Adam Rodriguez: From the Bronx to the Big Screen

All right, hey, this is Freddie Rodriguez and I'm Wilmer brother Rama. Welcome to the Those Amigos podcast. You know you can see we're already laughing Roman. Well if you're not, you can hear our smile also, but you can see it as well. So all of you who have been watching and listening to our podcast for so long, thank you so much. He is a very special episode for us because our third amigo today is someone not only very dear, but he's really blood brother with us.

Yeah.

Absolutely, he is my family. His mother is my mother, his father is my father. I know his family dearly, and I love him like he's my brother. Ladies and gentlemen, please help woman, and I welcome Adam Rodriguez.

For this interview.

You can keep your shirt on.

Please you. I'm like, where are my hat? I'm like, how am I looking?

Because the crowd speaking of shirt on, I remember and I'm going to just start here. Adam came to my house one time and we were playing poker and my wife cooked. You know, she's Puerto Rican, she could Puerto Rican rice. And Adam came with his own tupp aware of like salmon.

When was this?

This is like a decade and you're in production probably like imagine, Mike, Yeah, I went to every restaurant in LA with that, because I didn't stop my social life.

I would literally go to restaurants. Luckily, I go to the same places all the time, so nobody gave me any ship. But like I would bring my little prepared meal and sit and have socialized.

But I was just gonna eat whatever was in that.

Elsie was like, aren't you going to eat?

I made rice and I was like, no, man, I got my little salmon here.

We're like, come on, man, we were drinking back then. We're like, come have a drink with us. No, man, I'm having my little salmon.

But I got it to explain to our listeners and our yours. So what happens is when you're entering a role and you're preparing for a role, you have to be incredibly strict because not only you have to be in some type of shape, but you also have to maintain it for a certain amount of time.

I can't even imagine for Magic Minke, because you know that was.

That changed my life.

Man.

Those movies are that first one especially, but then the second one as well, Like you know, taught me about diet and how critical diet is to getting in shape because when that call came in.

So I've been training with a guy named.

Tito Raymondo and now it's become a dear, dear friend of mine over the years. We probably know each other twenty years now. And you know, remember when I got that job, man, I was like, listen, man, I wasn't like I got to be a male stripper.

Man.

We only had six weeks to prepare, and I.

Was, you know, six weeks, only had six weeks.

I always keep my body moving, but I'm never like, I don't walk around with a six pack.

That's just not me. I enjoyed, I enjoy eating. I love food.

I'm not like, you know, oh my god, I don't see a six pack, Like what's up?

So I was like, is this going to be possible?

Man?

You know, because I don't have six weeks to do this? Like, am I going to have to take steroids?

I don't want to.

I don't want to do that.

Yeah, but this is a massive opportunity in my life to like, you know, and I got to show up prepared and a challenge for you to big time challenge you know, Steven Soderberg and McConnaughey and Channing and you know, and just an opportunity to be in a in a film that I knew was going to be seen on a scale that nothing I'd ever done before was going to be seen. And so, I mean, I don't think anybody could predict how big it was was going to

They shoot around you.

Like yeah, like.

Forward.

So I was on a mission, man, to just like make sure I was my very best. And he was like, no, no, we don't need to do that, like you're not gonna And I was relieved because it was the first time i life, I had ever even considered, you know, maybe doing well.

Nowadays nowadays, that's like the first thing, you know, a trainer is going to be. It's like all right, cool, we're gonna get you on this and this, and there's no like negotiations like can I do it with food?

Can just Fortunately Tito was you know, he had a bodybuilding career and he was natural. He stopped the bodybuilding actually because the next level for him would have had to be you know, to get on you know, steroids, a whole program of that kind of thing. And he was like, no, you don't need to do it, man, but you're gonna have to work your ass off in it. And I never worked so hard man, between the diet and you know, two three hours a day of cardios.

How many how many days were you working out with.

I worked out six days a week. Yeah, I was working out six days a week. Sunday was like, uh, you know you could have one cheat meal on a Sunday.

What did that cheat meal look like?

Usually, like I love breakfast, It was probably like pancakes.

