Welcome to those amigos.
Welcome to to amigos.
Here we go, ready boom, What are you sapping on there? Uh?
You know a little?
Do you know that today felt like a cup of teach today? I started my day super early today.
What was your car time today?
So today I didn't have to be on set, but I started.
I did a workout in the morning, and then I had a couple of little things that I had to do, and then I had a bunch of meetings, a comting for some top brass help for the company as we're expanding some other ways, you know, so where I have meetings like back to back to back all day today and it's just and you can.
Throw my voices a little rasping.
It just ended down.
Yeah.
Oh, I didn't realize that it just kept going today and so it was a really long day, but it was It was nice.
But what was your day?
Like?
What did you do today? Good?
Same? Some exercise, some uh you know stuff.
At the house. I work on the blutes.
Glutes. No, No, today's Monday, right, it's.
Like the chest day, the chest yeah, chest.
What time does your workout start in the morning?
It depends on the cold time. Like if I if I have a seven a m. Cold time, I try to get in there at four thirty am. Wow, four, you know, and that's more often than none. Yeah, So I for thirty in the morning, I get it done. If I have a late call, I'll work out like eight. Yeah, I try to sleep in a little bit and spend a little of time in a cano.
Maybe take her as cool if I can. Yeah, And then it worked out. But you work out in the morning till you get out of the way. You do it like whenever.
Yeah, you know, a little later in the afternoon. You know. Morning is like coffee, meditation, you know, prayer, you know, stuff like that.
I try to get that in first then and you do prayer home or you do go somewhere.
Yeah, do you go? Do you go to church on the weekends? Yeah?
Yeah, here and there.
Well, I guess we'll talk about where they're yeah, yeah, you know, because I've been looking for church. Well, it leads us perfectly into our theme of this episode. You know, we we in the last couple of episodes, we took a lot of time to understand one another in levels that we hadn't before. Kind of go back to who
our families really were before we were any possibility. We went right into how we became not just a possibility, but then the operating in the environment in which we grew up, the sacrifices some of our parents have to make for us to kind of have a notion that we can do a little bit or go a little farther than they did. And you know, now we enter like a realm of like, how do we get here?
Right? How do we get here as actors? How do we get here? As in retainers?
It's individuals who like, you know, when you do all the odds and you do the math, you know, we had no business making it this far. You got that right, right, So I guess the big question is like, what was that first job that that you're like, you know, I got one.
I got a funny story before well it, let me just explain when I was. When I was like fourteen fifteen years old in Chicago, they used to make these things called industrial films, right, So the National Heart Association was doing an industrial film, I guess, so they could watch it internally in the company, and I landed it, and I was going to make seven hundred dollars and I was like, Yo, fourteen fifteen, seven hundred dollars. I was like wow. I was already planning what I was
going to do with the money. And it was my first time on set. And I don't it sag because I was there almost like twenty four hours. It was mad illegal. You know. I was a minor and I should not have been there that long. But but I felt like a working actor.
Man.
I was in front of the camera, I was acting scenes, and I was so excited to not only see it, but to get that seven hundred dollars.
That's crazy.
So I waited a week, right, the seven hundred dollars is not there. I waited two weeks or three. I waited three weeks and I was like, man, the money hasn't arrived yet. I said I should go to the agency to see where my money is, right, And I remember going to that agency and taking the elevator up, and as the elevator approached the floor that the agency was at, the agency was empty.
No bro, the chairs were on the desk. It's like a boiler room, man, that's like literally boiler room movement. Man.
They made out with my seven hundred bucks, and I was like, wow, I'll you know, I like swore off agents. I'll never have an agent again. Man, I'm going to like stick to theater in Chicago and like, you know, but about a year later, I got an agent and the rest is history.
So that's my So that's my first fora and that was that was your that was your Chicago.
That was my first Chicago agent. And then that's when I signed with the big agency there Suzannai. Plus.
So I was going to this night class on Wednesday nights. I had gone to this.
