The spring premiere of Chicago Fire put Joe Cruz in a world of hurt, literally and metaphorically. In Season 13, Episode 9, “A Favor,” Cruz is pressured into helping with a robbery to keep a secret from the beginning of the NBC series under wraps. Unfortunately for him, the whole plot goes terribly wrong, leaving Junior Polanco dead and Cruz wounded. Is he finally going to have to face the music for leaving Flaco to die, years after that fateful choice? Or does he still have a chance to cover it up again?
In an interview with CBR, actor Joe Minoso spoke about his reaction to the show revisiting something that happened way back in Season 1. He talked about the importance of the Flaco storyline to Cruz’s character, and his own evolution as an actor. Plus, learn how much it means to him to see Cruz have grown and expanded beyond being just a supporting character or a source of comic relief.
CBR: Cruz’s storyline with Junior is one heck of a deep cut, since it relies on events that happened over a decade ago during the first season of Chicago Fire. What did you think when you learned Flaco’s death was coming up again?
Joe Minoso: It was a long time ago, and it’s really brave on behalf of the writers to revisit a storyline that we did so long ago. I was super-excited about it. And I think the reason that it was fresher in my mind is this was sort of Cruz’s origin story, and kind of what birthed the character — when I sort of knew who the guy was. So it’s always been key in my mind.
I have so many vivid memories — how the room felt, the fire licking at my ears when [Cruz] closed the door on Flaco. Meeting Jeff Lima [who plays Cruz’s brother Leon] for the first time, and filming that whole business. It actually felt like revisiting something that happened that wasn’t that long ago. It’s so ingrained. I was such a baby actor at that point. I had barely done anything, and for them to trust me was such a big thing. It just really stuck.
To your point, it does provide an opportunity to look back on how far Cruz has come, and how the character has been used differently now than he was back then. He has a wife and a family to protect, and you’ve gotten even more serious storylines, when oftentimes you’d do a lot of comic relief with Yuri Sardarov’s character Otis. How do you see Cruz today?
We have sort of parallel trajectories, just because we happen to be the same age. I got married on the show like two years after I actually got married from the show; my wife is a former [Chicago Fire] makeup artist. I have so many more responsibilities and so many more people to look after and take care of now than I did before, when I just was an actor, kind of broke and working at bars and doing what I could to survive. So in that aspect, you grow up. Every human being, you get into your 30s and 40s, and you’re like, well, I’ve only got about 30 or 40 [years] left. So you’re looking at life through a different lens.
I think the best thing is how he’s still such a great, noble dude — but even more so, because now he’s a father and an adoptive father at that, and he’s moved his way up to where he’s pretty much on the cusp of becoming a lieutenant. There’s not many people that can say that they’ve had that much success in life, even with the demons that we’re about to explore in the next couple of episodes. He’s had a pretty charmed life and a lot of great opportunities have come his way.
And as an actor, I tell people I think I’ve got the best job in the One Chicago universe. I’ve gotten to play so many different facets of this character from so many different angles. Sometimes some characters get limited to just doing the dramatic arc or the romantic arc or the funny arc, and I’ve played in all of those sandboxes.
You mentioned Jeff Lima, who plays Leon Cruz. Given the nature of the storyline, can you say how much of Leon we might see in Season 13, since this is something that affects both brothers?
We will get to see Leon again, Jeff Lima again, and I think it’ll end up being a situation that’s more of a role reversal. Leon has leaned on Cruz so heavily for so long, and we might find a little bit of that going the opposite way this time.
The other big news coming out of the One Chicago world is that Chicago Fire is about to be in a long-awaited crossover event with Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med. Since it’s been literally years since you’ve done a crossover, did it take some time to remember all the logistics that go into those events?
It is particularly insane when we’re doing the crossovers, and we have to always take pause to recognize the sheer impossibility and miracle that these productions have pulled off in getting us to do a three-hour movie in the middle of filming a season of television. It reminds me a lot of the early days. The early days, the first four or five seasons of Chicago Fire, It was 14-hour days, everybody all the time, and it kind of felt like that a little bit again. We [were] just all so involved. But when you’re making something that feels so unique to the medium and is so kind of outside of your everyday, you feed off that, and that becomes exciting to do. It’s always a blast, man. It’s like going to your crazy cousin’s house and playing with their toys.
It’s so insane that the guy who is currently playing Junior [Richard Cabral] was in Season 1 of our show as a fully different character in prison, who put a knife to Herrmann’s throat [in] the season finale. Who’s to say that that wasn’t Junior already in Season 1 who put a knife to Herrmann’s throat?… To be able to even imagine those kinds of stories, it’s the greatest gift you could ever ask for. You’re lucky when you get to do one year of anything. 13 seasons feels like I’m on borrowed time, to be honest with you. I’ve gotten it too good.
