Interview with J.W. Cortes from The Dr. B Show Podcast and Blog

Dr. Jairo Borja

All right, everyone. Welcome to another edition of The Dr. B Show. I'm your host, Dr. B, Dr. Jairo Borja. I have a very special guest, and it's Señor J.W. Cortes. J.W., how are you, sir?

J.W. Cortes

I am so good. Thank you so much for having me, doctor.

Dr. Jairo Borja

It's an honor. It's an honor to have you, man. So let's get right into it, man. So tell me about your time growing up in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. Did you play any sports growing up? What were some of your favorite teams as well?

J.W. Cortes

Oh, I'll answer those in reverse order. So I'm a die-hard Yankee fan.

Dr. Jairo Borja

No, it's over. Nah, I'm a Mets fan. [laughter] I'm kidding.

J.W. Cortes

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite player was a guy named Don Mattingly. He's been playing as lead first baseman--

Dr. Jairo Borja

Mr. baseball.

J.W. Cortes

--with the New York Yankees. Yes. So yeah, I grew up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn there in the 80s and 90s. And Brooklyn, Sunset Park, in particular, was an interesting area because it was like little Puerto Rico, and then it became a mesh of little Puerto Rico and little Dominican Republic. And that's kind of sort of how my upbringing was colored. It was painted with these beautiful strokes of Latin food, Latin music, the culture. And yeah, that was the beautiful parts of it. Obviously, Sunset Park was not exempt from all of the crimes that had infested New York City, and so, yeah, we suffered a great deal, actually, at the hands of the crack and AIDS epidemic.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Yeah, around the 80s. Yeah. Yeah.

J.W. Cortes

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was a lot of my upbringing. I'm born and raised in two amazing and proud Puerto Rican parents who really instilled in me the love of culture and of our heritage and even more so importantly, I think, our contributions to this country. We should never feel like we don't belong because we've made the ultimate sacrifices as a people. So that was important for my parents.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Absolutely. And then playing sports, what did you play growing up? Did you play any sports at all, or?

J.W. Cortes

So growing up in a urban environment, we didn't have access to certain things, and so we may do-- so really popular on my block was baseball, Wiffle ball. Basketball was tremendous. The games, the three on three pick-up games were like championship games every night. You don't want to lose.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Exactly. You don't want to-- exactly. [laughter]

J. W. Cortes

You don't want to come off the court.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Exactly. I remember you win, you stay in court; you lose, you're out. You never wanted to come off court, right? Yeah.

J. W. Cortes

You're right. You never want to come off, and you got to-- "How many guys you got next?" And it's like 10 guys like, "Ugh." I remember it [exactly?]. And football, football two-hand touch. It was [crosstalk]--

Dr. Jairo Borja

Was it two-hand touch? Or it's like that hard two-hand touch, almost like--?

J.W. Cortes

Hard. Yeah. And then we would place sewer cap to sewer cap. That was the deal then.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Yeah. Yep, yep, to touch that. Exactly.

J. W. Cortes

And if cars were coming down the block sometimes, "You got to hold on, man, and just wait," yeah, "This is for game."

Dr. Jairo Borja

Delay game, right?

J. W. Cortes

Right. Right. So those were--

Dr. Jairo Borja

That's--

J. W. Cortes

Those were [inaudible].

Dr. Jairo Borja

Awesome, brother. Awesome, man. Tell me about your time in the Marine Corps. And now, from those experience in the Marine Corps, how do you apply those to your everyday life today? It's a two-part question.

