Marine veteran and Fox’s Gotham actor J.W. Cortes partners with Veterans Call app to help give back to American veterans.
In honor of America’s Independence Day, a.k.a. the 4th of July, Veterans Call is launching a #DoubleDonation initiative starting from June 27th until July 4th in which any donation made up to $50,000 will be matched and essentially doubled. The app allows you to donate to a variety of veterans charities with 85% of proceeds going directly to the charity. Veterans Call has enlisted J.W. Cortes to be their spokesperson as he is a veteran himself and regular on Gotham, to help raise awareness. We caught up with Cortes and spoke about the app as well as the upcoming third season of Gotham.
Can you tell us about how you got involved with the app?
I was approached by Veterans Call. I think it’s really because unlike most actors I bring this different perspective which is that I am a marine combat veteran myself, before an actor so I think they found that to be something that could speak to the people considering downloading the app.
How long did you serve?
I served in the United States Marine corps for nearly 13 years.
What do you hope to achieve with the app?
What we’re doing is providing a simple and really effective way for those who wanna give back to those who have fought for our freedom. Veterans call uses this new patented revolutionary technology to simplify the entire process. You can download the app today via the App Store or Google Play store. What we’re saying is no longer do you need a credit card to give back, you can use your cell phone bill. What better time than now, right around the corner from the 4th of July. We’re celebrating independence day so we thought this was the right coupling of celebrating our freedom with this innovative app.
Do you prefer roles that are more action based where you get to do stunts?
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I trained here in New York city and learned the Meisner technique at a school called William Esper and one of the things we were always taught is you want to be as truthful in your acting as possible so that you’re not acting. So if there’s an opportunity for me to go off my personal experience as a marine or New York cop then yeah it’s a plus for me. I feel very comfortable doing these things and I look forward to the day where I’m really doing it, like Bruce Willis type, Die-Hardish.
Can you tell us a little about this upcoming season of Gotham?
It’s gonna prove to be one of the craziest things we’ve ever seen on television especially within episodic hours. Gotham does lend itself a bit to that fantastical world where our villains are what they are, with Mr. Freeze being able to freeze people and that sort of thing, which is really fantastic because that’s why we watch these shows, we don’t wanna see a mundane, too realistic thing on our television sets, especially not with the comic book genre. Season 3- we’re taking it to the next level so now we have monsters and the monsters are scary. We’re also gonna spend a lot more time over an arc of several episodes with some of our characters so we’re not gonna try to neatly polish things up in a 60 minute episodic, so we’re gonna spend a few more episodes really living with the Bruce Waynes and Selena Kyles of the world and really understanding the dynamic of what influences a kid like Bruce Wayne.
How do you think your character changes/grows this season?
Alvarez is a comic book character and he was created by this gentleman name Judd Winick and the comic books are very integral to the Selena Kyle story. Now on our show she’s not quite Catwoman yet, she’s a teenager so it’ll be interesting to see how we start to see layers of that relationship. Alvarez is a member of the GCPD and no one is super clean. There’s a lot of grayness in that and it would be great to see how he kind of navigates that fine line of doing the right thing and a little bit of that other stuff and eventually meeting up with Selena’s character.
Without any giving any spoilers can you talk about any surprises this season?
We’re adding so many new characters to the show that a lot of the fans have been asking for, so for those die-hard comic book fans, you will not be disappointed. You’re gonna get what you’ve been asking for.
You’ve come a long way, what do you hope to do next? Film or theater?
My hope is that we get to see, especially in my lifetime -while my children are still young enough to see this- that I get to play a Latino superhero. A superhero that’s just as complex as we find in the streets here across America. So many people often refer to me or introduce me as a marine -combat -hero –turned- actor, so I say if it exists in the real world, then it should live up on that television or film screen or on that stage and we don’t really have that so I’d love to play the first truly awesome super hero.
