All eight episodes of the coming-of-age comedy, Primo, are currently available to stream on Amazon Freevee. While a second season is yet to be confirmed, the finale left plenty to be explored in future installments. Rafa’s college admissions, romance with Mya, and relationship with his chaotic uncles are just a few of many plotlines that the series could address in a potential season 2.
Ignacio Diaz-Silverio stars as Rafa, with Christina Vidal portraying his mother, Drea. Diaz-Silverio has been featured in projects such as A Good Person and Suspicion. Meanwhile, Vidal is known for The Terminal List, United We Fall, and Training Day. Johnny Rey Diaz, Henri Esteve, Martin Martinez, Jonathan Medina, Carlos Santos, Nigel Siwabessy, Efrain Villa, and Stakiah Lynn Washington are also included in Primo’s main cast.
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Screen Rant interviewed Ignacio Diaz-Silverio and Christina Vidal about Rafa and Drea’s bond, Rafa’s romance with Mya, and their hopes for Primo season 2.
Primo Ignacio Diaz-Silverio & Christina Vidal Talk Primo
Screen Rant: What was your reaction when you first read the Primo script and learned the premise of the show?
Ignacio Diaz-Silverio: We got the scripts as we would shoot. We couldn’t see too far ahead. We only really knew what we were shooting. It was always really, really exciting to do it. I’d get a script one night, and we’d have a table read the next morning. It was almost like a cold read with the cast. It was just always so exciting to discover what the writers had come up with.
I was always really excited to discover that and all the more excited to discover what they’ve written for a potential season 2. We don’t know whether or not that’ll happen, but we do know that they have written it. So it is there to be explored and to be shot if the network decides to do that. I know the writers are really excited about where they took things and what they came up with. I want to read that, and I want to shoot that.
Christina Vidal: I agree with Ignacio. I would be excited every week for the table read. Every script was somehow better than the last, and the last was great. So it was like, “How is this show just getting funnier and funnier?” The first time I read the pilot script, I was like, “This is the kind of comedic writing that I have always wanted to do.” And then once I paid attention to who was actually behind it, I got even more excited, and then I was like, “Christina, we’ve got to get this part.” I had a little chat with myself. I was like, “We have to book this, okay? We have to book this.”
Rafa and Drea have one of my all-time favorite mother-son relationships on television simply because of how unique it is. I’m curious how you would describe their bond.
Christina Vidal: That’s a really good question. It is unique because I think there is such a respect that Rafa has for his mom, but there’s also a friendship there. Even though they have their uncles, it’s still just been the two of them, and they’re both equally protective of each other. I also think it’s unique in that Drea really respects Rafa. I think she looks at him, and she sees much more than maybe even he sees in himself.
I think a lot of parents feel that way, but Drea really looks at Rafa, and she’s like, “Wow. He is special. My son is so talented and so gifted. I want to support everything he’s doing and see this all come to fruition,” if that makes sense. I think she respects him, as well, in an interesting way, even though that’s her son. She admires him too.
Ignacio Diaz-Silverio: Totally. She lets him be his own person that makes his own decisions and makes his own mistakes and lets his successes be his own. There’s a ton to be said about that. Obviously, I’m not a parent, but from what I gathered, as much as you love your child, it must be very difficult to let them really figure things out on their own and give them the space and agency to do that. I really admire that about Drea. The fact that that’s so important to her is a huge testament to how great of a mother she is. They’re sort of each other’s whole world.
When you throw in all the uncles, there is a very special family dynamic at play here. How do you feel that the chaos they create helps to bring the show to life and elevate the comedy?
Christina Vidal: Chaos is always funny to me. That’s my upbringing. I think, because there are so many different personalities and so many different dynamics going on, there’s just a lot of opportunity for comedy there.
Ignacio Diaz-Silverio: Part of what makes it so chaotic is that each of these characters are so specifically defined. It’s not random chaos. It’s real conflict. It’s real difference of opinions. It’s the real tension created by different personalities having to coexist. But that being said, they’re people that fundamentally love each other and live life together and would die for each other. For Rafa, I think that chaos is the only space he knows to live in. It’s the only thing he’s ever known.
Speaking for myself, as an actor, when all the uncles were on set together, there was real-life chaos that would create. It’s not just on camera. On set, it was funny, and they would be cracking at each other in real life. I don’t want to say that the real life dynamic is completely like what’s in the show, but there is a little bit of a mirroring, at least in terms of the chaos. There’s a different, much healthier chaos in real life, but the energy that they bring, and how alive the set becomes when everyone is together—that’s not something that you can fake. When that happens, it just makes the show.
Shifting gears a little bit, with this being a coming-of-age story, Ignacio, how did you want your performance to shape Rafa’s evolution and show him in a visibly different place in the finale than he was in the pilot?
Ignacio Diaz-Silverio: That’s a thoughtful question. Like I said, I hadn’t read the finale. I hadn’t even read an episode ahead. I couldn’t calibrate the arc in that way. We were block shooting. We were shooting more than one episode at a time, and jumping in and out of scenes completely out of sequence. I really just had to focus on being present in that moment, and Rafa being present in that moment and knowing what had just happened, where I had just come from, and where I wanted to go in the immediate sense as the character. I didn’t know where things were going to land, and I was discovering that as we were shooting.
But certainly there’s an evolution to him throughout the season as there is for any person, but especially for any teenager. This is a period of time when you’re growing at an exponential rate. Thank you for saying that, and thank you for asking that. I hope he grows throughout the season. He’s certainly written that way. I hope I did him justice in that way. I think, before every scene, you have to map out where you are in the story, how much you know of the story, and really place yourself there in that moment and not be too in your head about where you’re going to land, however many steps ahead.
We have to talk about Rafa and Mya. I’m a shipper. How was being able to play that relationship out and bring it full circle at the end of the season?
Ignacio Diaz-Silverio: That was really great. I’m in a unique position in the show where I get to live in, like we said, the chaos of Rafa’s home life, and then explore this much more dialed down, sweeter, more grounded thing of a teenager having a crush on someone and figuring out how to go about that and how to get the girl. That was really excited to jump in between those worlds. Obviously, I was shipping them too.
I didn’t know what would happen. I don’t want to say what does happen, but that stuff was really fun to shoot in a different way than the fun I have shooting the chaotic home stuff. I’ll say also, all of this is coming to mind right now, we shot a while ago, that last episode is directed by Rebecca Asher, and what a wonderful person to have led that. She really understood the tone of that and led us through in a way that was comfortable and put us at ease.
Christina Vidal: I agree. She was the perfect person to direct that episode, and, specifically, that moment with you and Mya.
Ignacio Diaz-Silverio: I don’t know what I can say, but I just remember being with her at night on the street in Albuquerque, and all of a sudden, it felt like a different show. It was a different vibe on set. It was just really cool, and I hope we get to explore more of that for sure.
About Primo
The coming-of-age, single-camera comedy, inspired by Serrano’s life growing up in San Antonio, follows Rafa Gonzales, a wide-eyed 16-year-old being raised by his clever mother, Drea, and his five overbearing uncles (Rollie, Mike, Ryan, Jay, and Mondo) as they live their lives on the southside of San Antonio.
Rafa is at an inflection point, as three big life moments coincide: he and his friends are nearing the end of high school, he’s pretty sure he just met the girl of his dreams, and he just found out he has a real chance to become the first person in his family to go to college. Over the course of the series, the group—Rafa, his mom, uncles, friends, and crush—will all affect each other and help one another grow in ways they weren’t expecting, whether they like it or not.
