How ‘Will Trent’ Actor Ramón Rodríguez Created the Hit TV Show’s Iconic Detective
When he was first offered the lead role of detective on “Will Trent,” ABC’s hit crime drama based on Karin Slaughter’s best-selling book series of the same name, Ramón Rodríguez didn’t think he was the right fit.
After starring in a number of unsold TV movies and short-lived series, including Fox’s crime drama “Gang Related” and ABC’s remake of “Charlie’s Angels,” Rodríguez had reason to be cautious. But there was another important detail that Rodríguez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, couldn’t easily overlook: In Slaughter’s novel, Will is described as white, tall and thin with short blond hair; Rodríguez, by contrast, is of average build with brown skin and black and silver hair.
It wasn’t until Rodríguez met Liz Heldens and Daniel Thomsen, the creators and showrunners of the “Will Trent” adaptation, that he began to see himself as a dyslexic orphan who overcame a harsh upbringing in Atlanta’s foster care system to become the highest-clearance agent at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, or GBI.
Rodríguez insisted on wearing the character’s signature three-piece suit and adopting a distinctly Southern accent, and his unwavering commitment to portraying one of television’s most eccentric characters turned “Will Trent” into a certified hit. A month after its second season recorded its highest multiplatform viewership ever, with more than 9 million viewers in seven days, ABC renewed “Will Trent” for a third season. Since its debut as a mid-season replacement in January 2023, the show has reported nearly 70 million viewers.
At a time when successful shows with diverse leads are on the decline amid Hollywood’s cost-cutting measures, this reimagining of “Will Trent” is a huge win for Latino representation—but in a way that breaks conventional stereotypes.
Abandoned at birth, Will begins the series with little knowledge of his own cultural heritage, which gives Rodríguez a rare opportunity to play a complex and troubled character whose Ethiopian identity isn’t central to his character’s development.
“I like the fact that his ethnicity is ambiguous, that it’s unfinished, so he can actually look like me, beyond the specifics of how they write him in the books,” Rodríguez, who also serves as co-executive producer on the series, said in a recent interview.
But in the final minutes of the 13-episode first season, Will discovers that his current boss, Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn), knew his late mother, Lucy Morales (Raiany Silva), a prostitute who grew up in Puerto Rico and was murdered in Atlanta by serial killer James Ulster (Greg Germann), who may also be his biological father. Will learns that Amanda not only found him in a dumpster as a baby, but that she named him and tried unsuccessfully to adopt him.
In the second season, Will has been trying to connect with his roots, starting with learning how to speak Spanish. Rodríguez jokes that, as a native speaker, he finds it challenging to sound like a non-native. “The writers and I love seeing Will in awkward, awkward moments when he has to be dangerous, so we’ll see more of that.”
Midway through the second season, Will plucks up the courage to meet his long-lost, dyslexic uncle, Antonio Miranda (John Ortiz), who offers to share his memories of his late sister, and the two bond over their shared learning disabilities. For the first time, Will, who has spent much of his life repressing his trauma, feels like he has some semblance of the family he’s always wanted. “For Will, we’re taking him on a journey to add something to the identity that he’s created for himself,” Thomsen told NBC News. “He’s a guy who’s very attached to the GBI, to Atlanta, and all the different places he grew up. I think what’s interesting is just having that information late in life when you already feel like you have a fixed definition of who you are and having that thrown into the blender.”