Well you know, so when I was a little kid, you know, we drive down and there was a commercial online and it said like are you between the agents.
And blah blah blah blah.
You know, you think you got what it takes to do national commercials and Saturday morning shows, then come and show up to the La Ex Hilton and you know you're going a lot. You do have some a panel of experts are going to deem to see if you got what it takes.
And so I so I convinced my dad.
You know, it's like, hey, Dad, I heard that if I do a little commercial here and there, I make a little money and bring them to the house.
My Dad's like, okay, me is see what's up.
So we went over to you know, we went over to the Hilton and Lax and it was like a catacle.
Bro.
It was like that's how they got people. They threw the fish net out on this radio station. People would show up and their kids, you know, walk over there and they walk on this plank. They get to the end of the runway, they look into camera and they say their name, their age, and where they're from, and they turn around. And then that's what the expert needed to see to gim you.
Whether you're a store yes, that X factor right right? And why you said your name?
Yes? Yes for sure? No man, you I had just learned to speak English. Okay.
So I get on stage and I walk down that plank and I get to the front of it, and I said, hello, my name is we mad about that?
You know? We met about that rama. Uh.
I'm sixteen years old and I'm from Venezuela, Columbia, Venezuelan, Colombia.
I turn around and I walk away.
But but did you feel like you had to say it in a way that was like no, I'm gonna stand out, I'm gonna no.
I thought like, okay, they're just slating and I just said that, and somehow, surprise, surprise, I had what it took.
You.
But but in my and in everyone's defense, everyone had what it took. Everyone got pushed to the front of the desk and then they asked you, hey, you know, here's how it works. You're gonna pay this many licessions. And you know, it was basically going to those things where they just get your money, you know, you they you know, you pay for commercial slate classes, you know, drama classes, comedy classes, audition classes.
And there was this thing called Beverly Hills.
Studios, Beverly Hills Studio, and I don't even think it was a perfect name. Yes, yes, Beverly Hills every pretty prestigious.
Pretty prostigious, and you know, and and I don't even think it was in Beverly Hills, you know. So so my dad is like looked at the money. He's like, oh, this is.
I remember how much it was.
Yeah, it was something like like six hundred dollars for you know, ten classes of commercial and then another three hundred dollars for scene work and cole read yeah, you know, so just eleven hundred dollars damn.
And that's a lot.
Bro, you kidding. We weren't making that in three months. But my dad found a way, you know, and borrow some money and he just.
Put me in there, you know.
And and I went to the school and I only telling you this part of it because you know, I then this teacher named Sela's Boy started teaching me for free at her house on Wednesday nights, who was originally a part of that part of that teacher. And she's like, yeah, I like to teach you on Wednesday nights.
So she so I was like, oh, that's cool.
So I went and started, you know, taking classes and there was like thirty year olds and twenty year olds and I was sixteen and I was doing scenes with so many different ages and it was like really good practice.
Wow.
And she introduced me to this agent, very similar situation, right, and and you know this agent had these other you know, small sized agency and he says, I'm not going to represent you, but I'm going to take you out of some auditions and see what happens. And like, I went out on one, I think one Dorito's commercial did not get it, but the feedback was like, hey, pretty funny kid.
Pretty funny kid. But he has an accent.
Oh wow.
So so that's why I couldn't get the part.
They wanted a Latin person, but he couldn't sound right, so I didn't get the part. And but then he's like, well, let me see, I want to send you something else. And then so my first thing was I know this audition. I don't know how, but I get booked to this region of commercial for a smart yellow Pages commercial, Yellow Pages yellow Pages commercial and it was so California only,
and what's funny, It's like it was the Spanish. It was for the Spanish market, for the Spanish speaking market, and I go and I grabbed the Yellow Pages and I look right to camera and I say the Pacific Bell Smart yellow Pages.
But with a really strike accent.