You know that's early.

And and then I would hit cardio and because I yeah, I was doing cardio seven days a week. I mean I remember seeing you seven time, man, So I was on set. You know, I was getting up, you know, before my call time, getting cardio in, then getting my workout in. You know it's not usually before work or if I got an early call time.

Whatever it was. I was navigating all of that. And then my meals were just programmed for for the day.

So I had six weeks man, and and and what I saw what my body could do.

I was like, wow, this is incredible.

Who prepared your meals?

So I had my shout out to Rohan.

My boy wrote Rohan.

Yeah, Rohan is a chef, Rohan and he he yeah, he just he was up for some sidework at the time.

So him and I would meet at like a parking lot of a smart and final deal beach.

Here's the chicken breast, two big bags with food like fourteen meals in them for a few days, and we would exchange.

And like I'd give him the old bags with old container.

I mean, I got exactly what it looked like a drug deal and look like it up to Miami vice man.

But yeah, we got it done.

And then when I learned that, when the second movie came up, I was more confident bout knowing that I could be able to do it.

Yeah I'm sand at this point.

Yeah yeah, but yeah, I just learned a tremendous amount about that man.

So so just kind of recapping a little bit.

Everyone loves you for many things, but I want to make sure we gave you flowers a couple of things.

So so you are iconically we're one.

Of the first, you know, batch wearing a good guys Latinos on TV, you know, see Outside Miami, which was yea, and you know, for us to have like a dude that was catching the bad guys and that wasn't the bad guy on the cop show, it is absolutely beautiful.

You were one of those first ones to be on prime time to do that.

So I want to make sure people understand and realize how how much space we got to make for that, because because of characters like yours, you know that cast could be colorful after that, right, So that that's that's something you should know that we all know it isn't we all know that? Then you go from there.

It's funny real quick.

Just a footnote on that that I got my SAG card as a standing in photo double for a guy that was Latino wearing the badge even before that on New York Undercover Michael de Lorenzo.

Yes, well, well look we got to start from the beginning, yes, yes, right back, because I was kind of what were you where were you born?

I was born in New York. I was born in Yonkers, all right.

Really got a flat so hard look that New York cat.

He came here repid, so so okay, so you're born in Yonkers, right, what did your what did your pop and your mom do?

My father, he was figuring it out.

My dad was always a hard worker, hard working guy, just trying to figure out to ray shout out pop uh to where to direct that energy really, you know. And so he was a military guy for years and then he sold insurance.

He drove limos.

He was a lawyer too, right, Well, he was trying to figure it out, and my mother, I think, was getting a little fed up, and he's like, listen, you need to pick.

Up the pack.

You know, we got to move on because you know, you need to get get life figured out or whatever.

And so when I was I.

Guess I was about five, he moved up to Boston to go to law school. He started going to college end of the seventies. He went to Fordham University in the Bronx and then he moved up to Boston and went to Northeastern Law School. And so he gi bill, Yeah, he took advantage of the gi bill and then he went up there and he was he lived there. He would come home, you know, probably once a weekend for sure, sometimes more, I mean once a month for sure.

Sometimes twice because he had to come home to do army reserves.

So he would come home, do his reserves, see us, and then go back. He probably came home maybe more than once a month. But yeah, so that was the deal for like four years. And then he got out of that, and then it turns out he he instead of practicing law, he ended up working, you know, for New York government, just like working in an office for small business. I'm trying to remember what it was. It

You know, my dad.

He just bounced around wherever there was a good opportunity bouncing around. He's very charismatic guy is you know, yeah, yeah, you.

Know, he's a sweetheart, he really is.

And that personality actually, I mean, as the story goes on, you'll see really where that had such a big impact on my life later on down the road because I got my first break, you know, not to fast forward too quickly, but really got my first big break from a guy that my dad was in the army reserves with.

How did that come up?

Man?

So I started doing I started doing background on New York Undercover and.

Doing that for a couple of years.

