“From Dusk Till Dawn: the Series”
9 p.m., Tuesdays, El Rey Network
He’d only been in the country for four years and Wilmer Valderrama was already a TV name. Playing the exchange student, Fez, on “That ’70s Show’ was no accident. It was the result of a determined focus that began when he was growing up in Venezuela.
“Even as a kid somehow I saw everything in slow motion … I felt like being reactive was a weakness to me. Being proactive brought me serenity, brought me harmony and brought me comfort,” said Valderrama.
“So the more proactive I became, the more time I had to figure things out. The sooner I started, the more miles I gained, the more time I had for myself. So I prepared very well. That’s something I learned from my father. He always had a Plan B and a Plan C. For me, I only had Plan A. I had Plan A because it was the only one I wanted.”
He was 14 when his parents moved back to the U.S. (he was born in Miami). But his father’s Plan A proved more difficult than they thought.
“When we first came here, my dad had a brother in the United States, and he had a dealership that rented cars at the airport. So (dad) started helping with that a little bit. After that, it kind of went south very quickly. And then we were on our own. We had nothing,” he said.
“Unexpectedly the plan had to change. We had to go find a house, immediately had to find a place to stay. That depleted the savings we had. So my dad started buying used cars. He would drive it while he did multiple jobs in mechanic shops and things like that. He would fix it up, have a for-sale sign in the window. He would sell it for a couple hundred bucks more than he’d bought it for … and eventually he started selling cars that were a little more expensive.”
His father saved until he could open his own repair shop, but it barely broke even. Still in his teens, Valderrama considered the struggle a life lesson. “I was very blessed to see my parents sacrifice, seeing my dad leaving at 6 in the morning coming back at 9:30, and seeing my mom and us walking six miles every day to go to the 99-Cent stores, then bringing six bags of groceries back.
“I just said, ‘I have to do something. No. 1, I have to learn how to speak English better than my family. No. 2, I have to have a real opinion about where I want to be.’ And I started hitting hard and started hitting things.”
The most trying part, he said, was seeing his sisters go hungry. “The truth is my parents were the ones hungry because they would say they were not hungry, and they would give us the food. They would skip meals, not eat dinner. ‘Oh, I’m not hungry, I ate early today.’ But I knew the reality, I was the oldest … That’s when I said, ‘Yep! No room for mistakes. I came here to work.’”
He’s been working ever since. And this fall he’s doing double duty. He’s costarring as an underworld businessman in the El Rey Network’s “From Dusk Till Dawn: the Series.”
This season finds him free from a deadly labyrinth, and “possibly insane,” he says, leaning forward on his elbows.
He’s also costarring in Fox’s “Minority Report.” But there was a period of two years when Valderrama had doubts about his choices. He became the darling of the tabloids; his daily routine the subject of the relentless commentary. It didn’t help that he was dating headliners like Lindsay Lohan and Mandy Moore.
Finally, he says, he took the advice of his agent and fellow trouper, Johnny Depp. “At the time he said to me, ‘Hey, what’s the hurry?’ And that changed everything. When you think about it, when you start really young, when you’re hot you think you’ve got to keep putting wood on the fire. You’re thinking, ‘It’s going to go out!’ That was the moment they told me, ‘Hey, what’s the hurry?’ So I trusted myself, I betted on myself and took a long break.”
At 35 his social life has settled too. He’s been dating singer Demi Lovato and says, “I love her very much. We’re very happy right now and very focused on the big picture. (My parents) ask for grandchildren almost on a daily basis,” he laughed.
He says they mesh their careers and their personal lives by strategizing. “We have rules,” he said. “She flies to see me. I fly to see her, and we make time. As busy as we both are, there’s also a very strategic management of time. I work in multiple cities, Texas, Vancouver, Los Angeles and certain things are very sacred to me — the weekends, anything after 8 p.m. — my family, my girl, home. Really important because that’s what keeps me grounded, keeps me balanced and it keeps me focused. That’s what’s important.”
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