

Fans are starting their push to “Draft Nico,” but actor Nico Cortez said he’s ready and willing to reprise his role as a young William Adama in the new “Battlestar Galactica” spinoff series “Blood & Chrome.”

Casting for “Blood & Chrome,” which was upgraded from a web series to a full-fledged television show just ahead of the cancellation of another BSG spinoff, “Caprica,” has yet to start. But when it does, Cortez hopes Syfy’s head of original programming Mark Stern remembers him as Adama in the flashback scenes of “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” and cast him as the lead in the new series.

“What I discovered in doing ‘Razor,’ to my surprise, is that this character, I slipped right into it,” Cortez said during an extensive interview that will air Nov. 11 on Alpha Waves Radio. “I can’t explain it to you. A lot of actors will know what I am talking about but you get one or two [characters] in a lifetime where just slip into it.”

Part of his quick connection to the character of Adama made famous by “Battlestar Galactica” star Edward James Olmos could be because of the two actors’ shared heritage, however.

“I just think there’s a way of being,” Cortez said. “There is a deep well of emotion in Latin men, and they don’t often show it. It’s just under the surface. And I think tapping into that essence of him, I had it because I grew up with it.

“I felt that I could read any scene that [‘Razor’ scribe] Michael Taylor would write, and I would know how Adama would feel about it.”

Although Cortez has heard reports that he is at the top of some of Stern’s lists to play William Adama, he has yet to hear from Syfy directly. Getting the lead role in the series would help Cortez come into his own, an actor who moved to Los Angeles some 15 years ago with nothing more than $300 in his pocket and a promise he could crash at a friend’s uncle’s house.

Now married and finding guest roles in shows like “The Cape” and “Chuck” on NBC, and “Eureka” on Syfy, things weren’t always optimistic for Cortez. He found himself at one point having to decide whether to pay for acting classes, or paying for an apartment.

Cortez chose the acting classes.

“It was pretty rough in the beginning,” said Cortez, who found himself sometimes sleeping at his job in a post-production house. “For 2.5 years, I lived out of my truck. I had a Ford F-150, Eddie Bauer.

“I’m not a tough guy, and didn’t plan on it lasting” so long, Cortez said. “I didn’t seem to ever have enough money to get back into an apartment. I didn’t come out here to live in an apartment. I came out here to be an actor.”

Cortez didn’t get the big break right away after moving to Los Angeles like a few lucky souls get. Instead, he considers himself a journeyman in the field of acting.

But now it’s his time, and he’s hoping Syfy will listen. Do BSG fans a solid and cast Nico Cortez in the lead role. What he lacks in television lead experience, he more than makes up for in enthusiasm. Plus, he and his wife are ready to make that move north to Vancouver, British Columbia, and get to work.

The complete interview with Nico Cortez can be heard Thursday, Nov. 11 beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT at AlphaWavesRadio.com. The show also features a regular appearance by David Read, one of the co-founders of GateWorld, where he’ll talk more about the “Caprica” cancellation and the fate of “Stargate: Universe.”

Following the podcast, Tony Tellado will come in and host Alpha Waves Rewind in the second hour, a live call-in show featuring those listeners willing to brave the phone lines

The show also features a chatroom, which opens at 7:30 ET the night of the show.

It will be the last Alpha Waves Radio until early December, the show’s annual end-of-year special.