And through that process was you know, I knew I wanted to act, but I just wanted to be on a set somewhere, and so the opportunity to do background work came up. There. I became a regular sort of uh you know, part of the background crew on that on that show, and then became a photo double and a stand in, and that's where I got my SAG card. Made lifelong friends there, you know, Malik Yoba and his his sister Rahima and you know, just a crew of

That, black and brown together, black and brown.

You know, you've seen black and white a million times. Bill Cosby and you know the guy that he used to do I spy with him, blanking out on his name Robert something maybe. But anyway, you know you I mean countless you've seen Black and White. Nick noted the Eddie Murphy you know, the black and brown together on that show you had never seen.

And the soundtrack.

Was hip hop was all over.

That show, and it was current and in the moment, and you know, people our age were like, oh, that feels like us. You know, it was really ahead of its time in that way.

And shout out to Michael too.

I mean, yeah, Mike.

He was a dancer and he was in Fame. Man, he was in Fame, the television show Fame. You know, uh, super talented guy.

Man. So those people on that show, they they just were so good to me. Man.

Richie Owings was a costume designer and uh you know they had some people in other departments. Anyway, they helped me get head shots. Shout out to Stephen McBride man. He was a photographer and basically my first photo shoot I ever did. Like the people, they were like, look, we want to put it, put together. Photo shoot will make you the subject of it. They just helped me out in ways that you know that I'm so grateful for. So anyway, I'm doing this for a couple of years, doing extra work.

But how did you even get into it? Into extra work?

Well in his past, Like Wendy, You're like, you know what, acting.

How did that? Okay, you know what?

Taking it back to that, yeah, you know, leading up to all that, it was always sports, baseball in particular, I thought like, Okay, that was going to be my path. I'll go to college and play baseball. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to take it, you know. Somewhere from there, about eighteen, you know, I had a couple of injuries that I realized, like, this just isn't going any further. I didn't have the discipline to get back on the horse and go after it in the way that that.

I realize now as a baseball was my spouse. Yeah, yeah, and.

I look back on it now and I'm like, yeah, you see, the guys that make it, they just either you got to be uber, uber talented on a level that's like, you know, hard to believe. But even with that, even with the talent, if you don't have the discipline and the drive to work hard, the talent's only going to take.

The perfect star.

Yeah it is. You got to have it all man, especially to make it to that level. And so.

I didn't have that, and I was trying to figure out what the next move was. And so I knew it wasn't college for me because I wasn't this, wasn't interested in learning in a structured environment in that way. That just that just wasn't for me. I love learning,

To my mother with your dad, she was pissed that I wasn't going to I can see her doing this pissed for years.

She was pissed that I wasn't going to college. I mean even after I started working as an actor. I think it really was a thorn in her side.

So you're eighteen, you said, you're like, I'm not going to college.

Janet cracks the whip.

Cracks the whip. So I'm like, cool. I had a job as a bellman at a hotel.

Oh well what hotel I was?

Uh, I was contracted by Marriott. Marriott was the contractor, so technically I was an employee of Marriott, but it was an IBM owned property. It was this beautiful campus across the water from Manhattan, uh, in an area called Palisades, New York. And it was basically a facility where they educated and hosted all of like Fortune five hundred.

Events.

Basically, so like you know, let's say, like the c suite staff of a Fortune five hundred company might be sent there for a week.

It's like a corporate stay for the for the think tanking and exactly.

So we were serving those folks and I was a bellman and I did that for a couple of years.

Man out of high school.

I mean, people make careers out of that.

Yeah, yeah, no, I never thought about it. Never, Never for a moment that I think I was going to stay there in.

The hotel you man, Like, yeah.

You're making I'm sure I wasn't making, like not the kind of like I always had big aspirations, man, I always yeah, but dreams for me, it was like yeah, never that's for better or for worse, you know.

Yeah, So what was there an image or something that made you go like I can do that?

So I'm you know, I always believed growing up. I I was a latchy kid. There was you know, my mom was always at work, my father was always at work, and so you know, I was home probably eight hours a day by myself, me and my sister, eight to ten hours a day between the morning and the evening. And so I watched a crazy amount of television and movies, Like the TV was on twenty four seconds?

What like what was what was man?

