and it's just that leaves nothing to the imagination."
Playing Guillermo earned him five Critics' Choice Award nominations, and he made history as the first queer Latino actor to be nominated.
Guillen is also starting to put on different hats, producing, writing, and creating content for people who he knows are talented but maybe wouldn’t get the same opportunities.
Finding Inspiration and Creating Impactful Art
He loves comedy and telling stories, so he likes to use that in a way where it's always entertaining and something that you want to watch, but also something that you walk away [from] and are like, Oh, I love when something is very smart and clever [like that]. He tries to push himself to do things that aren't expected of him. He wants to surprise himself. A film that he did comes out soon called Damned If You Do where he plays basically a devil. He never would have thought, Oh, that's something I could play. People want him to play [Guillermo], and so sometimes he gets offers to do projects where they want him to do something similar. He turns it down. Guillermo is a great character, but he's already done him. He doesn't want to get in a rotation [where people think], "We need Guillermo-type, you know who to call." It's really nice to be offered, but also remember that an actor's job is to completely bring a brand-new character to life. The characters we love that actors play are the ones where they just camouflage [themselves into] something different. It's why we like great actors who do so many [projects] that every movie they do, every story they tell us is a whole different journey. We go along for the ride. That's the kind of actor that he strives to be, where [people are] like, "Oh my god, that was you?" He loves it when he hears that kind of conversation. He gets that a lot with voice-over, when people are like, "Wait, you were Perrito? You're Nightwing [from Harley Quinn]?" That's your job, as actors, to completely create different characters and different voices.
What really molded him was watching old black-and-white movies with his dad. Cantinflas, María Félix, and actors like that were the classics that he grew up watching. He'd be watching Cantinflas with his dad, and then he'd come home from school, and there'd be I Love Lucy playing on public television, and he saw the similarities in that black and white comedy, where you could literally turn off the volume, and the language was not a barrier. The comedy was still there. It's all in the body, it's all in the face, and it's all in the storytelling. He thinks he really kind of got sucked into that. He loves telling just with his eyes. You can tell a story just with your facial expression. He's notorious for using his face to say everything. You know, Guillermo didn't really talk in the first season; he did all of his acting to the camera with his face. He doesn't say anything. He never speaks up because he's afraid of being demoted by his master. In the first season, he rarely talks.
Guillén is also developing an app with Kayvan Novak that's going to be very helpful for actors. They both really love working together, so any opportunity they get, they try to do it whenever they can. They have already worked on some projects together, voiceovers, cartoons and who knows what the future holds. You want to work with your friends - make art with your friends. They have been doing that together for the last six years. So he's excited to do more of this - lifelong friendships!
Fears and Hopes for the Future
When asked what he's most afraid of, Guillen responded that he's most afraid of going back to a place that endangers anybody. Going back to a time where we put women's health, queer people, LGBTQIA and trans people at risk. Any human being put in danger is something that always worries him. It feels like we have no control now, even though we do and we live in a democracy, and we can do what we feel is right, and advocate and be supportive and vote.
Everything is just as important. How we treat people who are coming to this country for a better life. Immigrants and people who just want a better opportunity and better their lives. And I come from immigrant parents, and the idea that this country is built on that dream, it’s so weird to think of someone who's saying “Well, that's enough of those immigrants.”, like, “Aren't you an immigrant, too?”.
He feels that in moments of chaos, as an artist, all we do now is create art, and we create art that will live forever and create art by doing a photo shoot, by doing the comedy, by making an escape for someone, because this is temporary, but creating good art is forever.
He feels that he is so involved in creating art constantly. And to feel like that, to him, is kind of a way of leaving a legacy. And it might not be tangible, you know, offspring that carries your name or whatnot, but what's in a name, you know? A name can be carried through what you created. I would like to think that people look at the work that I've done and say, “I always liked watching him.”, you know, “I could watch him all the time.”, you know, because I like to feel that I contribute to a quick distraction when things get scary. I'm not a doctor. I can't give you surgery but I can distract you and give you an escape.
Comedy as an Escape
He's used comedy as an escape. Being younger, moving around a lot when he was little, comedy was a way to make friends. People always like to hang out with someone who's funny.
He thinks comedy is hard, it's hard to make someone laugh but he's very lucky that he feels like comedy, to him, comes organically. Growing up, it might have been like a coping mechanism. You have to make light of things, because the world can get so dark sometimes. He thinks it was Lucille Ball who said, “The most tragic stories come from the funniest people”. Everyone has stuff that they go through and it's how you are channeling that and how you filter it into your art. For me, I've been very much like that. I've used comedy as an escape. Being younger, moving around a lot when I was little, comedy was a way to make friends.
He remembers telling his guidance counsellor “I'm going to be an actor”. And they were like, “What's your backup plan?” He was like, “Nothing”. And they're like, “You need a backup plan.” He was like, “Says who?” “You need a backup plan.” “Failure is not an option and once you change that mindset, you'd be surprised how things change around you.” He thinks he was very lucky that he stayed in a very childish mindset his whole life. So nothing scared him. So when he had people tell him, “You have to think about the future. You know, what if you fail?”, he was like, “Success is my only option.” Failure is not an option and once you change that mindset, you'd be surprised how things change around you.
What's Next for Harvey Guillén?
Guillen has been really busy since they wrapped What We Do in the Shadows earlier this year. It's been project after project, back to back. He has a couple of things coming out, some that he can’t discuss yet, and some that he's really excited that are ready to be seen. Companion is coming out in January, and he gets to be with his friends Jack Quaid and Lucas Gage.
Companion is about the not so far future where people get tired of dating. Dating is hard and the dating apps are really hard, so people just start ordering robots for companions. And what happens when technology is intertwined too close to human emotion. And what happens when robots and machines have human emotions and those things maybe don't mix well, and all hell breaks loose. But there's a deeper, sinister plot behind it. Guillen plays a human, and his relationship is with his partner, played by Lucas Gage. It's the sweetest queer love story.