The accent was crazy in English, in English, in English. But the whole commercial was in Spanish, you know, and you know, I had my fake mom, I had my fake sister and the whole thing. I was like, oh my god, I'm doing it. But my whole part was just like yeah. And that was my first commercial. And so with that money, I got that.
Money and what did you make?
How much did you make?
I think it was six hundred bus sixteen hundred bucks.
Sixteen hundred No.
Yes, it was sixteen hundred bucks because it was a complete like buyout thing and whatever and on that and so with that money was no, it was twelve hundred bucks. So with that money I paid my my Screen Actors Skill member thing, and that actually I could apply now and they.
And then you know, I paid my dues and I became a SAG member.
Of course that membership was you know, we got to pay a lot of money at the beginning, and and so I became a SAG actor after that. What was so obviously it's a journey. Yeah, right, as soon as you start, like you taste blood for a second, you're like, oh I can do this, you know, and you start editioning, addition, auditioning.
How long did it take until you got that one gig where you were like, oh I do this?
Oh wow. So so after that movie I was telling you about, I was doing pretty okay in Chicago. You know, I was pounding the pavement. I think covered this in the other episode. Did you know an episode of of like television that was coming through Chicago at that times? John Wells thing this other thing did a couple of commercials, but it wasn't until I did a film called The
Walk in the Clouds. That was really my first first movie that turned where I I got to turn pro, you know, And so sometimes I describe it to people like, you know, I was kind of like Lebron or like Kobe, you know, I just kind of went pro right after high school because I never got a chance to go to college yet. So that happened, you know, high school was over. I was doing pretty good in high school.
I was booking stuff in Chicago, and everyone in my family, pretty much all my brothers and cousins all went to college after so obviously the pressure was on for me to go to college and I wanted to act, you know, so I you know, my dad was on me, people were on me, and I was like, look, just just give me a year. Okay, give me a year. Let me pound the pavement. Let me see what I can do with it. This year. And that year was an
incredibly dry year and nothing was happening. I had to take this like third shift job at this like legal common place, you know, working from like midnight to eight in the morning, and nothing was happening. And then Eventually I was like, Okay, I guess it's time for me to sort of wrap it up and go back to school and to figure something out. And then I landed an Illinois lottery commercial and I was like, oh, okay,
the tide is changing. Things are picking back up. And then I landed this movie called The Fence with this guy Billy Worth who was in The Lost Boys, and I played him when he would have flashbacks in the movie, and I was like, I landed in an indie film. Awesome, all right, this is starting to work. And then Merchant
of Venice came through Chicago at that time. Now I may be wrong, and John Ortiz may be able to correct me on this, but I believe it was elaborate theater production, and I believe it was John Ortez and Philip Seymour Hoffman came through Chicago at the Goodman Theater and they were very interested in me being in the
play because I was a local. Now, for those who don't know, the Goodman Theater in Chicago, the good Men and the stephen Wolf and those theaters are like Broadway to us, right, and so I was always too young to do those theaters. And I was finally at the age to get to do those theaters. So I was super psyched that they were that they wanted me to
be a part of it. Then I got an audition for this twentieth Century Fox movie, A Walk Into Clouds, and it was Keanu Reeves and it was Anthony Quinn and it was Keanu's follow up movie to Speed.
Oh my God.
And so they were putting me on tape in Chicago, and I thought, well, you know, man, I'm in Chicago. Like you know, I didn't even think anything of it. I went in auditioned once. I auditioned twice, like three times. I auditioned in Chicago. Finally I get a call that they were going to fly me out the screen test at twenty century Fox in LA out of Chicago.
Have you been in LA before?
Never? Dude, Dude, I had never really even been out of Chicago. Yeah.
And so all of a sudden, I do West Coast.
I'm like this nineteen year old kid. I'm staying at this crazy expensive hotel over an Avenue of the Stars and in Century City, you know, the Fox line is over like on Pico, And they bring me on the Fox lot and it was like it was the most magnificent thing.
