Robert X. Aguilera

Robert X. Aguilera, Beto for short, plays Chaz Villette on the Shadow Unit TV show. He appears in the DVD commentary for "Overkill", and the script fragment in The Frogs is his copy of the scene in question.

This is the mixed-race Los Angelino's first appearance as a series regular, though Beto's had a string of two-minutes-on-screen roles as Second Gang Lieutenant and Weird Kid in High School Hallway.

Aguilera holds the Shadow Unit TV show record for the greatest number of different characters on the Delta TV Show, with a grand total of four. He played Skinny Kid in Diner in the episode "Puppet on a String," Second Gang Member in "All Kinds of Everything", Dead Cycle Courier in "Making Your Mind Up" and also Ominous Shadow in the Halloween Special "Hard Rock Hallelujah". He claims to have no knowledge of the "Pickle Incident".

In a recent Ellen appearance, Aguilera spoke about his experiences of Season One.


 * Aguilera: "Refining Fire was hard work and a real challenge for me as an actor - both emotionally and physically. But the hardest episode was definitely Overkill - that scene in the Irish pub nearly killed me! Chaz eats a lot and I had this whole pile of food in front of me and I had to keep ploughing through it. Everyone else kept screwing up their lines and we had to do take after take. (he laughs and shakes his head) And they kept bringing out more and more food for each take and I had to keep eating. And the camera was on me the whole time, so I couldn't fake it. I was getting real sweaty and going pale - they had to keep putting more and more and more make-up on me. I ate solidly for about three hours.


 * When they yelled "cut" for the last time, I ran - no, staggered - outside. It was horrible - I ended up curled up in make-up - nearly crying because I was so full and my stomach hurt so much."


 * Ellen: "Oh, you poor thing. Did the rest of the guys apologise - for, you know, being useless?"


 * Aguilera: "Kind of. John and Camryn fluffed the most lines, so they got me a present. (he pauses) A season ticket to an all you can eat Irish buffet. I'm still trying to think of something to get them back."

As he had expected to spend the first twenty years of his acting career playing carjackers while waiting to be adjudged old enough for character roles, he's somewhat stunned to find himself in the sort of job where his picture gets taped to teenaged girls' mirrors. Aguilera, despite his goofy good looks, is a serious actor, and what's described in the business as a "triple threat." (He also sings and dances.) He is keen to do more theatre and vows to appear on a Broadway stage at some point.

In an interview with the Internet Review of Speculative Fiction, Emma Bull described Aguilera's first Shadow Unit casting call:


 * Anyway, back to Beto and his first call. He was so nervous. At first we thought it was just Roberto X. Aguilera being nervous. (And part of it was, of course, but...) I forget which scene he was reading—it was something with Daphne, and the casting director was giving him Daphne's lines. He's got a backpack with him, hung over the back of his chair. And as he's reading his first line back to her he reaches around behind the chair without looking, pulls an energy bar out of the pack, unwraps it—all the time without looking, as if he's on autopilot—and starts to eat it. Talking with his mouth full.


 * And we realize that his nervous glancing-at-the-casting-director, looking-away thing isn't Beto; it's Chaz.