Brawley’s Nunez appearing in final season of ‘Bosch’
BRAWLEY — Bryan Michael Nunez is determined to be a working actor rather than a famous one, and so far he is succeeding.
When the eight episodes of the seventh and final season of Amazon’s crime series “Bosch” launch Friday, it will mark the Brawley native’s third recent appearance in a significant scripted series. In early 2020, he had a recurring role as Cpl. Wittman in the Paramount Network’s military comedy-drama “68 Whiskey,” and more recently, he appeared in a January episode of the CBS legal drama “All Rise.”
But with “Bosch,” starring Titus Welliver in the title role, Nunez may have landed his most significant job to date.
“It was going to be two episodes, originally,” he said of his part, “and then they ended up putting me in for four, and I have like a story arc, which was awesome.”
Acting wasn’t on Nunez’s radar when he graduated from Brawley Union High School in 2010. About the only thing he knew for certain at that point was he wasn’t interested in going to college.
“I wanted to do something I was passionate about,” he recalled.
Nunez didn’t act in high school. He participated in marching band and was editor of the school yearbook. At one point after graduation, he was exploring the possibility of moving to Japan and teaching English, only to have that idea wiped out by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
Meanwhile, he had a sister who was a hairdresser in Los Angeles so he wound up there bouncing back and forth between her place and those of some friends while he held down a job in retail.
About the time it was looking like he should start exploring advancement in retail, he was approached by a guy in the bar who suggested he should “do commercials.” Nunez’s first thought — and likely a few subsequent ones — was the fellow was trying to con him.
“I was like, ‘Oh God, I’ve heard about these stories in L. A. The next thing will be he’ll try to get me to sign something and take all my money,’” Nunez recalled.
It turned out the guy was not only legitimate, but persistent enough to convince Nunez to take a chance. That helped him get cast in a regional commercial, which led to him to pursue other opportunities, mostly as a background actor or extra.
Along the way, the business captured his interest strongly enough that he decided to make a real go of it. Not that it was easy. He said his talent agency, Momentum Talent Agency in Burbank, turned him down twice before finally taking him on as a client in 2015.
Even after that, there were a lot of auditions and a lot of rejections. Following a particularly nasty encounter with a casting director for the Disney film “A Wrinkle in Time,” Nunez said he was so discouraged he was on the verge of throwing in the towel.
“Right before the pandemic, I was burned out,” he recalled. “I remember being in my car crying and telling my mom, ‘ I can’t do this anymore. I know I’m talented. I know I’m smart and I’m a good person, and this industry makes me feel I’m none of that, like I don’t want to do it anymore.’ And my mom, she’s like, ‘ No, you’ve got this. You’ve got this.’”
Mrs. Nuñez suggested her son take a break, so he returned home for a couple of weeks to connect with friends and family and gave himself a chance to decompress. “And it did; it recharged me,” he said. “And it was crazy because like a week later is when I was starting to get back on things and then the pandemic happened, so I ended up just staying down here.”
With all the uncertainty surrounding the film industry during the pandemic, agencies were having difficulty getting actors to submit tapes because the work was already unsteady, so widespread stayat- home orders didn’t seem likely to improve matters.
Discouraged himself, Nunez said he almost didn’t even submit a tape for his role on Bosch. In fact, when he did finally send it, it was six hours late.
Two days later, he got a call letting him know he’d been “pinned,” which is studio speak for when an actor’s photo is posted as the top choice for a given role.
Nunez said he has other promising opportunities, but he knows better than to start counting chickens. “I don’t ever consider it locked in until I show up on that day and I’m in my trailer,” he said.
He’s also trying to keep the no’s he receives in the future in perspective. “I’m trying to just kind of welcome the opportunities to come,” he said. “If anything, I now just treat each audition as a class and as training rather than trying to hold on to so tightly.”