Yahoo News Meet 9-1-1 's new dispatcher Alfonso Caballero — and get a sneak peek at Noah and Maddie saving a girl
Alfonso Caballero's 9-1-1 debut was months in the making.
"Over the course of about a year I auditioned a bunch of different times — for seven different roles. I remember thinking, 'Gosh, they hate me,'" the actor tells EW. In fact, he was auditioning for a "smaller" role when the opportunity to audition for Noah, a new 9-1-1 dispatcher, was presented.
"In the audition, all I knew was I was a new call center operator full of life and super excited to be there, and that I fumble my first call, and then I kind of redeemed myself with the next one," he says. "I remember thinking, 'That sounds a lot like me.'" (You can see him in action in the exclusive preview clip below in which his Noah and Jennifer Love Hewitt's Maddie work to help a young girl escape her abusive father.)
Growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, Caballero says he was "that loser that got picked on" in high school. I was heavier and so that came with a lot of bullying." He found "solitude" and "a level of acceptance" in doing theater, but he had dreams of becoming a cop. He was in college studying criminal justice when he was approached at a grocery store by a woman who said he had "a good look" and offered to be his agent. He started doing commercials and industrials, becoming successful enough that his brother suggested he move to Los Angeles and live in his place rent-free while he was deployed in Afghanistan.
That was 10 year ago, and Caballero says the past decade has been "a constant grind." But he slowly found success, most notably as Malik on the Snap Original series The Dead Girls Detective Agency and Jesse in the OWN holiday movie One Fine Christmas, both in 2019.
The next few years brought work on The Goldbergs, The Bold and the Beautiful, and now 9-1-1.
"This was the best time that I think I've ever had on a set. Everyone was super warm and open," Caballero says. "I remember walking out, leaving after my first day and just, just thinking to myself, 'Man, I really hope I get to stay here for a really long time.'"
9-1-1 airs Mondays at 8 a.m. ET on Fox.
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