The Story Behind Juice's Name On Sons Of Anarchy
It's amazing to see the depth of personality the SAMCRO motorcycle club brings to the table on Sons of Anarchy, and it's a big part of what made the show work for seven seasons. The drama, tension, and action are all there, but even those elements are fueled by the personalities of each character. We have Jax Teller, played by Charlie Hunnam, who wants to do the right thing but often finds himself succumbing to anger and going in the wrong direction. We've got the weird Tig, played by Kim Coates, who's fiercely loyal but otherwise an absolute wildcard. Then, we've got Juice.
Juice, played by Theo Rossi, is definitely his own unique entity. He often gets hazed by other members of the crew because he's not the brightest in some ways. Still he shows a broad range of emotional and technical smarts. He's a bit goofy and entirely lovable. The whole crew loves Juice enough to bend their racist "whites only" member rule, and that's saying something. But nothing about the character's personality tells us why he's named "Juice." Where does the character's name come from? Well, he's not exactly named Juice because of all the OJ he drinks.
Juice was supposed to like the "juice"
Apparently, much of Juice's identity was supposed to be built around his use of uppers, but that washed away from the character as Theo Rossi made Juice his own. "I think we originally thought about making Juice more of a tweaker," show creator and writer Kurt Sutter posted on social media (found via Reddit). "Hence, juiced... But Theo [Rossi] had such high energy and such vulnerable depth that much of that fell away. We let Theo tell us who juice was. That was the case with most of the actors and their characters. You want to give the actor enough to work with but ultimately you have to let the character bend to the performance, not the writing. Theo was brilliant."
That doesn't mean the drugs disappeared from Sons of Anarchy entirely. The drug use seemed to have morphed from speed to narcotics, and Juice even ends up with a bit of a drug problem after he forced an overdose on Darvany Jennings on Jax's orders. The only time we really see Juice with meth is when he feeds the stuff to a Doberman while trying to drug it unconscious, and that didn't exactly turn out well. As Sutter points out, Rossi brought plenty of energy to the character without being hopped up on the goofballs.