It's a magnetic saying when you're working in.
Anybody who comes to LA when they drive to the twentieth century lot, you enter those gates and as soon as you're received by these massive sound stages and you just know something went on in here, you know that you probably grew up with.
I mean, it's just legend there, dude.
You just feel the history when you walk in, you know. And I was so taken by it all. And I remember going in the audition and I was like the only guy auditioning and I would have like the wardrobe person coming up to me and like, hey, all right, let me take your measurements. And you know, it was like I almost had it, but I had to go in and still like do the screen test. And it turns out that it was just sort of like a formality, you know. I went in there, I screen test. They
were like all right, all right, thank you. They're like go in the next room and go get your makeup done and like.
Figure it out.
And that day they told me I got it.
You know, dude, well went through your mind. I was myself.
I was by myself, you know, I was still telling.
Cell phone to call anyone on cell phone.
I was still technically living at my parents' house, you know, I was. I was like a like a snotty nose theater kid from Chicago. All of a sudden, I landed this gigantic movie. It was so overwhelming. I didn't know how to how to process it, you know, I just I just went back home and got ready and then shipped off for three months by myself to go shoot this movie with Canter Reaves and Anthony Quinn. And it was our phone so owls follow up movie to Like Water for Chocolate.
Yes, yeah, it was incredible. Yeah.
At that time, Like Water for Chocolate was the highest goes. Oh my god, it was the highest grossing for foreign film of that time.
Yeah. Uh.
And this was his follow up movie to it. Gean Carlo Jannini played my dad, which is a legendary Italian actor on Helicott. I go on all of these wonderful actresses from Mexico City and then the crew was all from Mexico City, right. So uh. Emmanuel Lubeski five times Oscar winning DP was this was his first American movie. Achievo as we call him. Shout out to the Chievo.
Oh, yes, of course, I mean the guy. He's the man. Oh, he's he's like a legendary guy. He's impossible to have a meeting with him right now, you know.
Dude, Yeah, after those five oscars, Yes, sitting on his desk. And so I remember I phone so Al going like, you see that guy that's in Chievo Man, we call him the boy wonder. He must have only been a few years older than me. Man, he looked so young, you know. And the B camera operator on that movie was Rodrigo Garcia, who is a wonderful film and television director. He eventually became one of six feet under his most prominent directors. He was the showrunner on In Treatment on HBO.
But he it was the B camera operator, and they were all like kids. They were all just so happy to be there. And it was the first time I had gotten like the taste of what the film community must have been like in Mexico City. Even when we were filming the movie. I remember one time our phone Soo says, Hey, I want you to meet somebody man.
He just directed this movie called I think it was called Little Women, and it was our phone Quarn and he had come from Mexico City to come and hang out with all his guys, you know, on the set. You know. So I didn't really understand what I was experiencing at that time. You know, I was just a kid. I was nineteen. I was just happy to be there and I was there with like a ton of legends and didn't even know.
And he goes, tell you how long they've been doing it too? Yeah, you know what I mean, you think about how long they've been on that same grind.
Yeah.
So you get the part and you're.
Like, uh, like what now, Like so when do you.
Have to shoot?
After you got the pall Like immediately it was like, you know, a week or two later, they were like get on the plane and.
You didn't even go back to Chicago. Did you go back? Yeah?
I went back to Chicago a couple of bags.
Take a bag for the month.
WK. Yeah. But I had to make like this crucial decision, you know, because like they wanted me at Merchant of Venice. So I was giving up this dream to do a play at the Goodman Theater. So I had to choose between school because my dad was like, you gotta go to school Merchant of Venice to give up a dream to do that or to go pro and to and to take the movie. And so I I took the movie. And that's the best decision I ever made.
I think, what so what? What was that first day? Unsaid? Like you rolled up to a real movie set and you're.
Seeing all these actors you've seen before, and the camera's there and you've been doing your lines the night before, and then you what can and what?
I just remember feeling relaxed, man.
