Hit man with a heart

Juan Diego Botto (right) tells Kerry Harvey about playing a bad guy in the US drama Good Behavior.

Already a star of stage and screen in Spain and Latin America, Juan Diego Botto is now taking aim at America.

Thanks to his role as Javier, the hot hit man with a heart in Good Behavior, he is quickly amassing an even bigger fan base in the English-speaking world.

“In real life, there’s no moral justification for a guy who kills people for money. It’s simply wrong,” says the Argentinian-born, Spanish-raised actor.

“However, my job as an actor is to try to understand that and justify it however possible. Yes, he kills people for money but at the same time he’s very caring. He’s able to cry in a romantic film and then have no remorse about killing someone.”

Javier’s life is turned upside down in season one of Good Behavior when he falls for fresh-out-of-jail thief and con artist Letty Raines (Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery), who will stop at nothing – including betraying her lover to the Feds – to be reunited with her 10-year-old son Jacob (Nyles Julian Steele). Despite her betrayal, Javier realises he belongs with Letty and the pair go on the run – with Jacob. Season two opens with the trio living in suburbia, trying to be a normal family.

“They do have this image of what a normal life is and they are going to try hard to fit in to that but it’s going to be difficult. Normal for them is definitely different to what it is for most people,” Botto says.

With dozens of credits to his name, Botto, 42, is not only a seasoned actor, he is part of a theatrical dynasty.

His mother, Cristina, owns Spain’s biggest acting school, elder sister Maria starred in the US version of Mad Dogs, and younger sister Nur Al Levi is also an actress. Botto’s late father, Diego, was also an actor.

“A dynasty with no royals,” says Botto, laughing. A dynasty nonetheless.

He even managed to get big sister Maria a gig on Good Behavior.

“One day we were shooting and Chad (creator Chad Hodge) asked me, ‘Do you know an actress who could play your sister?’ and I said, ‘Actually, I do. My sister’. So she auditioned and got the part.

“To have my sister play my sister was a first. It’s been great,” Botto says, adding Maria is back in season two.

It seems fitting, therefore, that the series screens in Spain and Latin America (albeit as Bueno Conducta), so his fans there don’t miss out.

“I have someone else’s voice in Spain – I didn’t dub myself – and again someone else’s voice in Latin America so I can hear myself speaking Spanish with different accents and voices which is a lot of fun,” Botto says.

Probably not as much fun, however, as working with co-star Dockery.

Botto says he had seen the actress in Downton Abbey but didn’t for one minute ever think he’d have the chance to work with her. So when he was offered the chance he leapt at it.

“I met her for the first time in LA at what they call a chemistry read,” he says.

“Normally you don’t have any fun at those because there is a lot of pressure and stress but, in that case for whatever reason, we both had fun. And from that moment on we have fun whenever we do a scene. We get along very well.” Streams on Neon and screens on SoHo, from Tuesday, November 14.