The Cleaning Lady cast on pushing ahead after the loss of one of their own

The Cleaning Lady is back on call. Nearly 15 months after wrapping up its sophomore season, the hit Fox crime drama returned on March 5 for a tantalizing third round, in which protagonist Thony De La Rosa (Élodie Yung) must find a way to sweep up messes of her own making by venturing deeper into the criminal underworld.

After her efforts to procure a non-FDA approved drug to save her ailing son resulted in the shooting death of FBI agent Garrett Miller (Oliver Hudson) and the deportation of her sister-in-law Fiona De La Rosa (Martha Millan), Thony hatches a new plan with her partner-in-crime Arman Morales (Adan Canto) to bring Fiona back on a private plane used to ship drugs to the Philippines—only for those plans to fall apart when Arman goes missing. This sends Arman’s wife Nadia (Eva De Dominici) and others into uncharted waters for the show.

This storyline was initially intended to accommodate the absence of Canto, whose health prevented him from working on season three. The Mexican-American actor tragically died in January of cancer, a diagnosis he chose not to make public. The news came as a massive shock to the show’s cast and creative team, who knew he was feeling unwell but hoped to reunite with him later in the season.

“The challenge was creating a palette that we could shift in order to accommodate whatever his needs were. He was such a beloved human being and part of the show that we wanted to be able to shift in any way, because our hope and dream was to be able to have him back at the end,” says Jeannine Renshaw, who serves as co-showrunner with creator Miranda Kwok. “And then when he wasn’t able to come back, we wanted to honor him in the best way possible.”

During a recent visit to the set in Albuquerque, it’s difficult to not feel Canto’s presence everywhere you turn. There’s a sense of heaviness in the halls where he once walked and in the voices of crew members who remain shaken by his passing. On the set of La Habana, the cigar club that Arman co-owned with his wife, there is still a photo of Arman on a motorcycle sitting on the desk in the lavish office. The A.V. Club sat down with the remaining main cast members to discuss their fondest memories of working with him and how the show will evolve with the introduction of two new characters, played by La Reina Del Sur’s Kate del Castillo and Star Trek: Picard’s Santiago Cabrera.

[This piece has been assembled from multiple interviews with the cast of The Cleaning Lady.]

Élodie Yung: It does feel like Thony is underwater this season. She’s always managed to get some help and use people [in past seasons]. She was kind of using Garrett as an asset. But now, she’s facing her mistakes, her doubts, her fears, and it does feel like she’s alone on this journey. She’s resourceful, and I’m hoping she will find a way to get some help, but it does feel like we start, and everything’s gone, and everything’s a mess.

Martha Millan: With Fiona, there’s a lot of turmoil and obviously anger towards Thony because of the consequences that Fiona’s had to deal with from her actions. Their relationship is strained, and I think the obligation completely lies on Thony to get her back. Everything that Thony’s done has basically ripped our family apart, so emotionally the children—Chris [Sean Lew], Jaz [Faith Bryant], and Luca [Sebastien and Valentino LaSalle]—are quite vulnerable and wanting answers of how this happened. Fiona’s also wanting answers of how this can be resolved, so Thony’s put in that position to fix things because she’s messed up.

Eva De Dominici: At the end of season two, Nadia was on top of the world, but she got super ambitious. Arman told her, “Well, now we own everything.” And she said, “No, I own everything.” So I think that she’s going to regret that in the future. She does start [the season] super well. She owns La Habana. She owns [her ex-husband] Kamdar’s assets. At the beginning of the premiere, her world is going to fall down because of the disappearance of Arman. That’s where she’s going to understand that all that [money] didn’t really matter because she played with fire, and now she doesn’t know where he is.

AVC: Arman going missing was originally intended as a way to temporarily write off Adan, who was unable to work on the third season. How did you react to the news of his passing? What will you miss and remember most about working with him for the past couple of years?

Eva De Dominici: When we got the news, I was completely shocked. I knew that he was sick, but I didn’t know that he was that sick. It’s crazy how the story mirrors reality, because in the story, we don’t know where he is. And personally, I didn’t know how [Adan] was doing. I didn’t want to bother [him] because I knew that he was going through some difficult times. But all of us were wondering, “Hey, do you know something about Adan? Do you know how he’s doing?” He was a very private person, which I respected a lot.

Of course, they gave us the opportunity to decide if we wanted to continue shooting [or take a break], and we all agreed that we wanted to continue. The next day, I came to set, and I thought that I was okay. As soon as I entered La Habana, I started crying. I take a plane to come from [my home in] L.A. to Albuquerque. All I see is Adan at the airport. I come to set, and all I see is Adan at La Habana.

