Ramon Rodriguez seems like kind of a cool guy. He was on Rescue Me, he was on The Wire, and apparently he can balance a spinning basketball on a pen he’s holding with his teeth.

His role in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a classic Michael Bay-style annoying sidekick role; half the time he’s an arrogant jerk, and the other half the time he’s a jabbering pussy. But no matter. According to the L.A. Times, Bay was quite impressed with the actor:

Director Michael Bay has a third “Transformers” film in mind, and if it plays out as he expects, the next installment would have a more substantial role for Rodriguez. The filmmaker, speaking at his office a few weeks before “Revenge of the Fallen” was released, seemed to have some pride of discovery when talking about Rodriguez.

“I’ve worked with big stars, people like Will Smith, Sean Connery and Bruce Willis, but casting is a weird thing, it takes you places you don’t expect,” Bay said. “We went looking for a sidekick in this movie, Shia’s sidekick, and we find this new kid who really pops on screen. I think he’s going to have a real bright career. It’s great to work with big stars, but it’s always fun to discover people.”

So it looks like we’ll be getting a lot more of Leo in Transformers 3: Rise of the Revenged Fallen Again Plus More Robots We Couldn’t Fit in the First Two.