Wilmer Valderrama On ‘From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series,’ Robert Rodriguez, His Workout [VIDEO EXCLUSIVE]

So, I play the role of Carlos Madrigal. Carlos Madrigal is one of the bosses of the underground world that From Dusk Till Dawn tends to have an essence of. It’s an exciting show, it’s an exciting project. Robert’s directing, and to see Quentin Tarrantino’s characters come to life on television, is exciting. And to be a bad guy, I’m one of the main bad guys in the whole series in the universe of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarrantino, is just so exciting. Carlos is unpredictable, funny, terrifying, and just mysterious you know? There’s a lot that doesn’t meet the eye and it’s exciting for me because I’ve never played anything like that before. The show’s done so well. The first season is available on Netflix, on iTunes, on Amazon, you can find it anywhere now and that’s exciting because we’re gearing up for the second season. We go back to work on October 13th I think, and then we premiere again early next year.

He’s an icon: I think Robert Rodriguez as a director has not only made a splash but has made some of the most iconic films of our generation. He’s defined the genre. To have someone like him come to television and give it a stab and have an original series to kick off the El Rey Network—check out your local listings to find it—I mean he created and curated a network that the people needed. A network that is opinionated, that has a real opinion, and had a point of view on its content.

It’s crazy. I’m working out twice a day, and I’m eating like six times a day and eating crazy amounts of protein. I’m trying to bulk up for my character Carlos as I go back to work in just under two months. I’m not doing it alone though, I’m doing it with my trainer Ronny Camacho who’s one of the best trainers in town. He’s done a lot of this stuff. He’s a nutritionist as well who’s helping me compliment that with my workouts as well and it’s been pretty awesome. Ronny has this crazy regimen: we workout at 7 a.m., and we workout at 7 p.m. right when I come home from the office. It’s hard, you know, but I’m getting through it and it’s great. I’m excited to do a little transformation for the next chapter of this character.

My friend Joe Huff and I started this organization called thishelps.org. When you look it up it’ll give you so much more information on what we’re doing there and all that stuff. Initially what we wanted to do was create a line and an apparel that brought you pride and that also created a conversation; that all of a sudden made you say, 'Hey, this necklace provided one month of free education to a child. This t-shirt actually saved an animal, helped plant three trees.' And the idea was to create a platform where we could combine a bunch of organizations together and lend them a platform where, on a fashionable sense you normally bring pride for something you’re wearing, but at the same time you’re doing something that makes sense and that actually helps. Our first chapter is going to be education: we’re trying to raise it to 1,000 months of school and the raise starts now. It’s very exciting because our first chapter’s going to be like with the purchase of a necklace or a t-shirt you provide one month of education to a child and it’s as simple as that. Once we get past this chapter, then we go to that next chapter with whatever the cost is going to be and it’s awesome. It’s very fun, it’s very easy, and you’ll be excited to see the change that we make throughout with our website.