J. W. Cortes

Yeah, so I spent nearly 13 years of my life in the Marine Corps. I joined the Marines right after high school because, to be very honest with you, I was a knucklehead. I was being led astray by an older brother who was really involved in some pretty horrific things. And at the behest of my parents, especially my mom who would just cry to me and say, "Listen, what are you doing? You're going down the wrong path." And as much as I thought I was ready for college, I don't think I would have been successful because I lacked the discipline. And so I thought the Marines would kind of shape me up and just for a few years, but I wound up loving it. And I got to serve in a lot of different places and see a lot of the world and live in a lot of different countries. And so that really opened up my eyes. And in 2003, I was part of what was known as the invasion of Iraq. And that changed my life. It completely changed my life on so many different levels. In some ways, it's not so good, but in other ways, it's very good. I guess someone who maybe beats cancer, or someone who's in a really horrific car accident and walks away from it - they should have been dead - that's kind of how I felt.

J.W. Cortes

And so with that recalibrated vision, I said to myself, "No seas tan pendejo. If you have dreams, now is the time to do something about it. Stop thinking about it. Stop procrastinating." Procrastination is the root of all evil, by the way. [laughter] And so yeah, I learned a lot. I experienced a lot. I got to lead troops in the theater of combat. And to answer the second part of your question, everything that I've been able to do in my life since that moment has been, in large part, because of what I learned in the Marine Corps. So number one is discipline. Discipline has a lot of negative connotations to it for a lot of people. They hear the word discipline, they think of being disciplined as a child. They think of the drill instructor yelling at you. But really, discipline can become your best friend. And what it can do is it can equate to freedom, right, freedom. So you stop procrastinating, you stop with the excuses, and you stop carrying on your back and in your mind these heavy burdens that we're always so guilty of, and you release them by attacking them and making them your friend, and that gives us the freedom. And so discipline, which I learned in the Marine Corps. Number two is you're never out of the fight. Marine Corps always says, "If you're still breathing, you have a chance to win this fight." You find a way, whether it be clawing, throwing sand. I mean, you name it. You pick up a [chancleta?] if you have to, right? That's [pilon?]. You see that [pilon?] right there?

Dr. Jairo Borja

[Pilon?]. Exactly. I see. I see the [pilon?]. [laughter]

J. W. Cortes

Yeah, I mean, whatever it takes, you find a way to win. And that's also things that you learn in the Marines and then to be a critical thinker, think outside the box. I think those combination, [sancocho?], if you would, of those types of things have allowed me to find the successes that I've had.

Dr. Jairo Borja

That's good, man. Thank you for your service, man. Before anything else, I appreciate it. You have no idea. Thanks, man. Thank you. Great. Great answer. So I read your IMDb. Tell us how you got into acting, one. And two, how did you learn the role of Alvarez on Gotham?

J.W. Cortes

So it's interesting. So in 2003, we're told we're going to go invade Iraq. And we land in Kuwait. Kuwait is considered, quote-unquote, "the neutral place" that we're going to land in, and then we won't see action until we cross what's known as the LOD, line of departure, into Iraq. So once we cross LOD, it's game on. Well, the second we landed in Kuwait, literally, within moments, we came under a very heavy, heavy attack of Scud missiles. Saddam Hussein, I guess, in his own right mind said, "If I can stop this from coming into my country, if I can mitigate that, then we'll be all right." So he started to lob these huge rockets at us. And that's the first time that I said, "Wow, this is real," and number two, "This is going to end."

J. W. Cortes

And so the term, "Your life flashes before your eyes," well, that's what happened to me. My life flashed before my eyes, and I thought of everything. I thought about mami and papi and my brothers. And I thought about this kid who really loved to act and sing in high school but never did anything about it. It was at that moment that I felt like a sangano because I had taken life for granted. And I just made a decision. I said, "I'm never ever going to allow myself to feel this way again," I mean, ever. So that was the impetus, right? The onus was on me to start doing something. And I came home. I settled down. I met someone. And I got a full-time job. And I started to very quietly go to these acting classes. I was the oldest guy in the room. I thought I had missed the boat. I'm like, "What am I doing here?" They're, I believe, better-looking, younger, really talented. The Marine in me was like, "You can't quit."

