Benjamin Levy Aguilar on Torres’ Past & Voight Filling Void Left by Jay

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Chicago P.D. Season 10 Episode 21 “New Life.”]

Chicago P.D. just revealed a lot more about who Intelligence’s newest member was.

The investigation into the murder of someone who used to be a major dealer leads to the revelation that Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar) was his enforcer back in the day. But, as he tells Voight (Jason Beghe), he didn’t kill someone everyone thinks he did; rather, he set him up with a new life. Getting out of a gang like that doesn’t come easy; he was waterboarded. And while Torres worries that now that everyone knows about his past, he’s going to be fired, Voight makes it clear he still has a job.

Aguilar takes us inside the major Torres episode.

Talk about finding out about Torres’ past because it is so dark. Did you know about it earlier this season?

Benjamin Levy Aguilar: No, I had no idea. But I love where they took it. I actually do. I also just love playing those moments, those intense emotional moments. I’ve always been attracted to feeling that. It’s like they gave me a green light of “take this where you think it feels like.” I had a lot of fun, and I broke a lot of, honestly, walls within myself during that episode. I actually feel like a freer, lighter person, like Benjamin Levy. And it was all thanks to that and to the writers to allow me to experience it. I feel so lucky to be an actor and to have a team of writers and an audience that allows me to just get through my feelings. For what I do, the way I do it is therapeutic. It’s therapy. And when I’m getting the time and the love and getting paid to do my own therapy, I feel so blessed. I feel so grateful for that experience.

Now that the team knows and he had that conversation with Voight, how is Torres feeling? Like there’s a weight off of him?

Yes, absolutely, because now he doesn’t have to hide this. It must be so much to carry if you have this big secret and you can’t say it to anyone and you can’t let anyone find out and you’re scared that every time [someone] gets close. We’ve all had that feeling of “the truth will set you free,” and that’s what happened. He is now a lighter human being.

Also, he’s around people who are looking for the truth all day, every day.

Yeah, that’s a good point. He’s hiding it from the best, the most capable people to find the truth, and now it’s there and they all care for him. It’s a good feeling.

Lori Allen/NBC

Speaking of that, because he truly believed he was going to be fired once it got out, do you think there’d been a ticking clock in his head that his time with CPD was limited, that they’d find out eventually?

He maybe thinks in the moment, and he’s learned to do that because who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow? So I think he was like, “I’ll just do my job to the best of my abilities and hope that this never comes out and I’ve forgotten about it. I put it behind me. I’m not in that life, so it’s not like I’m hiding something that I’m sneakily doing on the side. I’m a different person and the only thing I can do is change who I am and be that person.” So I don’t think he was necessarily expecting this to come out, but when it did, it caused a lot of stress in him. I felt distressed all episode. It was really cool.

That conversation between Torres and Voight at the end was so good.

First, I love Jason. He’s one of my favorite people, and he has changed my life in many ways. I didn’t grow up with a father, and I guess I see him in a way as a father figure, Jason, the actor. He’s always given me good advice and cared, so having a moment where we could be vulnerable was a beautiful thing and we were both happy with what we did.

That being said, it was also probably the windiest, coldest day in Chicago. We had to stop shooting because the wind was so loud that we had to scream to say the lines and we were standing [close]. We literally had to take breaks. After we shot the scene, we went back to the set, and Jason was like, “I don’t remember the last time on this show that I was that cold,” and he’s been on it for 10 seasons. It was the wind that made it so, so cold, so it was really tough to shoot. Since I was vulnerable, I embraced being cold. I couldn’t hide it either way, so I just allowed it.

Then there was Torres threatening to waterboard that guy. It’s so dark and intense, and it’s also him drawing from a part of his past that he never wanted to revisit. Talk about filming that entire sequence.

Oh my God, it was a tough day to get through, and I have to say the director, what a guy. He had patience. He had no ego. He had care. It was a really, really tough day. But we got through it as a team and I’m so grateful for everyone there. All of the crew was amazing. They saw me at a very vulnerable place. I will never forget that day.

Lori Allen/NBC

How does Torres feel about Mia (Sharlene Cruz) and the fact that she left?

There’s a lot of mixed emotions with Mia because there’s absolutely so much love from both of them. I can’t speak for her, but maybe especially from him to her, there’s this love that I’ve cared for her her entire life and she’s like my family, and then there’s also this romantic side of love, and I’ve been trying to do my life and go the opposite way of all these things. It seems like it’s really hard because he always is to blame in some moments when it comes to her. He’s always just trying to do his best. Even in Episode 4, even when Kiko went to prison, in my opinion, I mean, what am I supposed to do, right? If you are involved in a murder, you’re involved in a murder. So there’s been a lot of moments that I think he’s felt some either disappointment or some frustration with Mia. It’s so hard to love someone sometimes when you’re to blame for so many things and you just want to do your best and take care of the whole picture and take care of her. It’s really hard to have influences ruin that. It’s a very mixed bag of feelings.

How does Torres feel about Intelligence at this point, with about a season with them, especially after he worried about being fired and now that they know the truth about his past?

He feels more in it now, like there’s more to go. I think there’s more that he can handle maybe and navigate and learn how to navigate things. And there’s more people to trust because I think that when Jay left, there was a void Voight is kind of filling right now, besides everyone else, too. But after that scene with Voight, there’s a moment that he’s able to trust someone again at that level. So yeah, I think there’s a lot of potential now for this next year in Intelligence.

Torres has had some great scenes with everyone, especially with Upton (Tracy Spiridakos). That was so good.

Yeah, she’s amazing. She’s amazing.

What would Torres have done if he’d been fired?

That would’ve been a true test of character, but I think he would’ve stayed true to himself and started maybe a new way of life altogether or try to be involved in his community more, seeking a different way to help. If he can’t save lives as a cop, maybe he’d turn to saving lives some other way.

But being a cop is so much who he is now.

Yeah, you’re not wrong. I actually don’t know what he would do.

What do you want to explore with Torres next season?

More moments of joy and happiness and growth, but definitely a lot more of his past. I think there’s still so much more, and it doesn’t have to be this like, “Oh, I used to do this or that,” but “What happened to me? Why am I the way I am?” It’s different to have it in written form or someone say it or me to talk about it with writers. Just to fill up an intellectual understanding means nothing. Experiencing it means everything. Only what you perceive you know. The rest is just imagination. Isn’t that crazy? Just how deep your level of perception is, how deep knowledge you have. Everything else is just imagination. So if I could just perceive more of his life, of his feelings, of his trauma, I could know more about him. That’s the only real way to know.

Especially because he’d be more apt to open up to the others now after this episode.

Yes, absolutely. And it would make him just a better cop.

Chicago P.D., Wednesdays, 10/9c, NBC