Welcome back to those amigos with Freda Rodriguez and yours truly when my mother, Ama, well, what do you uh, what are we doing here? What is this thing that we continue to sit on?
You know, still a little coffee? Are we gonna move on to something else?
I don't know. I think we're gonna have to spice us up a little bit. Spice it up, man, spice it up.
With our good friend there, Aaron was good.
Uh, everything is everything.
I am just having a great time listening to you all reflect on life and everything in between.
And thank you for being here.
Aaron is one of our executive producers here whose whose knowledge for conversation is in incomparable. So we're so grateful to you here with us here, and you know it lead us into our next conversation next Chad. You know, you know I will be you know I would be fullished in our point out. That has been such a privilege
to get to know you on such a level. And you know, it's crazy we know each other so well, and every episode we dig deeper on the roots of how this all really happened, and it continued to validates why I think you're such a special human being that I'm so proud that it show can you know, introduced to so many people too, and and you know, and to give like some of our existing friends and family and just you know, maybe some of our fans, you know, a window at what it took for us to get
to their homes or to the theaters, you know, and and so that's fun. And as we think about that, you know, I think about inspiration.
What is this inspiration?
We talked about our breaks, you know, we talked about what it took there, the mentality that we had to have to go into these rooms and conquer Goliath in different ways and not know that we were actually performing at that level and giving ourselves that great in that space to kind of appreciate that trajectory from you and
from me. But there's a lot of inspiration that had to be around us, I would think, right, I would think that we would have to have had certain images, certain individuals that did it first perhaps, or individuals that you know that somehow, you know, we're along the way that kind of helped us see a deeper version of ourselves or more I don't know, a vulnerable yet powerful
version of ourselves. And you know, there's a lot of people I believe in my career that I can look back at, well, I mean who was my inspiration who
told me that I could too? So for you, like, what were some of those images, What were some of those individuals that you were like, oh, that's like me, or like oh I can do it like them, or even if that wasn't it just like just knowing that the possibility was, you know, was was out there for you to reach out to, Like who were some of these images when some of these people that inspire you?
Yeah, well, you know, for me growing up in Chicago and having two older brothers, I was lucky enough to almost live their teenage years vicariously do them right, And so we would you know, we lived in a in a one television household with like a lot of Latino families. Oh, absolutely, the dials, the hangar as, the pliers to like change
the channel. But I remember really early on watching TV with my brothers and them pointing out, always pointing out who the Latino Latino actors are, right, I mean.
We obviously grew up with like with the Rita.
Morenos of the world, with the Anthony Quinns of the world.
You know people like that.
I remember vividly, like Jimmy Smith's being on TV and my brothers pointing.
Out, like, yo, that guy's Latino.
You know. I remember seeing East SiGe Morales in the in the in the eighties. I remember seeing Andy Garcia in the nineties when he first came out and what a what an incredible movie star he was, right, I mean, it was the first time I had ever really seen someone like that and and speak Spanish and like a like a major.
Blockbuster studio movie, you even play other ethnicities, right, but yeah.
Yeah, yeah, right, playing playing Italian and The Godfather or the Untouchables, you know. And then I remember seeing Leguzamo, our mutual friend John Leguizamo. And the reason why John resonated a lot with me was, you know, seeing Jimmy who was so classy and or or Andy who was born in Cuba, like John, was one of the first guys that I saw that I felt like I could
see that guy in my neighborhood. You know, there was a deeper familiarity with him, and so I remember watching him and following him closely and really being proud of what he was doing and also giving me the inspiration and an example of what I could do when I started.
And how different, right, I mean, he was such a different type of performer and he was doing it.
Like nobody else was.
He allowed himself to be a different type of performer that was bringing something to the table that was not going.
To be forgotten.
Every perform you remember every performance, yeah, I mean even as like all the way to like the clown and spawn, right, Like he's done so much iconic stuff to that point, and then he does the clown and you're like what you know, but he was taking shots and he was taking chances with his performances and his choices that just most actors wouldn't, you know. And you know some people would be afraid to do it, to do those too well because they could get typecasts, you know.
And he was just one of those guys.
And he was unapologetically Latino the entire time at a time where Latino wasn't necessarily the popular cast.
Yeah yeah, and wasn't afraid to be a character actors scrappier, yeah yeah, And came from that generation of what we were talking about this earlier, of like character actors, you know, like creating characters and voices and completely losing yourself and the character. And he definitely embodied that. You know what about you, I mean, you know you you came here as a teenager, and this is pre internet, pre cable.
I would assume like, what was I mean, what were you watching out in Venezuela that that inspired you, that made you think that it was possible for you.
So in Venezuela, you know, Venezuela is like always ten years late to get like new programming. So my collective archives of television memories, Yes, it was crazy until I was watching first of all, I Love Lucy in Spanish, course in Spanish, in Spanish, which by the way, I never knew he had an accent until I watched it in English and in the United States.