Dr. Jairo Borja

Never quit, right? You're not out--

J. W. Cortes

You never quit, right? Never out of the fight.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Never out of the fight. Exactly.

J. W. Cortes

So here I am. I'm going to acting school, and then I set out to go on auditions. And every once in awhile, I would get lucky with little tiny things, saying one word or one line. And eventually, the more you do, the better you get. I landed a couple of roles, and then it led me to landing my first recurring character role. And I became the first human to play this comic book character named detective Carlos Alvarez on the FOX's prime-time hit series, Gotham.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Wow. That's amazing.

J.W. Cortes

That's a long answer. Sorry.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Yeah, no, that's all right. No. So take a breath. [laughter] That's awesome, man. So what did you like most about your time on the set and your experience from Gotham?

J.W. Cortes

Gotham was great. The people and the fans is just incredible. But the people that you never see, the people behind the camera, the assistant camera operators, the gaffers, the grippers, the guest-- almost every episode, we always had a guest director who would come in and do his or her thing. And it's always great to be-- for me, I love working with creative people. There's a certain language, a certain vibe to it. I love, love, love that. And that's what I miss is seeing their faces and just being creative, trying things, playing things. And yeah.

Dr. Jairo Borja

What was your biggest takeaway from beyond the show and going forward? I guess now, that you-- that was your first recurring role. What did you learn from that that now could help you towards your next [role?]?

J.W. Cortes

I think as an actor, one of the things I was surprised to learn is how little rehearsal time goes into it. I guess once you're at that level, you're considered a professional actor. You're paid, and they expect you to come ready to play, not discover, not like when you're in acting school or doing a play where, actually, you rehearse for certain weeks, and you're experimenting things. When you're working on a TV show, you're expected to come ready to do what you do, and then we'll see from there. Sometimes we would rehearse, literally, as the camera was being set up. I'd run some lines with Gordon, and we would do our thing. And that was definitely something new. Number two, nobody ever really talks about their method. I thought we would have this jargon, just going back and forth like, "Hey, what do you do?" "Well, I am [inaudible]. I'm a good method actor." We never talk about that.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Not at all. Not at all, right?

J.W. Cortes

Not at all. So that was that one thing. Number two, having trust and confidence is probably two of the most important things that an actor can bring to the work for themselves. If you have no confidence, man, you're in deep, deep waters [inaudible]. It's probably not going to go long. So having confidence, fake it till you make, it's true.

Dr. Jairo Borja

At least you admit it. [laughter]

J.W. Cortes

Yeah, it's very important. It's very important. But the biggest takeaway too is the impact that you can have on people's lives. I can't tell you how many times I was working in New York City, my regular job, and somebody would walk past me, and I'd see it, and they'd have a moment, and they'd come back, and they'd go, "Alvarez." I was like, "No, J.W." They're like, "You know what I mean." And so that's a moment right there. Especially when the person is young, you can say something that 10 years from now, they'd be like, "Listen, that day, I met you in New York City. You changed my life." So that's really powerful and really special.

Dr. Jairo Borja

That's awesome. How did it work between your employment and then with acting? Did you have to take time off? Did you have to kind of work around your schedule? How did that work? I always wanted to ask you that, man.

J.W. Cortes

Yeah, so being a full-time police officer in New York and a father, a husband, and an actor, yeah, time management skills have to be on point. So the show never accommodated around my work schedule, so I had to make it work. I had to figure it out. So what I would do is sometimes I'd work with-- so I have a really great schedule because I've been on the job for so many years, gave me seniority. So some of the rookies would have to work every weekend. But my show doesn't tape on the weekend. It tapes during the weekdays. So I would offer a young guy like, "Hey, John, you want to go out Friday night with your boys? I'll work it for you, so you can go out." And they were like, "What? Are you serious?" I'm like, "Yeah, no, you're a great guy." So yeah, that's what I do.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Wink wink. Exactly.