Really, yeah, must be nice. Yeah.
I don't know, maybe because you know, I was like a cocky like Chicago kid, you know me, I probably got it, Yeah, but it was more like I know what I'm going on there to like do what I do, you know, And I was super relaxed, and the folks was awesome and everybody was so cool, you know. I think maybe that was why I felt so relaxed. Because Keanu Reeves first of all, like everything that you hear about him is absolutely true. Man. I mean, he's probably one of the nicest guys I've ever worked with in
my life. I mean, to this day, every time I see him, it's like we're right back to you know, that time. And it was I mean this was right after speed Man. He was the biggest superstar.
Biggest heart throw too.
Oh, huge, huge man, but the nicest guy and just understood. And we were like the two youngest guys on set, you know. I think he was like thirty and I was like nineteen. Everybody else was older than us, you know, so I think that we related on that level. But he made me feel so welcomed and was so incredibly nice to me. And so it was our fon So and John Carlo and everybody. It just it just became like this instant family right away, which lent itself.
To the energy on that screen too. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, that's unbelievable.
Yeah. And then they get to work with Anthony Quinn right, which which was you know, I didn't appreciate it at the time, Like I almost wish I was older because Anthony. I was excited to work with the guy from speed right where Anthony was a legend obviously, you know, but he was more like our dad's generation, right like I was. I was still a kid, and I didn't appreciate it.
That's a privilege. I mean, I had a run in with Anthony Quinn when I was nineteen years old, myself, did you Yeah, I didn't. I didn't work with him. But we were at the Hispanic Heritage Words in Washington, d C. At Theaet Center.
And that's a really crazy story, a really funny story.
I want to hear it.
Yeah, we save it for another opiod. That's a very good one.
Uh well, you know it makes me reflect on, you know, that feeling. You kind of took me back to that wondrous feeling where you're like had the audacity of.
Thinking that like I got this. I'm waiting for you to say action.
You know, like the world where you have this confidence, this level of confidence that is so unaware or not just the environment, but the people that are in that environment that have earned it longer than you, and you kind of almost have to have that yeah, right, like you're gonna almost have to not do the math and just do it, you know, right, because I remember my biggest break came, you know, at you know, at a moment where in my life where I felt certain deficately
we needed it the most, right my I think, you know, talked in the last episode where my dad's mask that was was stolen.
I made my dad this promise, like I was going to be this actor.
I was gonna make this money and I was going to have restaurants and have all these things. And you know that we're never gonna have to pay rent again, and you know, we're not gonna have it have to worry about that stuff. And you know, and I and my dad said okay, may you can do that. I feel like he gave me permission to do it. And I was like, great, now I know I can go ahead full thrott over this thing. My dad was probably being like okay to me, Oh, you know, do what
you want to do is okay. You know, like I don't think he understood the magnitude of what he had unlocked in me. And I was doing like his belief in you yes for me. I looked at us like he saw me.
He said. I told him I was going to do it.
He believes I can do it, and he told me go ahead and do it. And that's how I took it. And you know, I was doing a lot of theater in high school, you know, because you know that was like my obsession and learning how to speak English, was getting on stage and we're doing stage over and over again.
And then.
You know, this agent told me, you know, told me, all right, We're gonna send you in this pilot. I'm like, what is a pilot? I'm gonna play a pilot. I'm like, no, it's a pilot. Is the first episode? Was that the first pilot you ever auditioned for? The first pilot you ever auditioned for?
First pilot?
Man?
Wow, I hope you enjoyed Part one.
Hope to see you guys in Part two. Dos Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael through That Podcast Network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez, and Wilder Valderama.
Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer Zabos.
Our executive producers are Wilder Valderama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson, and Leo Clem 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 Helo Boy Our cover.
Our photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny Holtz.
Clau and thank you for being their third amigo today you show you, guys, always listening to those of Englis.
For more podcasts from My Heart, visit the irheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
See you next week.