Melissa Harris-Perry: Here's how old I am. Back before we could just binge all of our favorite shows on Netflix and Hulu, I very well remember the days when I had to check out a video in person at Blockbuster.
Speaker: The perfect video store.
Speaker: Welcome to Blockbuster video.
Speaker: Is popping up all over the country. There's one near you, Blockbuster video. Wow, what a difference?
Melissa Harris-Perry: Blockbuster did make a difference. Except for when I had to remember to return those videos because the late fees piled up. The charm of Blockbuster is what I and so many others remember the most, the endless rows of video, the tempting candy selection at the register. The excitement of picking out a new film or a game made, Blockbuster the epicenter of film lovers and video game players alike.
Now, Netflix is paying comedic tribute to the franchise that satiated our entertainment needs for years with the new series Blockbuster. It premiered on November 3rd. The show store is a diverse cast of characters fighting to save the last Blockbuster store.
Speaker: There's No easy way to say this. Seven more Blockbusters just closed. You're officially the last one on earth.
Speaker: I don't love the pattern that's starting to emerge.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I spoke with Tyler Alvarez, the actor who plays the character, Carlos, a bisexual Cuban-American who has big dreams of becoming a filmmaker.
Tyler Alvarez: How am I supposed to be the next Tarantino if I don't work in a video store?
Melissa Harris-Perry: Tyler told me about the series, his connection to the character Carlos, and if not Blockbuster, what he hopes to save in this world. Can we talk about the irony of a show about Blockbuster on Netflix? [laughs]
Tyler Alvarez: That's interesting. To me, and I think a lot of the people involved in making it. It really was a love letter. None of us had this like, "Oh, we're getting them now." In our parts, in our vibe, in the scripts. It was just more so like, just an homage, to Blockbuster in that time and what it meant to everybody.
Melissa Harris-Perry: If my math is right, you're 25?
Tyler Alvarez: 25 as of last week.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Happy birthday and have you actually ever been in a Blockbuster?
Tyler Alvarez: Yes, I have a few memories. I've never had to deal with the late fees because I was young enough where it was my parents paying for it but I do. I remember going to the Blockbuster in Washington Heights on a summer night and walking in there and the cold air hits you in the face and the smell of the popcorn.
The little checkout popcorn on the aisles and the cotton candy, checking out video games. I did a lot of that. The excitement of running through the aisles and everyone picking out a movie and then having to decide on one.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I love that you called it a love letter because it does feel like that. There is a spirit of it that really does remind me of the lived experience of Blockbuster.
Tyler Alvarez: It's a really amazing place and just the human interaction I think is something we touch on in the show. At the same time, we've lost so much human interaction because of the social era and technology and yada-yada-yada.
At the same time, during the pandemic, we wouldn't have been able to stay connected if we hadn't had technology. It's a double-edged sword in so many ways. I grew up in New York, I'm from the Bronx. I live in LA now most of the time and I don't feel I'm away from my family, because I can just FaceTime or drop in on them on Alexa while they're having dinner and it's interesting.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about that. You grew up in New York, you're not there now, you're across the country, but what drew you into acting?
Tyler Alvarez: I did this show at the roundabout years ago and my old, old old babysitter came to see me in the show. After the show, she came up to me and she's like, "When I would take you to preschool. You would tell me that I don't want to go to school, I'm going to be an actor one day."
That was shocking to me because I thought that I had decided to do this at 11, 12. I guess it's always been in me, but it wasn't until I was like 10 or 11 where I started to make movements into trying to make this happen. My parents always taught me, if you want something, do everything in your power to make it happen. Even if it doesn't happen, you can die peacefully, knowing that you've met.
I'm not religious, but you've met God halfway and I've always just taken that with me and I was 11 years old and I was setting up meetings with managers and taking the train into the city and doing all these things, because and I haven't stopped ever since then. It's a love of my life. I love it as much as I love-- almost as much as I love my mother. I joke around saying that, but I think I mean it.
Melissa Harris-Perry: [laughs] So many wonderful moments in your response just then. One, the idea that you'd always thought that you were an old 11-year-old when you had decided this, but actually you were younger. [laughs] Which 11 is still pretty young to have made this decision about what it is you want to do in the world.
I also love as you were talking about this, you importance of human interaction and then being reminded by a childcare provider that, that is part of what having the humans in our lives, who know us, who have history with us, who can remind us of who we are and of who we want to be.
Tyler Alvarez: To me, I think that's what's the most important thing in life, is human connection. I think that's why we're all rich, whether monetarily or not or whatever is happening in our lives or the circumstances, as long as you have community, you're safe. I love what I do, but the moments that I take away the most from a set, are the moments in between takes.