J. W. Cortes

Yeah. So that was cool. I was able to do that. And then sometimes it would just work out with my schedule that I didn't have to. Or if I had to travel, I'll leave and just have to be creative with it, so.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Wow. That's awesome. That's awesome. And then you would leave and come back, right, and then be right at your post, right, or right on time, right, for whatever it was, right, Friday [inaudible]--

J.W. Cortes

Two things-- or nothing is more humbling than, number one, yeah, going back to working a full post and having somebody curse you out. I'm like, "Did you know who I am?" I was like, "Yeah, you don't care." Or coming home after I walk in a red carpet premiere or something and my wife telling me, "Are you done playing?" She said, "The kids need a bath and the garbage needs to be taken out and walk the dog." I'm like-- [laughter]

Dr. Jairo Borja

"But, but, but." Exactly.

J.W. Cortes

You got it. Right. Yeah.

Dr. Jairo Borja

That's awesome, man. That's awesome. So what projects are you working on, whether it's acting or just in business in general? I know we had treaded-lightly conversations during the grand opening of that bank here in Jersey. What are you working on now at this time?

J. W. Cortes

Creatively, there's a new single that just dropped. Sony just dropped a remix of a really popular country record. Yeah. It's called Homesick, and it's by a young man who is wildly successful, a huge superstar. His name is Kane Brown. And so they wanted to do a remix of the song, so I was invited to sing on it. And who would have thought a kid from Brooklyn would be singing on a huge country record?

Dr. Jairo Borja

Exactly. Yeah, right? That's awesome, man.

J. W. Cortes

Yeah. Yeah. So Homesick. And what's cool is that every time that it plays or streams, they're going to go ahead and donate one bag, with the help of Crown Royal liquors, to our essential and critical and military families. So they're going to do a million bags this year. So that's cool. I was about to do a major feature film. And because of COVID, it hasn't happened. And I was hoping--

Dr. Jairo Borja

Hasn't happened. Yeah.

J. W. Cortes

--at some point, either within this year or maybe even longer, we'll get back to it. But yeah, that's some of the downside. As far as business goes, now that I'm closer to retirement, personally, I'm just looking at some real estate options. I think, real estate, it seems to be where I need to focus on. I started a clothing line based on my love of silverbacks, especially with animal. It's called Silverback Spirit. It's like a gym apparel line, also street [wear?].

Dr. Jairo Borja

Yep. Okay. Good. Good. Good stuff, man. Good. You got to get give us the information at the end as far as where to find this stuff. Yeah, man. What advice would you give aspiring Latinos either trying to break into acting and/or starting today, as a two-part question?

J. W. Cortes

Yeah. Well, what I always say is success always leaves clues. Find those people that you think are wildly successful, study them, research them, use Google, find out what were some of their trials and tribulations. You'll find that they leave clues. Sometimes we don't have to always reinvent the wheel. We would have to simply pay attention, number one. Number two, you have to learn and study your craft and become so passionate. Now, the word passionate here is key because passionate can be interchanged with obsessed. Some people may look at me and say, "J.W., you're obsessed." I go, "No, I'm passionate about what I do," right? So I had to learn that there is a craft. You come with some talent. You come with some ideas. You have something in you. I always say that if you wake up thinking about that thing, and you go to sleep thinking about that thing, that in-between space, it's your job to do something about it. If you're religious like I am, if you believe in the higher power, then that's God speaking to you. Something has been put into your mind, into it's your brain. Whoever may have put it there, whatever you believe, but it's in there for a reason. It's your job to honor it, honor it, honor it, honor it. And so the way you honor it is by doing the work. So for me, it was taking my butt to acting school and then studying the craft of acting. And I'm still studying, by the way. So let that also be another lesson that success is never owned. It's rented and the rent is due every day. So despite my successes, I'm still looking to learn, always looking to get better. I'd love to be something like the Latino version of Denzel or the Rock or some-- I still am aspiring to do those other things.

