Know Your Role: Gary Carlos Cervantes
Gary Cervantes, or sometimes Carlos Cervantes, or even Gary Carlos (not really) is an actor you may know from such high-profile roles as “shooter #1” in Scarface or “Mechanic” on the Bruce Willis starring TV Series Moonlighting. If neither of those roles rings a bell it’s probably because you’re not Gary Cervantes or one of his close relatives and you haven’t followed his career for the past 40 years. For me, Gary fulfilled the role of Hispanic looking bad guy in about 100 different movies and TV shows. Many of his most memorable parts consisted of mere minutes in screen time but ironically always seemed to end with him getting shot in the forehead. He’s gotten to work on productions with awesome action stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eddie Murphy, Steven Seagal, and Nick Nolte during his career but Gary never seemed to break out of his role as a one-named henchman. Well I think that is just fine. The world needs people for our heroes to bulldoze in the finale and Gary is exactly that. He has continued to find work since the glory days of action but let’s be honest; no one really cares how many episodes of ER and The West Wing you were on. So I salute you Gary Carlos Cervantes, for knowing your role.
Propositioning Arnold in Commando, 1985.
Cervantes should have stayed in the car, Extreme Prejudice, 1987.
Gary went against typecasting and wore a hat in Beverly Hills Cop II, 1987.
Opposite Steven Seagal in Marked for Death, 1990.
