To understand Eddie Diaz you have to understand growing up Latino. The character, who we last saw in an emotional 9-1-1 finale where he let his son Christopher go stay with his grandparents in Texas, is at a turning point. Who is Eddie Diaz without Christopher? Does Eddie even know the answer? And why does that answer come with a new mustache, which Ryan Guzman himself has been sporting in 9-1-1 Season 8?
“I think the speculation about the mustache is better than a description of why,” the mustache exists, Guzman said when Remezcla reached out for an interview. We spoke on multiple things but wanted to ask specifically about the facial hair. He gave us confirmation enough that he sees the narrative around it and is having fun with it. “As far as how my castmates feel, I think one look at social media will tell you they all love it,” he added, and he isn’t lying. The early promo for Season 8 of 9-1-1 was basically bees and mustache.
The mustache is a small and somewhat silly detail, but it shows an Eddie who’s trying new things, something Guzman wants to showcase in Season 8. “I like doing that at the beginning of the season, showing an Eddie who can laugh and make other people laugh. I would love to find a balance for Season 8 where I can show that. And maybe we do use that as a way to laugh off the pain. I never want to go back to Season 2 or 3, where Eddie is completely closed off.”
But, Eddie still has a journey to come in Season 8, an emotional one. “Eddie is a very complex character,” Guzman told us, “because he grew up with this machismo where we don’t really talk about our feelings.” Not just that, “We make fun of our feelings and that’s how we carry on.”
But now, “at the 118, everybody’s open and talking about their feelings and he’s been like, whoa, wait a second. This is new territory for me.” And sometimes, it’s hard for Eddie to adjust to that. “So there’s a lot of him trying to re-navigate himself and try a new direction, but with an old version of himself, which doesn’t always end the best.”
Guzman, however, promised that Eddie is trying. This is a journey. An ongoing one. Eddie has “so much healing to do before he even thinks about being the whole version of himself. He’s going to have to kind of rework his idealizations of the past and start to implement what he’s learned in the present.”
One of the obstacles Eddie will face in Season 8 will be the new Captain of the 118, Vincent Gerrard. In that regard, Guzman was clear that he would like an opportunity for Eddie to show his boss where he stands. “Yeah, it’s a new obstacle for Eddie. And I would love to showcase a little bit more of the truth of what it is to be a Latino. The reason I’ve spoken more and more about being Mexican is the fact that I’m white-passing, so a lot of people assume that I’m more white than not. And that would offer comfort for a lot of individuals to talk bad about Latinos in front of me, not realizing that bro, you’re talking to the wrong one.”
“So now let me make it a staple,” Guzman said, for himself and for Eddie Diaz who we’ve already seen assert his heritage on screen. “Let me make a direct connection that no, I’m Mexican. I want the world to know: don’t be speaking ill about mi gente in my vicinity, or else, you’re going to get some feedback.”
And when it comes to the subject of catholic guilt, something Guzman, like a lot of Latinos, has had to grapple with, that is also something he expects to see Eddie tackle head-on in Season 8.
“I have my own relationship with Catholic guilt. I was an altar boy and I went to the seminary for a couple of weeks and realized, you know, not for me. And I think, it’s so ingrained in the culture that it’s synonymous now to us, which is kind of crazy to me now that I’ve gone back into my own heritage and understood that was never where we came from.”
“We had our own religions. The Mayan culture was completely different than the Catholic culture. So how did this become the synonym for being Latino?”
This is also an important exploration for Eddie, according to Guzman, because so much of the way Latinos view life wrongly comes from this foundation. “I want to unpack this in Season 8 because the exploration of that is just like okay, maybe I’m not as religious as the church would like me to be. And I don’t carry a rosary with me at all times. I’m not Bobby. I’m Eddie. And Eddie has his version of religion and spirituality which has shaped his life and relationships.”
What is that version? How does Eddie carry his Latinidad forward as he figures out who he can be? We will find out when 9-1-1 returns with new episodes starting September 26 on ABC.
