Our Flag Means Death star Vico Ortiz built a whole lifestyle around Star Wars

With Max ending the much-beloved pirate sequence Our Flag Means Death after two seasons, the forged is contemplating their subsequent profession steps. For Vico Ortiz, who performed nonbinary fan-favorite pirate Jim Jimenez on the present, that features fascinated by a long-held dream of getting concerned with Star Wars — a franchise Ortiz says has closely formed their life and their household’s lives.

On the 2024 JoCo Cruise, a yearly fandom occasion the place Ortiz was one of the guest performers, a fan requested throughout a Q&A occasion whether or not Ortiz had a want listing for future roles.

“Dream-role-wise, I would love to be in the Star Wars universe at some point. That’d be so dope. I’ve been a big Star Wars fan since — I feel like it’s in my veins,” Ortiz instructed the viewers.

The Puerto Rican actor and drag king, additionally recognized for the queer comedy sequence These Thems and for roles on The Intercourse Lives of School Women and S.O.Z: Soldados o Zombies, traces their Star Wars fandom again to childhood.

“One side of my family is big Star Wars fans,” they stated on the Q&A. “And a lot of them, their decisions in life, just like mine, have been due to Star Wars.

“Long story short, the reason I’m vegetarian and the reason I sword fight is because of Star Wars. When I was 11, I read this book called Star Wars and Philosophy. That absolutely rocked my world. I was like, I want to be a peaceful warrior. I want to be a Jedi. I want to learn how to sword fight and meditate and eat plants and be one with the Force.”

Ortiz says changing into a would-be Jedi as a preteen created some issues even in a Star Wars fandom household. “So I did it! I became vegetarian in Puerto Rico at age, like, 12. The diet there was mostly pork,” they stated with a snicker. “So my parents were like, ‘All right, it’s gonna be interesting!’ And my grandmother was more appalled that I changed to being vegetarian than anything else [in my life]. They were like, ‘Whatever, you’re gay, but you’re not going to eat my chuleta? This might be the last chuleta I cook for you!’ And I’m like, ‘Wow, the manipulation!’ But they were OK with me being a homosexual and all the things. Funny, priorities, you know what I’m saying?”

Ortiz doesn’t have a particular Star Wars function or narrative in thoughts — they are saying they simply need to be a Pressure consumer. “If I ever get to pretend to use the Force and have things move, I would die happy,” they stated. “This is TMI, maybe, but in that same journey from Star Wars, and wanting to become a Jedi, I also got into, like, quantum physics […] I would go to my room, and sit and put a pencil in front of me, and really be like, OK, quantum physics, everything’s connected. It’s like atoms, and I am this pencil, this pencil is me, and I would really try to move it with my mind. I did that for a whole summer.”

Requested in the event that they’ve ever engaged within the frequent Star Wars fandom apply of pretending to use the Force to open automatic doors (a behavior even Kenobi star Ewan McGregor cops to), Ortiz outright cackled.

“Absolutely,” they stated. “All the time! Sometimes I do it, like, very quietly. I used to be very intense, and walk in there like [big, glowering gesture] whoom, you know? But now I’m just like [small, casual gesture] tchh. I moved that, that was me. I still very much do that. I will never stop, probably.”

Photograph: Beth Gordon/Skinny Canine Pictures

Whereas Ortiz stated a Star Wars character could be the dream function, in addition they volunteered that they’re high quality with persevering with to play roles like Jim on Our Flag Means Death and Vero on These Thems — elements they describe as academic, by way of normalizing trans and nonbinary individuals for mainstream audiences who haven’t seen a lot of these characters on display.

“I love to play around,” they stated. “I think there’s more representation now, but I don’t mind doing roles that are educational in one way and another. I definitely want to keep pushing the envelope and being like, Yeah, we’re literally like everybody else. We drink coffee, we pay taxes, we get anxiety and everything, those everyday experiences of the human life. So I want to keep doing roles that represent that. It’s not like me sitting and being like, This is what trans nonbinary means, and then pulling up a PowerPoint to explain all of that. That’s totally fine, and it’s good to have those roles, because we gotta find education here and there. But also, education is just like, us breathing and existing.”