‘Red Band Society’ Q&A: Nolan Sotillo – ‘We’re Doing Something That’s Meaningful’

Actor Nolan Sotillo heads to Fox’s “Red Band Society” on Wednesday night, bringing to life Jordi, a teenager with an inspiring spirit, who is battling cancer.

Alone in the world when we meet him, Nolan’s character Jordi heads to the pediatric ward at Ocean Park Hospital in Los Angeles, hoping for surgical and treatment help for his leg cancer from the best of the best — Dave Annable’s Dr. McAndrew.

And there, Jordi quickly finds himself making friends with other young people dealing with similar circumstances. They come together to form the Red Band Society in this new drama from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television.

Nolan spoke with AccessHollywood.com about joining the cast, how the actors have already formed their own close bonds as they film in Atlanta, and what it was like to visit pediatric wards around the country as he prepped to bring Jordi to life.

AccessHollywood.com: Tell me about landing this role. How hard of an audition process was this for you to become Jordi?
Nolan Sotillo: I guess it was a normal audition process, you know, you go in, and I really didn’t have much pressure on me. … For some reason, I didn’t really feel any pressure to go in there and over perform or anything, so I was relaxed and I connected to the script after I read it. I was in love with the script and the character and I just went in knowing that they needed to find someone, so I might as well be Jordi.

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Access: He’s so brave, this character. You see that in his first few scenes of the premiere. What do you love about him?
Nolan: Yeah, I definitely like the fact that he’s so courageous in this horrible situation. But, he’s willing to make the best of it and he’s determined to come out ahead.

Access: Some people are comparing this to ’80s film ‘The Breakfast Club.’ Have you actually seen that film? You weren’t born when it first came out.
Nolan: (Laughs) Of course I’ve seen it. It’s a classic. I’ve seen it multiple times. And then, of course, even for this project, they had us re-watch it again, but I’ve seen it a bunch of times and you do kind of get the same vibe. It’s uplifting, it’s coming of age, but it’s also different in its own right.

Access: Tell me about going to the hospitals that you guys went to around the country, meeting kids in wards like the one that your character is in and what that was like for you?
Nolan: That was honestly the greatest experience that I could have had and so far it’s been the most effective research tool for me. I mean, going into hospitals and being able to meet kids that are in similar situations to those that the characters are facing in the ‘Red Band Society’ allows us to see the truth of these real humans’ lives. And to me, it just made me focus and kind of reiterated the fact that we’re doing something that’s meaningful, so we have to play the truth of it and we have to shed light on these people’s lives that don’t necessarily get their story told as much as they should.

Access: Did you have to do any research into the disease that your character has to help play Jordi, or did they provide you with information about it?
Nolan: Yeah, I mean, I knew what osteosarcoma was. I didn’t really understand it as much as I do now, and I definitely did research just because I think as the person playing Jordi — Jordi’s so aware of what’s going on and so proactive with everything that, of course, he would know exactly what’s going and he thinks that he can handle everything himself, so he’s gonna do what he can and like try to, I guess, learn everything there is to know about [it] himself [so] that he can survive.

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Access: Which character are you most excited to see Jordi interact with this season on the show?
Nolan: I think for the most part, stuff with Dr. McAndrew — with Dave — is big for Jordi, because when he comes into the hospital, that’s his last resort. He’s here, he has nothing else, so [Dr. McAndrew’s] the only one who can do this for him.

Access: Tell me about filming in Atlanta. I hear you have formed your own little friend circle with your castmates?
Nolan: I think that the cast has grown extremely close and we’ve become a family. … There’s a good diversity of age. We’re close enough to where we can interact with each other, but we’re also young enough – the range of age allows us to experience different things with one another, so if I’m hanging out with Griffin [Gluck] on set, little Griffin, that’s a different interaction than me hanging out with Dave, but then when we’re all together, it’s just like a family reunion, I guess, and we’re all having a feast at Thanksgiving or something.

Access: Are there things that you and Charlie [Rowe, who plays Leo] get to do together because you’re so close in age?
Nolan: Yeah. Charlie and I are really close. We’re great friends and yeah, we go out to the park and we’ll play football or his version of football [Editor’s note: soccer] and we’ve also begun playing tennis in recent weeks. I played with Dave yesterday; I played with Charlie a couple days ago as well. … And then, apart from sports, we can hang out and play video games or go and watch a concert or go grab lunch or something, so we’re always interacting with each other when we can and when we’re not busy shooting.

Access: Your show is about to premiere and all of America gets to see it. Are you just buzzing with excitement?
Nolan: Yeah, the fact that show is about to premiere and that we’re so close puts the biggest smile on my face. I’m extremely hopeful and at the same time anxious and nervous, but I’m so proud of the show and I feel honored to be a part of something that’s gonna mean so much more than just your average TV show… to a plethora of different audiences in different ways and I’m ecstatic that the day has finally come ’cause I feel like we’ve been waiting forever for the show to air.

“Red Band Society” airs Wednesday September 17 at 9 PM ET/PT on Fox.

— Jolie Lash