So wait, wait, so what did it sound like? How did he sound in Spanish?
He sounded like the entire cast was speaking in Spanish. It was not in Spanish. None of them had accents. Huh, right, so they were speaking Spanish.
Yeah.
So when I came to the United States and then I was learning how to speak English, I went back because I've seen every episode of I Love Lucy, and when I started watching I Love Lucy again, I realized, oh, wait a minute, that's what Lucy both sounds.
Like, and he has an accent, right, and I didn't know that.
Huh.
So that was a magical moment for me. When I heard his accent. I was like, oh, that's like me. I have an accent. I just learned how to speak English. I have an accent too. But you know, beyond that, back and when it's well that we were watching stuff from you know, there was a live action Spider Man from the seventies or in the early eighties, you know whatever there was, you know, lu Forarigno's Hole, Charlie's Angels,
you know, chips. I wanted to be punched so bad, you know, you know, and you think about all those shows, you know further, and then you kind of had a collect every think like the Simpsons were playing and like The Fresh Prince, you know, shows like that that were like,
you know, obviously making its way into syndication around the world. Literally, did I know the syndication was created by the one guy that didn't have an accent and then eventually had an accent when I watched him in English and the United States, and that was Ricky Ricardo.
Leasi Ernest.
I didn't know he created Syndication.
Yes, he was the He was the guy who who said, Hey, I'm gonna show with one more than one cameras and we're going to record it, right and once they recorded it, this thing was available for sale internationally everywhere. So he accident to create it, the Syndication in the multi camp format and you know that that entire thing, you know, and and they owned it, you know. So so those are the kind of inspirations that I grew up with, like The Punch, you know, I grew up with Chico
and The Man, you know USA, you know. So these were shows that like somehow was creating the solution that
we were also included pop culture. You come to America and start watching TV and you realize that it's leaning away in the other side, which is fine, right, Like I didn't see anything wrong with it until I realized what America really looked like and what was really reflected on those stories, right, I never really knew you know, where we were in that in that in that inclusion meter, you know, did you feel like they were did you feel like when you were in Venezuela that they were
specifically showing those shows because they were latinos in it. No, I think that they were selling contact around the world, and I think that the things that were really popular in the United States were an easy cell for international markets, right, and you know, they were also selling like packages, you know, like maybe CBS Corps at the time, We're sending all their CBS sitcoms, you know, and then we're selling them
across the world. I don't know what some of those factors playing in that time, but I was growing up with that. And then when it came to movies, you know, Rocky, you know, Cobra everything still yeah, you know, Conan Terminator, you know, everything are no right, like in our countries and back in in Latin America, these movies action movies were the ones that they played every weekend in TV, you know, on TV.
So these were some of these images.
But I mean to me, these characters, you know, were larger than live but they were capable, and there was like these single mission guys. Yeah, Arnold's Commando, you know, like.
Commando, you know, all these things.
You know, you watch all the Godfathers in Spanish, you know, and yeah, was.
It always in Spanish?
Yeah, because we're watching free channels.
Right, there was only two channels, Karakas and Venevicion, and they syndicate all this stuff.
You know.
During the weekends, they would play The Extorcists, the Rocky movies. Yeah, they played Superman, the Christopher Reeve movies, right every weekend.
And in the movie theaters.
We had a tiny little movie theater on the weekends and we had only RoboCup, like robo We played Robo cup all year round in the movie theater, you know. But you know again, so these were some of the influences. And I think Punch, yeah, Dessi or Naz for me, we're like, oh, Punch is like it's like a hero, you know what I mean.
It's like out there catching the bad guys.
Desi er Nas wearing a suit, is playing music at a life band, and you know, he started doing a scene with John Wayne, He's doing a cameo on the show.
You know.
It's like I was like, how cool is that? You know?
And so I think those things really inspire me and started like opening my mind. But never, never, as I was growing up, ever thought that I'd be one of these guys that eventually could create something that could maybe outlive me.
Does it?
Does it ever freak you out that, like, you know, you just described your childhood, you describe what you were watching like you're that guy now, like you're you're Eric Estrada now right to this next generation of kids in Venezuela and Colombia all.
Through the world. You know, does that ever? Do you ever think about that?
I never, I've never really take a moment to I can appreciate the fact that what I've done somehow, I've made it out there. When you really hit me was when I went to Venezuela to visit a bunch of years ago, many many years ago, and there was a channel there, Sony Entertainment Television, and Sony had all the shows, but they had him in English, you know, they just subtitled in Spanish, and.
He did really well for young people.
Young people loved watching it in English and reading the subtitles in Latin America. And when I went down there and I saw that my show was playing and the small little town that I grew up in, yeah, you.
Actually saw on TV. Oh wow, that's it.
