'Breaking Bad's' Steve Quezada at Jr.'s
You know him as a federal drug enforcement agent trying to bust a notorious crack dealer. This weekend, Steven Quezada's mission is to crack you up.
Quezada played Steven Gomez, the DEA agent who works with partner Hank to bust Walter White on AMC's Emmy Award-winning "Breaking Bad." He performs this weekend at Jr.'s Last Laugh and, yes, he will talk about the show.
"I (do) a little bit," Quezada said, by phone. "I open with it because I have to; it's the obvious thing in the room. When I go on stage, it's 'Oh, my God -- that's Gomez, man. That's Gomey.' So, I've got to address it for a little bit.
"But I got things that I have, (projects) I'm working on. You got to move on."
After Gomey and Hank were mowed down in one of "Breaking Bad's" final episodes, Quezada's phone rang off the hook with work. He's in three films to be released later in 2015: "Kreep" with Judd Nelson, "The Condemned 2" with Randy Orton and Eric Roberts; and "Outlaws and Angels," a Western with Francesa Eastwood, Clint's daughter. "Spare Parts," with George Lopez, Marisa Tomei and Quezada, was released in June.
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Quezada has also kept his toes in comedy, frequently appearing at Lopez's Punchliner Comedy Club on Carnival Cruise Lines.
"My mom was just teasing Lopez the other night," said Quezada, who says he inherited his sense of humor from her. "She's 80 years old. So he's like, 'You have the coolest mom ever.' I go, 'Yeah, she's a little crazy, man.'"
Quezada started out in acting, then branched into comedy to keep busy.
"There wasn't a whole lot of opportunities for a Chicano theater actor," he said. "I had to figure out how I could continue to write and perform and make money, so comedy was something that offered me those things."
On stage, he draws from his life -- dealing with three teenage daughters, his upbringing and more. One funny bit that he did on "The Arsenio Hall Show" involves the perils of flying, like oxygen masks that plop from above. Quezada said he'd be happier if something else dropped down when the plane was crashing. Tequila, for instance.
Unlike Paul Rodriguez, who played at Jr.'s last weekend, Quezada doesn't base most of his comedy on his heritage.
"Comedy is comedy to me," Quezada said. "I try to play it that way. I know I'm a Latino comedian, but I try to let people know that most people are the same and that we all deal with the same kinds of stuff and go through the same kind of things. So, I've been real successful."
His biggest success, though, is "Breaking Bad," shot in New Mexico, his home state. Quezada joined the cast in 2008 and by season three, the show was becoming a sensation.
"It just blew up, it went out of control. We thought, 'This is crazy,'" Quezada said. And he loved every crazy minute.
"Bryan (Cranston) and Vince (Gilligan), what a team of leaders on both sides of the camera. You wanted to go to work and do your best; you knew that something special was going on," he said. "You can go on and on about the cast on 'Breaking Bad.' We became family. We're still connected to each other. We still text each other or e-mail here and there and check on everyone.
"It's really hard to get six years out of a TV show. That's a very small percentage where you pull that off," Quezada said. "So, I feel blessed to have had that."
Steven Quezada will perform today at 7 p.m., and Friday/Saturday at 6:40 and 9:30 p.m. at Jr.'s Last Laugh, 1402 State St. Tickets are $15 for today; $20 for all other shows. Call 461-0911 or visit www.jrslastlaugh.com. As hooked as you Steven Quezada not only acted on "Breaking Bad," he was a major fan. So much so, in fact, that he followed it on AMC, like everyone else. "I never read the scripts to be honest," Quezada said. "I read my part. I'd flip through it, find my stuff and mark it. I was a big fan, so I wanted to see everybody's input when I saw the show. I experienced all those great moments that I wasn't in with the rest of the fan base. All I needed to know was what Gomey and Hank were doing." He wasn't surprised when he and Hank finally bit the dust near the series' end. "It was sad. We knew it was time to move on, and we knew the show was called 'Breaking Bad' and nothing good probably was going to happen. That everyone probably was going to die," he said. "We enjoyed that last day. It was cold out in the desert and windy, but we gritted our teeth and we did it. We gave the best performance we could going out. We were a little sad that we didn't shoot one of the (bad guys). We didn't hit one of those guys with a bullet, and that's what we were a little sad about. Other than that, we gave it our all." He was glad the series wrapped up definitively. "I think Vince (Gilligan) always had in mind he was going to end the thing, so he stayed true to that. There's no movie, there's no coming back," Quezada said. "They're not going to pull an 'X-Files.' They're done." Gomez could conceivably resurface in "Better Call Saul," the "Breaking Bad" prequel. "I wish. I wish," Quezada said. "But I just don't know if they're able to get Dean Norris (who played Hank). Without Hank, there's no Gomey. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed." -- Dave Richards