While Charlie Hunnam fans will soon get to see the actor showing off his sword-wielding skills for the upcoming King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, fans of his former home Sons of Anarchy are gearing up for what will hopefully be a multi-year run from the in-development spinoff, currently in the pilot stages at FX. With a current title of Mayans MC, the S.O.A. follow-up has been crushing it in the casting department, and the hits keep on coming, as Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul vet Raymond Cruz has been tapped to join Edward James Olmos and others.
Though debate-ready TV fanatics may know Raymond Cruz best for portraying Tuco Salamanca, the unpredictable criminal whose sanity was akin to a sand castle during a hurricane, the Major Crimes actor will be taking on something a bit more centered within the Sons of Anarchy universe. For Mayans MC, Cruz will play Che "Padre" Romero, whose name may tip you off to the character's wise nature and sense of reason as another parental figure within the club. Instead of causing all the bloodshed and havoc like Tuco did, Padre will be the guy talking everyone down from that behavior.
Padre Romero will certainly know a thing or two about the life of a club member. According to THR, he'll be a full patch member of the Mayans MC, as well as the Santo Padre charter. Plus, he founded a local Mexican MC, so his ties to this world are vast, and he'll no doubt have seen many a member face hardships that he'll want the younger MC recruits to avoid. Hopefully he'll be more successful in guiding people to a non-violent life than Jax Teller was.
At this point, Cruz is set to be in the pilot, and if Mayans MC does indeed get picked up to series by FX (which seems likely to happen), the actor would bring his Padre into the show in a recurring capacity. He'll likely be bouncing around from one batch of club members to the next, so hopefully he won't run out of sage advice to dispense.
Raymond Cruz reprised his role of Tuco Salamanca for Seasons 1 and 2 of the Breaking Bad prequel spinoff Better Call Saul, and he made quite an impact. In the years before and after he changed the game for AMC's acclaimed dramas, Cruz starred in the TNT crime drama The Closer, and followed that up with a long-running stint on the follow-up Major Crimes. So he obviously knows a bit about jumping into spinoffs, though it'll be a tad different for him to show up on another established series' sequel project. Especially one co-created by Kurt Sutter.
As casting and filming will be ongoing for a while, it's unclear when we'll get to hear more about the future of Sons of Anarchy's Mayans-based spinoff. In the meantime, check out all the other hard-hitting action that TV has to offer with our midseason premiere schedule and our summer TV guide.