Like every single thing like you know, oh Man, yeah, Ships, Charlie Different Charlie's Angels, Bionic Man, Bionic Woman, yeah, or six million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, wonder Woman, Uh, credible. Spider Man used to come on like the old old Spider Man would come on on like Saturday mornings, and I mean it was bad.

It wasn't even like the incredible.

Hope was good with with with with lou fregnant bhil uh bixby, thank you nice pull.

I was trying to and.

Uh, you know so I mean just all the time, love Bold. I mean everything that was on in that era. Like I mean, I knew the TV schedule top to bottom. You could ask me what was on TV at what time? I knew exactly, Yeah, what was on at what time? And I just you know, I loved all that. And then movies. You know, as a matter of fact, I ran into east Side not that long ago, and I

And I'm like, it was fantastic. He was such and still is. I mean, but he.

Yes, how many people can face off with Tom Critiz.

Come on, man, you know, but you even see him back then with Sean Penn, and he was, I mean, he held the screen strong and anybody in that movie and Bad Boys he was you know, he was on fire Man, and then I put Leabamba on for the kids not that long ago. And brilliant man, just brilliant the guy, you know.

I mean, he's so good, He's so damn good man.

But you know, so there were a few people, and I know, you guys know like that you could look at and be like, oh, that could.

Be me, you know, but there were only a couple. Won't that many?

Freddie Prinz, you know East Sigh at that time, Jimmy Jimmy hadn't even really emerged yet really until late eighties that I remember seeing. Hey, Erica, Erica Strada was early you know Erica Strada for sure. I remember meeting him at the Puerto Rican Day Parade when I was a kid, went to the Puerto Rican Day Parade his back of my father was driving limos and so I got to meet Erica Strada somehow. I remember that, like probably late seventies, seventy eight.

This is before soap operas or after.

No No he was doing at the time. This is like, yeah, he was a guy.

So you know, there weren't There weren't a lot of faces that you went and that allowed you to imagine yourself being in one of those casts and so New York Undercover. So taking it back to how I had this moment. So I'm working as a bellman. I'm enrolled in community college just to keep my mother happy, and and this is where I could stay living at home.

At the time, I wasn't ready to move out yet.

I'm still eighteen, trying to put my dough together. And I started sending my head shots out. So I'm like, oh, let me you know, you had headshots so well. So I was like, maybe acting is a thing, right. So I'm going to this community college and I'm like taking an acting class.

And I had a moment where I was like, damn, I could do this. This feels great to do.

What made you take it? What made you take an actor?

Because I was always I was interested in the arts. Man.

I just was like, whether it was music or it was you know, I was basically interested in anything where I felt like there was something free form about it, you know, the idea of going to school and taking a very rigid, structured classroomtality. Yeah, I needed something I was I don't know, something in me just felt like I was trying to find myself and these were the places I thought I was going to do it, and so, yeah, I ended up in this theater class at this community

On the weekends.

And then in return, instead of paying me, I was allowed to take this class of.

Hers for free.

And so you know, so I did that. But I was just messing around, like I never thought about doing it for a living. And here I was, like eighteen now, in this class, eighteen or nineteen at the time, and realizing that I needed to start getting a little more serious about.

Life and figuring out a direction for myself.

And like I said, I was taking this theater arts course doing this scene. In the middle of the scene, I just.

Felt like I was flying. Man.

So had that feeling that you get, you know, when you're doing the thing and having and it feels great.

And I was like, this is this is it? This is this is.

What I'm looking for, you know, this is I want to chase this high again somewhere else like this was this is what I felt like when something exciting was happening, when I'm playing baseball or doing something where you feel those butterflies a little bit, but like the action is happening and that feeling of like everything else disappears, you know.

And so I was like, I'm going to chase that.

So that like, oh, what about you know, some background work and so start somewhere in there.

So all right, let me get head shots, let me do this and do that. And so I got head shots, I wrote cover letters. I sent them out to like every single casting agency in the Tri state area.

And how'd you find that?

Like in the yellow Pages.

Back in the day, there was this thing called the the Little Blue book Man, and you got it at Samuel French, which was in midtown in Times Square, there was a Samuel French bookstore.

