Image: Lipstick Alley
	Image: DVG Photography
	Image: Jeremy Ray Valdez
	Image: Jeremy Ray Valdez
	Image: Jeremy Ray Valdez
	Playing table tennis with members of the military. Image: DVIDS

With another season confirmed of his hit show “Army Wives”, JJ tells e-Travel Blackboard about his passion for acting and expresses gratitude for his fans that have supported him along the journey to achieving his dreams.

Being someone who works both in acting and music, do you prefer one more than the other?

Honestly I prefer acting over singing. I just love to express emotions and play.

I’m still learning in regards to singing. I’m able to connect to my music but it’s just about letting go more.

With acting, I’m really confident about my talent but with singing I have insecurities.

Tell me about Army Wives.

It’s been a great experience so far doing the show and it’s given me the opportunity to tap into emotions as an actor that I haven’t’ really been given the opportunity to tap into previously.

 I’m so used to playing the bad boy - I’ve always played roles along that line.

When you play those types of characters I try to make them as three dimensional as possible and fill them out, but a lot of times they’re one dimensional type characters - the tough bad guy.

As an actor I have a wide range, but I feel like a one trick pony sometimes.

When I get the opportunity to do something like “Army Wives” and get to do things with relationships, it gives me the opportunity to delve into all different types of emotions and play with all the different colours.

 I really enjoy that.

Hector is such a layered character. Even though he does things that you wonder about, you know that he’s coming from a place of love.

When you researched your role, did you speak to any enlisted soldiers or families?

I get this question a lot and, to be honest with you, with TV it works really quickly, so I didn’t have any time to prepare at all. Within a week I was on a plane to Charleston for the show.

The prep work that I got to do was on the plane trip the night before my first day of shooting.

I looked at the book that the show is based on and then I watched a documentary called “Restrepo”, which is a really good documentary about men in the military and a specific incident that happened in Afghanistan and I watched a couple of “Army Wives” episodes to get more familiar with the show.

I jumped in head first and learned along the way.

You’ve got such an active presence on Twitter. How are you finding the interaction with fans?

The reason I got onto Twitter and Facebook was because I wanted to have a relationship with my fans from the start.

Whether it was five fans or 500 fans, I wanted to touch base with them because I appreciate them. I wanted them to get to know me on a personal level and just relate with me.

I’m on it constantly and as long as I have time to get on it, I’m tweeting and Facebooking my whole life!

I like to give aspiring actors some type of insight so that they can see what goes on day to day for an actor and that it’s an attainable goal.

A lot of my tweets are inspirational. I believe that is my purpose in life - I have a saying that acting is my passion and inspiring is my purpose.

I use my platform that I have with acting to reach out to other people and inspire them.

I just believe that’s why I was put here. To know that I’m impacting people’s lives and being a positive influence and to get emails and letters from people expressing their gratitude and telling me that what I’ve said has affected their lives in a positive manner is amazing!

It doesn’t get any better than that!

As much as I love and am in love with what I do, there’s no other feeling that would be able to impact someone’s life in a positive manner and know that you impacted their success.

Maybe it’s because of how I grew up but, like anybody else, I want to be liked - I want to be loved. When I say I really, truly appreciate my fans, I really do, I don’t take it for granted.

Without the viewers, without the people supporting me, I’m not going to get to where I ultimately want to be.

So for those people who support me, I want to let you know that I appreciate you and, if you’re interested in what I’m doing, I’m interested in what you’re doing.

You were born in LA and still live there now, where do you recommend our readers visit when they’re in town?

Downtown L.A. is being revamped. Back in the day, in the 1940’s or so, it was actually a really nice area, then there was a period of going downhill.

Olvera St has a lot of Mexican stores and it’s great to find out a bit of history about that area.

The Angeles State Forest is another beautiful place to go.

I like to go to the smaller beaches. I don’t go to Malibu or Venice or places like that, I go to the smaller state beaches to meditate.

What is it that you love about living in L.A.?

 We have everything!

Number one; we have great weather, the sun is shining a majority of the time.

Everything is within pretty close proximity. We have the water, we have the mountains, we have the valleys, they’re all pretty much within driving distance.

The only thing I would say that I wish is that it wasn’t so crowded. We have a lot of people here - it’s really congested.

What’s your favourite nightspot in L.A.?

I’ll be honest with you, everything closes too early here. It’s annoying!

There are different clubs that are hip at different times. Right now there’s a club called the Supper Club that is a popular place or Playhouse.

To be honest when I really go to party in the States it’s Miami or Vegas - they’re the places I like to go.

If you could get on a plane right now and go anywhere in the world where would it be?

I’m really looking forward to getting out of the country to Spain, Australia, Costa Rica, even Canada; I want to go up there.

 But right now - Costa Rica because of the different activities you can do.

All the pictures I’ve seen over there look so amazing. Just a quick snapshot of anything there is beautiful!

Follow JJ on Twitter @JJSoria