‘Good Behavior’ Season 2, Episode 8: Juan Diego Botto Breaks Down That Epic Episode, From That Phone Call To That Fight

We’re still processing all the big moments after big moments from last night’s episode of Good Behavior, but luckily, we had Javier himself, Juan Diego Botto, to help us through it. We hopped on the phone with our favorite hitman to discuss the major scenes we just witnessed. From that huge gesture (which resulted in a horrified prop guy on set), to making that punching scene look real, to the lack of small talk during that super somber scene, Botto broke it all down. Plus, we learn how much the Argentinian actor loves coffee — and he really loves coffee.

Let’s talk about the scene where your character makes the phone call to Letty (Michelle Dockery) to let her know he’s bought her a house. This is one of the more emotionally vulnerable moments that we’ve seen from him, so tell me a little bit about what it was like going there and filming that scene?

Well, there [were] a lot of discussions about that scene, about that moment. This is a very heavy episode for my character emotionally because we have the scene at the beginning with the family, with the married couple —the woman that I kill — and then I have the phone call and then I have the beating up Teo (Juan Riedinger) and then I have my brother. It’s a very big, heavy, emotional episode for Javier. So knowing that, you don’t want to give too much in just one thing. Because when we were doing the phone call, after the phone call, there’s still a bit of an uphill, and after the bit of an uphill is finding my brother. So you don’t want to give everything on that scene. It was trying to find the right balance, because it’s one of those moments for my character where he puts everything on the table. It’s like, I did this, I bought this house, it’s for you as a gift — it’s one of those things when you feel so stupid, and that makes you feel very vulnerable. So for an actor, when you have scenes like that, the only option is to go there and be vulnerable and experience that. We all have been there, so you have to relive that and go ahead and do it.

When you get off the phone with her, you throw it across the room. I always want to throw a phone, but you know, they’re expensive. Did you actually throw it?

Well, the prop guy actually wasn’t happy with that. That was a first impulse, and after I did that, I looked at the prop guy and he was like, “We don’t have another phone. We didn’t know you were going to do that, I’m so sorry,” he was like apologizing. I was like, “No no no, it’s my bad, I didn’t tell you I was going to do that. I didn’t even know I was going to do that.” But it came as an impulse, it felt like the right thing to do. And if you have been in conversations similar to that, you know, it’s one of those things that you really want to do. But then there’s that other thing in the back of your head telling you, “This a very expensive phone, don’t do it.” But my character didn’t have that stopping him, so I just went ahead and did it. But it was funny, now that you mention that, because I remember clearly the face of the prop guy.

Your character gets a bit violent in this episode, so I imagine that similar to some of the sex scenes on the show, the fight scenes have to be pretty specifically choreographed. How do you and the other actor establish that, the physical trust, with each other?

Well, that’s something that you have to do. And you know that exercise that people do in drama theater schools and sometimes in groups, when you just let yourself go and the other one grabs you, and it’s just a way to show that you trust each other. That’s what you gotta do when you do things like this and scenes like that. Fortunately, Juan, he was just sometimes, even too much, like, “Just hit me. It’s fine, I don’t care, you’re allowed to!”

Did you?

No, of course not. I would never. He was like, “You can grab me, you can,” so it makes things easy. Of course I didn’t, I have a fighting coordinator to take care of that, but it’s good when the other actor lets you know, “Hey, it’s fine. We’re just trying to do the best thing possible.” It’s pretty much the same with the sex scenes. You’ve got to choreograph, you’ve got to follow that, and it’s like a dance. Fight scenes are pretty much the same. It’s like a dance, and you want to perform it as if you were living it for the first time but sticking to the movements that have been choreographed.

In the scene with the husband and the wife, that’s one of the more intense missions that you’ve been on. But when the three of you as actors are sitting in this room, and this woman is tied up, do you make small talk in between takes?

It was a tense scene. Now that I’m going back to it in my head, it was pretty silent. It was pretty silent. When I was doing the scene, when I was actually killing the woman, I tend to be very careful with those scenes, and I’m very aware that the other actor might feel uncomfortable, so I try to stress, “Is everything fine? Am I pulling you too hard? If there’s anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, just let me know.” Some actors can feel very— especially [those in] one scene in a show that’s on the second season, everybody knows each other, you just go there for one day and there’s a guy tying you up and killing you brutally. So that might be uncomfortable. I just tried to make her feel comfortable. But other than that, during the whole violence scene it was very silent. It was very tense, I guess we were all concentrated on our parts, but it was very silent.

Did you feel as an actor just heavier after this episode? Did you feel that you had to decompress, and how did you do that after going through such intense scenes?

I would love to say that I don’t need to do that, that I just go in and out of my character with no problem, but I would be lying. I actually did, it was intense for me, and sometimes you need to — yeah, exactly, decompress. I remember talking to Michelle while we were doing the final episode, and we kind of have that thing when you’re doing an episode or a scene that’s very intense, you have to cry a lot, that after the second or the third day, you go, “I feel sad and I don’t know why.” Well, the why is because you’ve been crying for the last two, three days, doing scenes that put you in a very emotional place. And even though it’s fake and it’s fiction and it’s make-believe and it’s your job, the body doesn’t know that. Sometimes you just need to take a break and talk to your daughter and laugh and have fun and forget about the scenes.

Your character and Michelle’s character spend a few episodes physically apart this season. Is it fun to have a break from her and then re-energize you when you guys are back together?

Yeah. And at first it feels kind of weird because we get used to seeing each other every day on set, and it’s strange to spend a few days doing scenes with other people. But the good thing is that when you get back together, it’s like, “Hey I missed you! Here we are again.” So yeah, it’s fun.

Did you feel like you were missing out at all in this episode? Because you didn’t get to go to that spray paint party, and you didn’t get to run around in the woods like she did.

Yeah, I don’t regret that.

You got to throw a phone, so you had more fun.

I got to throw a phone, and I got to see the face of the prop guy.

That’s fair. I like that, in a lighter moment, Javier gets very excited about his espresso machine. Do you have one of those?

Me personally? Yeah, I do. [laughs] Well, you know, I live in Madrid, and in every coffee shop that you go in, if you ask for a coffee, they give you an espresso. That’s what coffee means. So that’s what I’m used to. To me that’s coffee, and the other thing is just, I don’t know what it is, but it’s not coffee.

Do you have an espresso machine when you come here to the States to shoot?

Yeah. I really like coffee.

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