Actor David Del Rio on his role in ‘Matlock’ reboot and on-screen camaraderie with star Kathy Bates

The original “Matlock” spanned nine seasons across the late 80s and early 90s, cementing its place as television’s courtroom-drama royalty.

Now, audiences and critics alike are praising CBS’s new take on the show, led by Kathy Bates. Viewership has been so strong that the reboot has already been green-lit for a second season.

Rubbing elbows with Bates’ character, Madeline, is Billy Martinez, a confidante and friend who’s also eager to make an impression at the firm as an associate – played by actor David Del Rio, who has made the Austin area his home.

He spoke with the Texas Standard on what it’s like playing opposite Kathy Bates, how he brings his character Billy to life on screen, and the decisions behind the move to Texas.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: I know you’ve done some other acting work, and we’ll talk a little bit about that in a few moments – but people are really locked in to the character that you play and how you play it with Kathy Bates. I’m thinking, man, if I were working with Kathy Bates, it’d be pretty intimidating. What’s it like?

David Del Rio: We’ve done 19 episodes, and we’re about to do a second season. I’m sure I’m going to still be intimidated by the start of second season. I mean, I’ve studied Kathy – you know, as an acting student, I’ve studied a lot of actors.

And I consider myself a cinephile, even though, you know, everybody who watches movies a lot consider themselves cinephiles. However, I was on IMDb when IMDb was a list of only filmographies. No news, no trailers. Not even posters, actually. It was just a list of people.

Being on set with her, it’s one of those things, like an acting student that I am, it was hard not to be in the scene with her and not learn from her, even though my character is kind of trying to ask her to learn from him.

And so to see her homework that she commits to is the type of homework that I used to do in high school where the script was written in pen from top of the page to the bottom of the page. And of course I take a glance, you know, on her script from time to time to see what she’s kind of studying with her character.

And so that kind of work that the greats still do today is something that I want to emulate again – and added a little bit more to the intimidation because I’m like, “wow, she doesn’t have to work, but she works.” And it’s a great thing to witness her doing her craft.

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You wound up somehow through this circuitous path in Bastrop. How did you wind up in Texas?

My in-laws live in Round Rock, and when we were deciding where we wanted to live – I did a show called “Baker and the Beauty,” when we shot in Puerto Rico, and my wife, who is the more financially intellectual of the pair, she said, “I think we’re ready to own.” I’m like, “we can? I don’t know, I thought I was going to rent for the rest of my life.”

And she said, “No, let’s go find places. However, I think we should be near our family.” And I said, okay, well, we’re not going to Miami. So where your parents are in Round Rock, which is in Austin, we’ve heard a lot about it, and we visited there so many times and we loved it. And so let’s go look for there.

So when we drove there, we got to be introduced to such a beautiful, quaint and and charming town that everyone was telling us things are going to change around here – in terms of the entertainment industry, people are coming down here. People are planting studios here. And when we found that out, that was like six months after we signed the contract to own a home there.

And we said, wow, I mean, by the grace of God, we found a place where our industry is still going to be active. And the people and the food, everything – the culture there is just something that I can’t wait to raise my daughter in.

Well, your decision to come to Texas, I think a lot of people would think that’s sort of counterintuitive, especially since you’re working in the film creative arts. I wonder about those creative opportunities and what your observations are about where film and TV might be going here in Texas.

Well, you know, what Texas is offering is a real vast variety of color and mood that a lot of filmmakers are reacting to. There’s a lot of cities that are opening up to Hollywood to say, we have character here, we have color here, we have diversity here. We have many, many places and locations to be representing other locations in your stories.

And I think that a lot of cities are kind of pitching themselves to do that. And I think Austin has been for a long time now, and I think people are actually listening and reacting.

What’s your life been like now that you have this success as Billy on the new “Matlock”?

I consider myself very lucky to be part of a reboot that has changed the game in terms of the narrative of reboot, in terms of the format of a reboot. And so to be part of something that is so new and fresh with a sort of story structure that people have a little bit of fatigue over, I consider myself very, very lucky.

What’s interesting is part of the conceit of the new “Matlock” show is that you have a septuagenarian played by Kathy Bates, who is coming back into the law firm, and you play a kind of friend or an ally in a way to her, which is so engaging, and it’s really charming. And that relationship, I think, is very much at the soul of  what has made this show a success. What’s in that chemistry there as you see this character?

The fact that I can say in my sentence, “Kathy Bates and I have a chemistry” is something I’ll never get over. It’s really amazing, the fact that, you know, I could be sitting down with her and she tells me all these stories about Mike Nichols or anything like that – and these are questions that I ask, you know, because I don’t know when I can get this opportunity again.

When I first met Kathy, it was a table read for the pilot that we did in Toronto. And she gives me a big hug and she says “the relationship between Billy and Matty is very special, and I’m looking forward to making that grow with you.” She kind of set up the chemistry right then and there. That, in fact, she already helped me have a point of view of when she enters the office.

And I remember the creator, Jennie Urman, and the director, Kat Coiro, they were saying that he really loves the law and that’s all he cares about. And that really gave me a little bit of a point of view to really focus on making sure that the chemistry between Billy and Matty is work-related first, because if it’s work-related first, then he gets to move with his most important value, which is the law, and he’s just bringing Matty along.

And so that kept it simple for me. Our chemistry continues to grow throughout this season, and what I’m enjoying about the success of this show is the idea that people are really, really loving it and they are committed to Matty’s investigation more than the structure of looking at a law case every episode. You know, it’s a law case and also the journey of Matty trying to unfold any mystery that she’s trying to solve.

And people are really attached – like my mother-in-law told me the other day, “I really love following Kathy’s journey. It’s the journey that Matty is taking as Madeline Kingston that I’m enjoying.” I’m like, “well, that’s the point.”

Listen to an extended interview with David Del Rio in the audio player above.

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