I didn’t expect it! I was shocked. I was at work. It was a little past 8:00 when they came to me ... the crew did! They said, “Hey man, did you know you’d just been nominated?” I was like, “What are you talking about?” And they said, “You’ve just been nominated for the Oscar.” I said, “What?” They go, “Yeah, congratulations.” Holy moly, that’s incredible! Then I went on stage and finished the scene. 

And [Universal Pictures studio head] Tom Pollack asked me “What else would you like to do?” And I said, “Well, I’d love to do ‘American Me.’” So I locked myself away, and they gave me an office there at Universal and I started doing the rewrites. It was a slow process, and the only reason I got the opportunity to do that is because I got the Oscar nomination. 

That’s one of the things I really appreciate with the choices that I’ve made. The strength that I got from the artistic, critical acclaim I’ve gotten, I’ve used to advance the culture in every single step I take. I haven’t done anything but that. I could have probably been a lot more, for sure, a lot richer [laughs], if I had done the other kind of movies. But I could die today and be very, very happy with how my life unfolded. 

How much does your heritage, the culture, inform characters that aren’t, let’s say, explicitly written as Latino? Or do they? I’m thinking of like, “Blade Runner” or “Battlestar Galactica.” These are characters that you played, but they’re not written on the page as being the “Latino Cop” or the “Latino Space Commander.” I’m wondering what you bring to it, if anything.

Well, I think in the case of “Battlestar,” that was really just unbelievable timing between preparation of all my life and opportunity knocking at the door. They had asked me to play a commander in “Star Trek” and I turned it down because I had done “Blade Runner,” and that was enough for me in that world. That was such a poignant and incredible piece of work that having touched it, I didn’t need to go into sci-fi anymore. I didn’t have to go through a four-eyed monster chasing me. 

And I was very fortunate because if I had done “Star Trek,” I wouldn’t have been able to do “Battlestar Galactica,” and that ended up being right alongside of “Blade Runner.” I mean, if you watch all of “Battlestar” and get to the end, the last scene, the last words, the last understanding, it goes to black, then put in “Blade Runner.” “Battlestar” ends in 2008, “Blade Runner” starts in 2019. In 2008, the people in “Battlestar” are talking are replicants. They’re robots, but no one knows it. And then of course, in “Blade Runner,” it’s the replicants who are off-world, and they’re trying to extend their lives, and they’re robots also. The final line in “Battlestar” is “This happened before, it’s going to happen again,” and Gaius Baltar’s character says, “No, humanity has learned its lesson,” and it goes to black. Then all of a sudden, you’re in 2019 and you see how far advanced it got in the time period since the “Battlestar” saga ended! It’s amazing. 

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