Actor Santiago Cabrera had never seen a Transformers movie. Now he will be starring alongside Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins and Josh Duhamel in Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth movie in the multi-billion dollar franchise. He recently spoke with Sabado El Mercurio about how he got the role.
It all started when Cabrera went to a casting call for a movie that interested him. After reading through the script however, the casting director thought that the part was not quite right for him. She then suggested that he consider auditioning for a role in an upcoming blockbuster – Transformers 5.
“Transformers number how many?” he thought.
Cabrera decided to go for it. He originally planned to meet director Michael Bay at his office, but the location was changed to Bay’s home at the last second. While out in the garden, Bay decided that he wanted Cabrera to read some lines. After doing so, Bay told him he had to go on a Skype call with Anthony Hopkins and left. The casting director gave him a thumbs up.
“Transformers is an opportunity for an actor, because there is a possibility that your name is there and then open other doors or fund projects,” he said. “But I was also interested in the archetype of the character and the work we did with the American Special Forces to prepare me. It was a great experience and is the biggest I’ve done.”
Cabrera also gave some details regarding his character Santos, which can be read after the jump due to potential spoilers.
He described Santos as a retired member of the military. During the events of the movie, he is a mercenary and the leader of the TRF, an organization that hunts down the Transformers on Earth. Cabrera said he is open to returning to the role for Transformers 6.
Transformers: The Last Knights hits theaters June 23.
Chopperface
I just hope he's not Savoy 2.0. I can live with anything but another Savoy. Not necessarily because I thought he was a bad character, but damn was it satisfying to see him die.
Wolf
I think that is a valid point, but maybe he's an all or nothing kinda guy, after all he gives Cade the lecture about ksi and galvatron and not the human race…however I think AOE has set the scene for prime to turn his back on humanity going forward. If there's more hunting of autobots going on and if even megatron gets in on their side of the battle I can see this becoming an interplanetary war, maybe that's the direction they are taking the films….there's only so much friendly do goodie goodness autobots that will be able to sell the franchise for so long, it will get stale quickly….I forsee that the scenes being set for the films to take on something similar to war films and is leaving its family friendly roots behind….although I still think it will cater for youngsters I just think it's taking on a massive war theme….
SPLIT LIP
Well that's not entirely true. Earth has had vastly varying levels of significance to the TF brand from little if any to it actually being a Transformer itself.
Also, technically that's still true of Earth in the Bay films. It's still a happenstance setting for the war, we just haven't seen the beginning. In TF1 the Allspark went to Earth for no reason. In ROTF Earth was just yet another pit stop in recharging the cube. In AOE it was just yet another planet to create and harvest metal from. And in TLK I'm sure once again the original retcon conflict probably doesn't have a predestined relationship with Earth. It's no different from any other series that constantly shoehorns Earth back to the centre of things. Only difference is the TF movies are really shitey at retconning it all together, because they're shitey at writing in general, but it's not a fundamental afront to the brand's nature or anything so "RUINED FOREVER"-y.
You have a nasty habit of blowing up every flaw in these films as some hideous disrespectful act against the very nature of our beloved brand when it's just another dumb bit of writing in a pool of dumb bits of writing.
And I bet if TFA or another good series had done it you would've loved it.
Autobot Burnout
I can't give an unbiased response because of how goddamn stupid I think the facegun (and Lockdown in general as far as AoE goes) is, so we'll have to agree to disagree
CKPRIME
Because Scorponok didn't face an Army that was trained and experienced in fighting Cybertronians, and the humans were not alone. They had back up
THIS:
Galvatross
Because Prime wasn't only hit by humans with guns. Lockdown specifically tells Attinger he got 3 direct hits on Prime and seriously wounded him in Mexico City.
Autobot Burnout
How the heck does Scorponok brush off a direct aerial assault that would blow up an entire tank company yet somehow Prime is put in real fatal danger from a bunch of dudes with guns?
Wasn't the entire point of the post-battle examination of Skorpy's tail showing that ONLY high heat incindiary rounds work on what is now defined as Transformium, or extreme cold later in the film when S7 takes Bumblebee down?
CKPRIME
I don't even know what the point you are trying to make is.
Autobot Burnout
Scorponok seemed to deal with half the bloody US armed forces breathing down his neck just fine and escaped with nothing but a trimmed tail.
CKPRIME
You still think that's not as dire a situation as an ambush?
Autobot Burnout
Megatron's still alive if the Cube was shoved into Prime's chest instead.
CKPRIME
How is letting Megatron regain the allspark and conquering humanity less dire then an ambush???
So what?
Maybe…
Autobot Burnout
Optimus Prime readily would have sacrificed himself in the first film under much less dire circumstances and only Sam's quick thinking saved the day.
It only underscores how he's holding the proverbial idiot ball of bad leadership in these films to give the humans the excuse they need to be hypocritical assholes all the time.
Uh…he knew how to get the bots back together?
Wow Ratchet just sucks at his job then.
Jazz210
Im just pulling ur leg foo lol i saw the movie honestly but i just didnt pay attention to the dialogue.
CKPRIME
That's kind of what you do, unless you have a death wish. We didn't see the battle but it's likely it was pretty ridiculous, Optimus nearly got killed. I don't see what's cowardly about that.
How exactly did he let the humans walk right over the Autobots? Because he didn't stop them when he was unconscious? How do you know he split up the Autobots? Not all of them did split up, maybe some of them split up after Optimus went offline?
Autobot Burnout
As opposed to simply running and hiding like cowards? It's not so much that Prime clearly didn't do anything about it as it is Prime is a horrible leader by simply letting the humans walk right over the Autobots and doing the dumbest possible thing by splitting the Bots up.
And even then he could just walk to the United Nations and claim sanctuary, because the UN technically isn't part of the US but he could do it as the established leader of a recognized civilized people.
It's on the TRF vehicles.
EDIT: Scratch that, bad memory.
Then you never saw the film. Or else you'd know Max says less than fifteen or so lines of dialogue in the entire film. Sure is a lot of 'talking' when he doesn't even tell Furiosa his name until the end of the film (which happens to be the last lines he even says in the film). Most of the time it's him just grunting or saying combinations of two or three words.
Jazz210
Action, talking, more action
Achilles1943
exactly !!! what is not a promotional image however is the decepticon simbol with the V … that has appeared on a lot of official stuff
CKPRIME
Probably because he didn't know how far the conspiracy went and walking up to the Command in Chief of the people that attacked him didn't seem like a very good idea.
Isn't that just a promotional logo?
Autobot Burnout
That's…kind of the point though. The whole franchise concept is two sides of an alien civil war being fought on Earth right under the noses of the majority of the human race. Earth is merely the hapenstance battleground that reflects the need for the Bots and Cons to hide in plain sight as everyday cars and such.
Constantly trying to make Earth the most important goddamn mudball ever isn't the same as making people give a shit about the robots as characters. Humans shouldn't be front and center of a war being fought by another civilization barring its exploitation ala DOTM.
By fucking selling out the only robots proven to even be capable of saving the human race? That's why I can't accept AoE as canon, there is no reason Prime couldn't have made the whole 'oh noez humans are killing my buds' issue public by WALKING TO THE UN OR THE WHITE HOUSE.
Given the prevalence of the "V" icon with Prime's head on it? NEST replacement.