They had all the plays.

And then they would have this book and I keep wanting to call it the rob Report, but it's not. It's the Something Report. And it had a list of all the talent agencies from top to bottom, biggest to the smallest, casting directors and everything. So I just went in there, man, I bought a stack of like two hundred yellow envelopes, put a cover letter and my head shot and all them sent out, you know, sent out.

A stack at eighteen years old.

Yeah, it was probout eighteen or nineteen at the time.

That's a you know, trying to figure it out, man, just to see like what, you know, what, what can we drum up here? And and then while that was I mean, there's so many men I think back, I'm like, man.

So what was the first bite? Like when you when you were sending that out?

A couple of bytes came in.

I think I did I did some background on a movie, and I can't remember what it was. And then the bite I remember most distinctly, man, and because it led to a lifelong friendship, was I get a call when I had some work.

As a bellman and I get home. It's late. I listen to my messages and uh, and there's a call.

It's probably about ten o'clock, not that late, but uh, there's a call on there and it says, Hello, this is Ulysses Terrero from TMT no way only because there's an opportunity to work for an Academy Award winning director. Uh, and I need to know if you're available and have a bartender's uniform for uh.

I forget if it was the next day or the day after whatever it was. So I'm like, oh shit, man, Academy Awards. That sounds crazy.

I'm like, this sounds shut out releases, Yulie you.

I pick up the phone right and I call right away.

I have bartender close because I'm bartending at a place on the on the weekends when I'm not doing the bellman job, a bartend at this little restaurant and uh. So I called the guy back, but it's after hours, right, So I call the same number and.

He's like, yeah, what's up.

And I was like, it's the same person that left.

And I'm like, yeah, what's up?

Man. I was like, listen, I got a message on my answering machine answering machines, so I said, uh, you know there's uh there was a message about some extra work for this Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, let me do so, uh you have you have bartending?

Yeah?

I have that, all right? Can you be down at Tramps at such and such a time. Yeah, yeah, I'll just say yes and so. But but of course I'm like, who's the director, you.

Know, because I'm trying to know, like who is this kind of like who's the director? And he's like, uh, I can't tell you. I can't tell y'all. That's that's confidential information.

That be pandemonium in the.

Streets if I was to tell you what pandemonium in the scale. So I'm like, well, ship man tomorrow or day after whenever it was.

I was like, I'm I'm about.

To like be in comt.

Somebody maybe like man, maybe somebody's going to get a look at the kid, and like who knows, you know, you know, it's still silly enough to believe that that's all it would work.

It could happen that way, right, like you yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh I got a funny story like that too. Actually.

So I show up at this thing and it's like it is a low budget movie, as low budget as you can imagine, and it's taking place in this little this spot in New York called Tramps. There used to be a club. And I get there and I meet the guy that was on the other end of the phone call, and and it's Ulysses. You guys know Juli and uh, you know, young Dominican guy looks like you know, it looks like somebody I'll be friends with, Like he's my age, Like he's a casting director. Those guys who pioneers,

He did have a not a lie. But I had no idea who the guy was.

I don't know about the PanAm or from where. I believe oh Man Brazilian, Mexican.

I believe he was Israeli.

I'm not sure. I would have to look it up. The movie was called The Minotaur, and I don't know if it ever saw the light of day. I have no idea saw All I know is I was there for about eighteen hours. It was non union extra work. I might have made fifty bucks, right, but I made up and I made a friend for the rest of my life. Like you know, So I met Yuli, and then Juli would put me on to anything he was doing, you know, extra work wise for the next couple of years.

Dropping my head shot off. And my dad knew a guy that was that was a teamster in New York that used to know my grandfather.

This guy, Sonny Volkee. He shout out to Sonny. Sonny was married to a woman who used to bartend at a bar in Spanish Harlem that my my mom's dad used to go in all the time, and so family knew each other or whatever, and Sonny was he was like, yeah, yeah, I had already sent my head shot down to New York undercover and Sonny was like, yeah, go again.

We do the driving over there. So then yeah, project, So I had gotten one day of non union extra work there and.

