Sur was fascinated. He also liked Serrano’s pitch for “Primo,” which he heard for the first time that day. The series is about a San Antonio teen named Rafa (nicknamed Primo, meaning “cousin” in English, played by Ignacio Diaz-Silverio). She lives life with her single mother, Drea (Christina Vidal), and her five eccentric uncles. Drea works in a corner store, just like Serrano’s mother.
Although “Primo” is set in modern times, it is loosely based on Serrano’s adolescence. His father was actually on set, but Serrano said the writers decided that including his father would make his uncle less cheerful. Overall, they took a lighthearted, family-friendly approach despite portraying a family with its fair share of difficulties.
Once filming began, Vidal said Serrano was a constant source of energy on set. “He came to the set every day and just walked around and gave everyone a fist pump and complimented them and thanked them for being there and just kept encouraging, encouraging, encouraging.”
After Migas, Serrano donned a khaki and blue hoodie and drove his Tesla to the home of one of his real uncles, Brian Gutierrez. In “Primo,” Brian plays Ryan (Carlos Santos), a comically proud bank manager who bullies his scant white-collar resume over his blue-collar brothers.
Gutierrez, who works in the energy industry, was the uncle who persuaded the teenage Shea to go to college, just as Ryan did to Rafa. (Serrano studied psychology at Huntsville’s Sam Houston State University and was the first in his family to earn a degree.)
“He was a really good kid and a really straight arrow,” Gutierrez said. To this day, he said, Serrano has never been drunk. He had seen many people fall ill with addiction in his old neighborhood and was not interested in joining them.
