Fans of the crime drama Mayans M.C. were revved up for the premiere of the popular FX series’ third season on Thursday night. If you missed the first two episodes, at least watch the cool, new opening title sequence.
While the cast has to exhibit a tough exterior to play members of a motorcycle club, we wondered how the actors would react in a real-world scenario if they found themselves stopped at a red light right next to someone revving up their motorcycle engine as loud as possible. Would the powerful sound trigger something inside them as cast members of Mayans M.C.?
Actor Clayton Cardenas, who plays Angel Reyes, used to hate the sound. Now, he loves it. “My skin would crawl,” Cardenas tells Remezcla during a recent interview. “Especially if I was at my house and I’d hear them, I’d be alike, ‘Oh, that’s so obnoxious!’ But now, that sound is like music to my ears. Once you become immersed in this culture, it’s hard not to fall in love with it.”
For actor JD Pardo, who plays Ezekiel “EZ” Reyes, curiosity washes over him when he hears a motorcycle revving up nearby. “When I hear them, I wanna know what they’re doing,” he says. “I’m like, ‘Where you going? You going to a meeting?’ I’m so into this fantasy M.C. world that when they drive by, I’m like, ‘I notice you. I see you.’”
Even if she’s on her small Vespa at the time, actress Carla Baratta, who plays Luisa “Adelita” Espina, isn’t intimidated in the least bit by a big bike. She knows that as an actor on Mayans M.C., she is automatically an honorary member of their crew.
“For some weird reason, every time I see a biker, I’m like, ‘That’s my guy. That’s my people,’” Baratta says. “I have a Vespa—a scooter bike—and every time a big motorcycle parks next to me, even at a red light, I’m like, ‘What up?’ I feel like I belong to this culture now. I feel power every time I hear one. It’s like I’m in Zen mode.”