[Nadia] started as a recurring character, and the small scenes that I had were with him. The second season, most of my scenes were with him. There’s a little cute story because we shared our first language, Spanish. In the first season, he noticed that I was a little lost with all the terms on set. They would call it super quick, like, “Second team! First team! Last looks!” And I was like, “What does all this mean?!” [Laughs] I wouldn’t ask anyone, but he would notice and he would help me, and he would send me a list of all the terms. That’s how generous he was. I think that he had a lot to do with the growth of my character, and I really want to highlight and remember him for that.

Élodie Yung: You only really know the depth of your love when you’ve lost the person. And to this day, the grief just catches me [off guard]. I will remember the partner he was. He was a wonderful partner. He was a great friend, and he had such charisma. Sometimes, you just click with someone. And not that we would exchange that much [as friends], but in our work, it’s so important to have that [feeling] when you play onscreen people who love each other. So I just had so much love—more than I thought—for Adan, and I miss him every day. Season three has been great, but it’s been also difficult because it feels like something’s missing.

Martha Millan: Adan was always the sweetest. He was the most powerful in terms of presence—just a kind and humble person. It’s really so sad for me to think that all of those qualities are no longer a part of us, but we will still feel his presence throughout the whole season and the whole show because of who he was.

AVC: Thank you for sharing that. From a plot perspective, Arman’s disappearance forces the two women in his life to form an unlikely alliance in order to find out what happened to him.

Élodie Yung: Thony and Nadia become partners against their will. The commonality in them is their love for Arman, and they have to partner up to go on this journey.

Eva De Dominici: Nadia knows how smart Thony is. And even if she is jealous of her relationship with Arman, there’s some kind of understanding between both of them. They are both strong women. They both fight for what they want. They both love this man in different ways, but now they will have to make it work. They have no other person. Nadia is alone. She has no friends. Thony is not as alone as Nadia, but she’s going to get lonely in this season because Arman and Garrett would help her all the time and now they can’t. So Thony is going to try to rely on Nadia, and Nadia’s going to try to find a friend in Thony. But is that going to be possible? I don’t know! You’ll have to watch it! [Laughs.]

AVC: Thony’s investigation into Arman’s disappearance will lead her to cross paths with a pair of siblings who run an elite cartel and once shared a close connection with Arman.

Santiago Cabrera: Ramona and Jorge are extremely close as brother and sister. They grew up together without their parents, so they have a very tight relationship. They love each other a lot, but they are starting to see things in a different way of how the family business should be run. Jorge does not necessarily share the ideas of how Ramona is running things, but she’s the boss. Jorge has done a lot for the organization by putting on a clean front, and he’s done a lot for them, so I think he feels like his ways should be heard more.

Kate del Castillo: Originally, I was going to be the mother, but because I’m so young… [laughs] now we ended up being siblings, which I think is amazing. There’s still this motherly instinct. She raised him, she gave him a great life, and she sent him to have a career. So he’s having to respect her and having to obey her, and he doesn’t like that. We still live in a macho mundo, in a macho world, even though this is a women-driven story. But at the end of the day, he knows better.

It’s always a love-hate relationship between the siblings, and that’s what gives us a lot of layers in the show and for us to play with, because although she’s the older one and he needs to respect her, there’s a lot of bullying between both of them. Sometimes it gets really serious. And sometimes you just have to let it go. It’s a passive-aggressive relationship, but there are some dark secrets that Ramona has and that Jorge has, and they don’t share [them with each other].

Santiago Cabrera: At the beginning, when we introduce them, we see that Ramona thinks that Jorge’s a little unhinged and is not trusting of his ways either, because he’s going out of his way to take things into his own hands. A lot of the time, he is making very risky and dangerous decisions.

AVC: Thony partners with Ramona and Jorge to smuggle Fiona back into the country after her plan with Arman falls through. But in doing so, she has effectively made a deal with the devil. Ramona and Jorge are nothing like Arman. How would you describe the dynamics of the relationships between Thony and these new siblings?

Élodie Yung: The pact with the devil is a great way of seeing it. She gets deeper and deeper in this underworld. It feels like it’s against her will, but it’s also her decision [to keep going]. I think she’s entering a very, very dangerous world. She’s a bit out of her depth there and she is trying to figure out who these people are. You’ve got Kate’s character who is extremely powerful and elegant. She’s like the matriarch, but then you can feel that she’s cunning and dangerous, so Thony is trying to figure out who she is. Basically, she’s trying to see who’s who. How can she trust these people? Is she really by herself? How can she navigate this new world?

Kate del Castillo: The way that we are going to relate to Thony is going to be really weird. Ramona doesn’t [let anything] touch her heart in any way; she doesn’t sweat it. And he’s a man, so he’s more explosive, let’s say. [Laughs.]