Dr. Jairo Borja

[We could also get into the WWE, man. No, I'm just kidding. [laughter]

J. W. Cortes

Let's do it, bro.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Let's do it, bro. [laughter] I could see you Monday nights, man. Nah.

J. W. Cortes

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Yeah, man. How important you think is a positive mindset in achieving your goals and dreams? You just mentioned all those important qualities, right? So how important is mindset, you think?

J. W. Cortes

Mindset is everything. Mindset is everything. There's so many books about mindset. It's something that, unfortunately, a lot of young people aren't taught. I know I was never taught about the power of the mindset. But I think it's critically important. I think there's so much literature out there that talks about this in different kinds of ways. But what you do is you start to create an inner dialogue, right? So the words that are spoken to us, when they feel good, we know it. When they're spoken to us or about us, and they're bad, we know that as well. The power of words that are spoken to us are those things. They're powerful. But the ones that we speak to ourselves in our mindset are equally, if not greater, more powerful than anything that anyone can ever speak to us. So by having a trained mindset, having dialogue that we reprogram into our brains about who we are, what we're capable of, I can go on and on about how important that is.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Yeah, it's so important, right? It's all about the mindset, and it all starts in between the ears, right?

J. W. Cortes

Right. Yeah. General Mattis, the Marine Corps general, said the most precious real estate in a battlefield is right between your ears.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Great point. Great point there. How important you think was-- last couple of questions. I wrote a book on networking externally, right? So for you, how important was it to you to network internally and being able to understand relationships and have those relationships in the NYPD to help you pursue your dream? And it's good to have--

J. W. Cortes

Yeah, so I work for the MTAPD. But the MTA--

Dr. Jairo Borja

Oh, MTA, MTA.

J. W. Cortes

Yeah, it's okay. Having those relationships, it's an unusual story of mine because most cops aren't talking about their next audition. They're talking about, "Hey, I want to make detective. What do I have to do?" So I think it's a little bit different in my case. I guess if I had to make a comparison about the importance of those internal relationships, it's just having, whether it be-- there's a famous saying, "I'd rather have four quarters than 100 pennies," right? So having those four quarters, those four really good friends that'll support you, that'll cover you, that'll encourage you-- and they're out there, and they're like-minded. They may want to get into something else outside of their job. So I think that was important. And I try to always surround myself with people like that. Block the haters.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Exactly. Block all the haters. That's right. That's correct. All right, my friend. Where can people find you? Whether it's for real estate, in general, whether it's acting, where can they find you?

J. W. Cortes

I'm available through my website, which is my name, jwcortes.com. But I'm also very active on social-- I love social media. I've been using it a lot lately because I just became president of the Detective Rafael Ramos Foundation. I guess for your viewers and listeners, just to recap that, in 2014, five days before Christmas, on December 20th, 2014, two police officers were sitting in their patrol car, and a crazed lunatic with, what I say, is pure evil in his heart, he shot and killed them. And that story resonated throughout America. It sent a shockwave that everyone felt. And I joined the foundation, which so the widow, Maritza Ramos, she created in his honor about a year or so after. And then just this month, a few weeks ago, I became president of that foundation. And so using my celebrity and all of my connections with Dr. Borja and everyone else that I know--

Dr. Jairo Borja

Thank you. Exactly.

J. W. Cortes

--I hope to continue doing the great work that the foundation has already done and just really expand it into a tri-state movement.

Dr. Jairo Borja

Right. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. I know I remember that day well, a tragic accident that occurred-- or tragic incident, sorry, that occurred. So thank you. Thank you for everything you do for the community. We really appreciate it. You have no idea. Thank you so much. All right, man. So from that being said, J.W. Cortes, thank you so much for your time. And hopefully, you guys learned a little bit more about J.W. Cortes and everything he's doing. So thank you so much.

J. W. Cortes

Thank you, doctor. .

Dr. Jairo Borja

All right. Anytime. Take care.