It's us sitting and holding. It's us chatting about what's going on in the news or laughing about something stupid. I'm set on Blockbuster. This really great questionnaire on in the New York Times of 20 questions is I really get to know your partner. I brought it to the tent and on the second day, I'm asking these cast members like, "What's your biggest fear in life?" Maybe a little too personal at the jump of it, but we got to know each other very quickly.
Melissa Harris-Perry: It's also a pretty diverse cast. Now, I've got a vision of all of you sitting around and answering these deep internal questions. Talk to me also about how these intersectional identities play out both in the show, but also in those backstage conversations.
Tyler Alvarez: I think that's what's great about these workplace comedies is it puts a bunch of people who wouldn't naturally be friends under one roof and they're forced to interact and share ideas. The cast was majority older than me, and I learned a lot from working with these actors.
Learned a lot about the business and what it's like to have a full career as somebody who's--I'm coming up on and I'm actually my 10-year anniversary of being a working actor. These people have been working for my aunt says. She's like, "I've done your life four times." [laughs]
Melissa Harris-Perry: Give me one of the lessons you feel like you've learned by working with some folks who've been some places and done some things.
Tyler Alvarez: I'll give you some from my auntie who I'm very close with. She's like, "Keep your wits about you." She says that to me every single time I leave. She's like, "Keep your wits about you."
Melissa Harris-Perry: The character that you play Carlos is also searching a bit like you, he knows that he wants to be a filmmaker. We see his love and capacity even just in a little video right early on. Tell me about l getting inside of Carlos and the ways that you all are similar and different.
Tyler Alvarez: We're both similar in the sense like you said, I've grown up knowing exactly what I want to do. Carlos, it's the same thing. I think what's different for me is Carlos is an immigrant and he has immigrant parents. My dad is an immigrant. My dad's a Cuban who was born in Cuba, but he came here when he was four or five so he feels very American. He has very little connection to being like, "Oh, I was born in Cuba."
I think the pressures that immigrant parents put on their children and it's not just immigrant parents really, it's all parents. I think our parents want us to do well and want to know that we're going to be okay when they're not here and so, Carlos' parents want him to have a steady career, want him to become an accountant. It's safe. You go to school, you'll become accountant. That would be totally fine if that's what he wanted to do, but it's not what he wants to do.
It's in his heart he wants to be a filmmaker. That was interesting for me to explore because I haven't experienced that. My parents always supported me and my dreams and what I wanted to do. I never felt like I had to do something that they wanted me to do. I found a lot of my friends deal with that dilemma. I know I've been talking a lot about chasing your dreams and doing what you love. I don't mean it in a sense of ambition. You got to work your whole life away.
I'm meaning it more in the sense of life is short and don't spend your time doing something that you don't love. Doesn't matter what it is. If it's baking a cake. If it's raking leaves, whatever it is my step-dad always says to me, he's like, "Do what you love and the money will follow." That's just it. That's what it means to me.
Melissa Harris-Perry: The characters of Blockbuster are trying to save something. The last thing, the last blockbuster, is there anything you want to save or preserve? I mean, I hear you talking about chasing and pursuing and like getting to know yourself, but is there anything in the world that used to exist that maybe went away or that you're worried might be going away that you, like The characters would be willing to like, really do a lot to try to preserve and save.
Tyler Alvarez: We can start with our earth. I mean, human beings. These are my people and we have a responsibility to preserve and protect this earth and not mess it up for the people who were to come. That is our duty. That's something that I would, I think with a lot of people on this planet want to do.
Melissa Harris-Perry: 20 years from now, when you are on set with some young actor, or actress, what is the career that you are hoping that you'll have so that in 20 years you're providing some lessons to the younger people on set?
Tyler Alvarez: Like I said earlier, I did a play at the Roundabout and that was probably one of my most, the most incredible experiences of my career. I definitely looking to get in doing more theater. I've done a lot of comedy, I've done some drama. The play I did was a drama. I want to do a lot more drama too. I've dabbled in drama, but I mainly have come from a comedy world.
I just want to do more. I just want to do projects that like, I think every actor or every artist, projects that, mean something to me. Projects where I feel like I'm saying something and that is important to my heart and important to the things that I care about. I think that's all I could really hope for. Just work with great people and have fun along the way.
I think for a lot of my life I've maybe taken myself a bit too seriously at 12 years old, setting up meetings.
I think that just having a good time, I heard a quote from, I think Joan River said this. She's like, "When I leave here, I want to say in my tombstone that I had a good time, that I had fun." I think if I can say that when I'm looking back and speaking to another young actor that I'm working with, then I think it will, it would have been a fruitful time.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Tyler Alvarez plays Carlos on the new Netflix series, Blockbuster. Thanks so much for joining The Takeaway.
Tyler Alvarez: Thank you for having me.
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