Ryan Guzmanâs path to the ABC drama â9-1-1â began with Bruce Lee.
He recalls falling in love with martial arts as a child after his father showed him a movie starring the Hong Kong American actor.
âI remember begging him around 6 years old, âCan you please give me like a karate lesson or whatever?ââ said Guzman. âHe signed me up for a taekwondo class for my seventh birthday. I got my black belt when I was 10.â
Guzman, who was raised in Sacramento, eventually pursued a career in mixed martial arts fighting and joined an amateur league
âI had this fear of not necessarily getting hurt but losing and being embarrassed,â he said. âI wanted to overcome that fear and put myself in the worst possible scenario I could. I ended up doing that and fell in love with MMA. It led to the expansion of my own durability and the question of whatâs next.â
But fighting brought him no income, so he sought out a side hustle. He landed on modeling â not exactly the most complementary profession for a fighter.
âI couldnât hide MMA from modeling because I would show up with a black eye or with cage marks on my back,â said Guzman, chuckling. âI remember doing a runway show and I took off my shirt. The whole room gasped and thought I had gotten in a car accident.â
Guzmanâs modeling career took off, leading him away from fighting and bringing him to Los Angeles. It wouldnât take long for the former mixed martial artist to follow in his heroâs footsteps and pursue acting.
âI saw these people who were coming out to do modeling and acting and they were all snobbish. I looked at them and I thought, âYou have the IQ of an ant. How are you successful?ââ he said. âNo way that theyâre going to beat me in these [auditions]. I gotta try this out. It became more of a competitive thing.â
Modeling casting calls were replaced with commercial auditions. In 2011, Guzman landed his first big roleâ he was cast as Sean Asa, the protagonist in âStep Up Revolution,â the fourth installment in the dance film franchise that helped launch Channing Tatumâs career.
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âI knew that I wasnât ready for what I had gotten,â he said. âI was in such a catch-up mode [on the set of âStep Up Revolutionâ] because I never acted, and I never really professionally danced. It put my competitive streak to a level I had never been before.â
His hard work paid off, resulting in roles in Tim Kringâs reboot series âHeroes Rebornâ and âThe Boy Next Doorâ with Jennifer Lopez. Guzman says navigating Hollywood led him to develop a complicated relationship with his Mexican American heritageâ he was constantly being cast as the token Latino.
âSometimes tokenism has run its course. I donât want to just be that person,â he said. âI have a unique thing that I really want to portray. The other part of it is that somehow this got me here. You know, and I canât really denounce this because this is a gift and I have to make the best of it. So what can I do with this gift?â
He found the perfect balance with â9-1-1.â
The prime-time drama, which centers around the high-pressure lives of first responders in L.A., wasnât on his radar until he was offered the role of Eduardo âEddieâ Diaz for the showâs second season â a moment he describes as âdivine intervention.â Guzman says he got the call right after finding out his first child was about to be born.
Guzman says he saw a lot of himself in Eddie Diaz, a Mexican American firefighter who takes on the challenge of being a single parent.
âIâve had moments as a father on the show before the actual moment in my life. Some moments have to do with being a single parent, overall friendships or how to handle your own emotions,â said Guzman. âThereâs so many things that Eddie has gone through that I was able to kind of pull from later on in life and give myself a little bit more grace while doing it.â
Between a capsized cruise ship and life-altering fires, â9-1-1âsâ seventh season has kept its audience on the edge of their seats â bringing in 8.85 million viewers to the season premiere. Thereâs also drama â Diaz becomes entangled in an emotional affair with a woman who resembles his late ex-wife, complicating his relationship with his current girlfriend and his son.
And while Guzman didnât set out to be an actor, heâs glad he ended up where he is.
âI realized [on the set of âStep Up Revolutionâ] thereâs something to be learned from acting, so I thought, âLet me devote myself to this. Let me try to understand a little bit better.â Honestly, up until three years ago, I didnât call myself an actor,â he said.
âIâm just trying to get into each character and learn something about humanity or learn something even about myself. I was just lucky that I got the jobs that I got using my competitive charisma.â