Santiago Cabrera: Thony’s a pretty reckless person herself and pretty brazen and bold, so I think Jorge would admire that kind of bravery and that she still has this fire inside of her [after] all the adversity that she has had. At the same time, on an intellectual level, she’s a doctor, and he’s a lawyer. I think he doesn’t have many people like that in his world, so he is very intrigued by her. They’re also both single parents and would do anything for their children. So even with this incredible adversity that she’s facing, and also not trusting each other, and Jorge also using her for [his family’s] own benefit in a way, there is, underneath it all, a layer of understanding and connection.

AVC: There is always a concern over how Latino characters, in particular, are depicted in the criminal underworld. What do you think sets your characters apart from past ones we have seen in this genre? What new perspectives do they offer?

Kate del Castillo: I think the family-driven characters [are different] because at the end of the day, Ramona is looking for the next heir to leave her legacy. There’s a lot of love, drama, and family. I just think it’s amazing for me, for once, that the cleaning lady is not a Latina! So that’s a first for me.

Santiago Cabrera: If you just focus on making them three-dimensional human beings and make sure that there’s a real humanity to them, then you kind of protect yourself against all of [those issues]. It’s refreshing that he’s someone who, even though he’s part of this cartel world of violence, he went to Harvard Law School and has an education and he has come from some sort of privilege, even though he didn’t start that way. So that’s already an interesting layer. But at the end of the day, it’s definitely wanting to make sure that they come across as human so that in all the darkness there’s also light.

Eva De Dominici: Even if she was a mobster’s wife, Nadia is a mob girl. She takes control. It’s not like she’s home raising her children, waiting for her husband to come, and she is going to pretend she doesn’t know anything about what he does. No, she does participate. She was at the same level of Arman, and Arman was not jealous of that. Arman would always give her that opportunity to take control. Even when Nadia killed Kamdar, Arman could have killed him, and he let her do it. He left that in her hands. Maybe that’s a bad example, but I think that Nadia is a strong woman. She doesn’t depend on any man, even if she has a real and strong love for her husband. That is the main difference.

AVC: Given that these characters are embroiled in a life of crime, how have you been able to tap into their humanity? How have you come to justify the reasons for their actions?

Élodie Yung: I think it’s very much part of my job to keep her humanity integral [to the character], because I want to make sure that we don’t have a caricature of the character, that she’s a real person. So it is my job to keep things grounded. The show is very eventful, and there’s a lot of conflict, which is great for drama, but how do we portray real feelings? My job is to make sure that she’s making those decisions out of a good place. She’s making real mistakes, she’s got real fear, and everything needs to be coming out of a human place. My job is to make sure that anyone can relate to her. It’s not about saying, “Oh, [she’s] Southeast Asian.” It’s like, “Well, this is [her background], but she’s a woman, she’s a mother.”

Santiago Cabrera: For people that grew up in this world, that’s their reality. Jorge doesn’t know anything else, so in that sense, there’s no justifying needed [for his actions]. There’s always a code of honor with these characters. I feel being loyal to your family, being a good father, being loyal to the people around you is a way of exploring your own humanity and not thinking of yourself as an evil human being. That’s what you have to hold onto, because for your own reality, what you’re doing is normal.

AVC: What will we see of Fiona’s life back in the Philippines? How is she dealing with the reverse culture shock of returning to a place that no longer feels like home to her?

Martha Millan: Fiona goes through this whole experience of just remembering why she left, and she’s having to confront all those issues again. Obviously, she’s wanting to be back with her children. But she does relish the culture again, and she relishes being back with her family. But looking at the past and dealing with past issues are always things that the show wants to bring up.

Thony is lost and alone, so a lot of her decisions are convoluted and just don’t make sense. But for Fiona, [being in the Philippines] is just a constant reminder for her of what she has done. And the fact that it’s not about Luca anymore. Her actions to save Luca have obliterated Fiona’s family, and Fiona has always been there for her, given her a home, helped her out in every way. So I think hopefully that will shift Thony’s perspective. But when you’re in that kind of frame of mind, I don’t think any kind of sensibility is available [laughs].

AVC: It’s almost a cliché for a cast and crew of a series to call themselves a family, but in the case of this show, you have all been forced to deal with an unthinkable loss together. How have you all navigated the grief of losing one of your own?

Eva De Dominici: A couple of days ago, I was like, “Guys, let’s talk about it,” because he was the elephant in the room. I was like, “We need to talk about it. This is hurting us all, and we are all sharing the same feeling. I really appreciate that we are coming here and we are putting our best. Let’s just remember his best times because I think that we all had great experiences with him.” For me, this season is going to be in honor of Adan. I’m smiling now, but it’s just so painful. It’s weird to continue without him. He was everything for me in this series, and it hurts.

When he was alive, I didn’t know that he was sick and he was already fighting [his illness], and I expressed all my gratitude towards him, and I’m glad that I did that. I did the same with all the crew, with all the cast. If we love someone, if we are grateful for something, sometimes we just don’t say it because we get embarrassed. But if you love someone, you should let them know.