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Theo Rossi Compares ‘Luke Cage’s’ Shades Alvarez To ‘Sons Of Anarchy’s’ Juice

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 03:02 PST, Jan 3, 2017

Theo Rossi is popularly recognized as Juice Oritz from Sons of Anarchy, the popular FX series. Juice Ortiz was one of the main characters of the television series, who turned out to be the weak link within SAMCRO, the fictional outlaw motorcycle club that was involved in syndicated crime. Rossi’s character eventually sacrifices his life to protect his beloved club.

The talented actor is currently playing Hernan Alvarez, aka Shades, in Netflix’s web series titled Luke Cage, which is based on a Marvel Comics character. Luke Cage has links to films from the Marvel franchise as it is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Rossi’s character, Shades, is a manipulative street criminal who is one of the protagonist’s chief nemeses.

While featuring on Luke Cage, Theo Rossi looks very stylish because the show’s designer has him wearing apparel from Hugo Boss, Prada, Helmut Lang, and Ferragamo.

Many fans will be tempted to compare Rossi’s characters from Sons of Anarchy and Luke Cage because both Juice Oritz and Shades Alvarez are negative characters. However, Rossi believes that Juice is not in the same league as Shades because the Sons of Anarchy character was only accused of betraying the motorcycle club, while Shades is actually a killer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Rossi suggests that Shades is a true villain because he’s a murderer.

“Shades is a bad guy. I don’t think Juice was ever a bad guy. I just found out recently; someone told me that he actually had taken more lives than almost any character and you never think of him like that.”

Moreover, Shades is depicted as an intelligent villain whereas Juice was never a criminal mastermind. In fact, Sons of Anarchy represented Theo’s character as the one who performed menial jobs for the outlaw motorcycle club. Theo was thrilled to be offered the role of Shades Alvarez in Luke Cage because the character is like a chess player who relies more on his intelligence than his emotions and instincts. And Rossi loves to play the villain because he believes that every villain has a multi-dimensional personality, which can be very challenging to portray on the big screen. According to the Khaleej Times, Rossi revealed that he would really love to play villains like the Joker or other criminal masterminds featured in James Bond movies.

“The most interesting portrayal to me ever in film in any genre is the bad guy. The bad guy always seems to get the juiciest stuff or the best stuff because they are the most three-dimensional. Those guys are always the most interesting”.

Theo Rossi’s comments clearly reveal the reason why he loves to play Shades Alvarez. Cinema Blend reported that the Sons of Anarchy actor loves to play strong characters instead of sidekicks who merely follow the lead characters.

“[Shades Alvarez is] more the leader as opposed to the follower. That’s a very big difference from something I just came from playing for seven years. I played a guy who was really trying to hold his breath and keep up rather than control the situation.”

Even though he ventured into the acting field by chance, Theo Rossi has become a well-established actor who loves to act in various projects related to film, television, or the internet. It appears that Rossi considers actor Gary Oldman his role model because he’s very impressed with Gary’s versatility and natural acting style.

Theo Rossi is also extremely impressed with present-day superhero films and has previously expressed his belief that filmmakers are doing an excellent job with technology in bringing well-known comic book characters to life on the big screen.

Variety reports that Luke Cage has been renewed for a second season.

[Featured Image by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images]

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