Then who did you get to see shoot at that day?

The day that I did it, I played like a little like a like a delivery boy. I had an apron on.

It was like I was delivering something to the precinct from a bodega or something like that, and you know I brought up a little bag or whatever was in the bag coffee, saying but that's a feature extra, right, So no, I didn't have any lines that I was I was talking about, you're you got a shot?

I got something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So I meet on that day.

Actually I ended up meeting Rahima, a girl named Paschelle who Michelle Robinson who was uh was the costumer, and vet man blanking out on e Vet's last name. So these three women that were running the wardrobe department, they were working for a guy named Richie Owings, and Rahima was my age. And so anyway, we all just become friends, like we become cool. And they were like, yeah, we gotta look out for you, like we gotta make sure you gotta think.

About the New York community. The filmmaker New York community was very small. Yeah, if you were doing something in New York, they're usual suspects, right, Like they're gonna be calling to do the wardrobe of this, especially.

Right there was not Yeah, more movies were being done there at that time, but television hadn't had the resurgence yet, right, But even.

Movies were like maybe one into maybe one to a year.

I mean that's not yeah, no, no, at this time. I got to tell you.

At this time, this is like, let's call it like ninety four through ninety seven. There were there was, there were quite a bit of movies being shot at the time.

Well, didn't didn't we work together?

Back then? We never worked together.

I went on a cattle call for dead presidents and waited online like somewhere in the village, but I never not. I think Jesse might have done. I think Jesse might have done some background on that. Yes, And so that's how I got to see Jesse Torero.

Yeah, shout out to Jesse Terrerorero man, yo, quick, quick, good story I had. We would have these like monthly dinners, you know, me Adam, Jesse Terrero whenever ULI was in town, David Ortiz, And one day Jesse goes, yo, man, I was your standing on dead presidents?

And I was like what you were?

And there was something about like Jesse's sort of body language, like of course you were.

Man, that's crazy. But I didn't know until like I love Jesse too ariosold.

Yeah, I just I mean, I've done how many music videos you do.

I don't know, probably five.

I've been his Vigo, I saw those, Yeah I Didluma Ones, I did that.

We've seen that.

Yeah, that did a few shout outs to Jesse to he's a giant, he's speaking of cinematic guy. Just such beautiful, beautiful human beings man, So shout out to them.

And always looked out for the homing.

So yeah, yeah, So how did how did New York Undercover change your life?

Like?

How did how did things change from there?

You know, I think it changed my life in the way that I got to be on a set almost every day of the week.

All of a sudden, were you Were you.

There for all five seasons?

No, No, I was there. I think that show lasted three or three and a half seasons, and I came in. It was already running when I came in. It might have been already on for.

The first let me see the first The first time I did background on that was I want to say, say October and ninety four, maybe right, And then it became a regular thing the following like around February of

Is like, you know where to be at what time, and what is going mean all of it. It was like going to school, you know.

And then on top of that, being embraced by people who were you know, participate in that on a on a on a level that was you know, uh, a bigger contribution than I was as a background player at the time, you know. Was uh, you know, it was incredible because it was like it was making community, you know, I was. I made friends that I'm still friends with to this day after all.

Those years, you know what I mean. Like and so it was.

It was also one of those things sometimes like when you're looking at something from the outside d you feel like so far removed from it, and you know, you can't really imagine how you could ever be a part of it. And then all of a sudden, I was, I was in the middle of it, you know, and and you realize, like, oh man, it's just people.

All right, So I'm gonna hold you right there because this conversation obviously has uh has a lot more layers to it, and the dance in the detail from you Adam is inpeccable.

So this is part one. Thank you for watching part one, and I hope you guys stayed for part two.

If those Amingos, Dos Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael through That podcast Network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez and Wilmer Valdorama.

Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer Zabos.

Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson, and Leo Klem at WV Sound.

This episode was shot and edited it by Ryan Posts and mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison Devenport and Hala Boy.

Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny Holtz.

Clau and thank you for being there third amigo today. I appreciate you guys always listening to Those Amigos.

More podcasts from my Heart, visit the ir Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

See you next week,