That's when I was like, what just happened? Yeah, in the same living room that I grew up. Yeah, that I was watching the shows.
Now these shows are full circle coming.
In this way, and so that was a moment that really felt, oh, like, when I'm doing is something real? It's not just like you know, it's not just playing right, and you know you always knew that it was there was something to it, you know, but I just think you know it doesn't. The impact is like when when you walk down the streets of London and you've never been to London before, and all of a sudden someone's like, hey, you know, grew up.
Watching your show with a British accident and you're like, whoa. I mean like I've never been here.
Somehow somebody knows that I exist a different like Singapore. Was walking down Singapore and these two ladies were leaving the store after that closed it and then they looked at me because oh I couldn't speak English, and so that kind of stuff that it really kind of hits you and makes you go, whoa, man, this is Maybe what we're doing is it is larger than we think, and like what we are putting on that screen is also you know, like what are we inspiring you know people with.
Did you have you had instances like that? Did you think to yourself like WHOA, Like, you know, it was cool making the movie, and now it's like, yeah.
I just recently this sort of encompasses it. I had somebody around the holidays, I did this holiday movie and this around the holidays, I ran into a fan randomly and they said, you know, I love this this holiday movie.
You did it.
It's called Nothing Like the Holidays.
It was a legamo and media of course, and and she said, you know, me and my me and my father used to watch this movie every holiday.
And I was like, oh, that's beautiful, you know.
And then and then she gets tears in her eyes and she's like, but he's passed away, you know. But that's the thing that we had, is that we would watch this movie together.
And now she'll watch that movie and it'll take her back to her dad.
Yeah.
Yeah, But it's been stuff like that, you know, really receiving the emotional impact that I've had on people, you know, and that really means a lot to me because that's really what I'm doing right, Like I'm I'm I'm offering a form of escapism for people, right and you don't know what's happening in people's lives, and you know you really think about that, right, Like, like, we come into people's most intimate spaces, right, we come into people's living rooms,
we come into people's bedrooms, spaces that only only very few people are allowed to be into, and we're moving people emotionally in these spaces that are very intimate and dear to them, you know. And I think that that's why when you run into these kinds of people that they feel that they know you because you've moved them
emotionally in these intimate spaces. I mean, they spent hours with you hours man hours, you know the same way that we did, right, you know, they like like like the vision that you that you shared with me in Venezuela, the same way we did.
Right, we're coming up.
We're watching Punch, you know, chase people down the one on one you know, like, but but we spend so much time with them in our living room.
Did you think about what what was your show?
Was?
It? Was it Punch? Like there was it Chips? Which one was? Yeah?
Chips man, yeah, all of that chips.
Yeah.
I remember specifically seeing Eric Ostrada and.
Going like, oh wow, man, there's like one of us, you know, he did a Spanish soap opera.
Those those coming, those those coming, those those weirdest gummy coming.
And which means two women on the one.
Uh.
And I watched that soap opera in Spanish. You did my mom in Venezuela. I think we were back in the United States at this point. I forget, but it was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And it was crazy about it. It's like I grew up watching him Punch, so of course as a little boy, I was like, oh, Punch is in a Spanish stillingela, Like I started watching him in those those modism comino and and the dude. The show is quite literally what the title was.
It was.
Women to figure out which one and they both were like, you have to pick yea.
It weren't even mad about him two women at the same time. Is that what the whole show was about? What the show is about?
The whole time he needs to make a decision between, you know, between these two actresses to the two these two characters.
Wow, and it's the dilemma, you.
Know, you know, why is his destiny but the other one he's in love with.
You know.
It's like like it was so it was so crazy, but only Spanish stilling over lets can sell you on that fantasy, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow.
I remember my mom watching that, you know, but but I you know, you were asking me was it paunch?
Was it?
I remember I remember watching you ever seen this movie Internal Affairs with with Andy Garcia Richard Gear.
I don't know how well.
We got a hold of the video tape back in like the eighties and we had that.
Movie on heavy rotation, and I remember Andy had a couple of lines in Spanish in that movie, and.
It blew my mind.
It was like the first time I had ever met I couldn't comprehend. It was like, well, wait, this guy is the lead guy, Richard Gear, major Hollywood movie and he's speaking Spanish. You know, it blew I don't I don't remember ever seeing that, like in like a major American film.
Like that before.
And when you see an American actor speak her language, it's like, you know, culture just like oh my, you know what I mean, It becomes it becomes interesting. Like I've seen Ben Affleck. Dude, fool.
Can speak better Spanish than you and I.
By the way, he sounds like, you know, like.
You know, he literally does.
He sounds like he's from like TG.
Yeah, but you know, but we give them so much respect because whoever tries, you know, our culture rewards and we're loyalty, you know.
And it's beautiful to see what actors really try. Uh.
And I think it's becoming more possible now with our where characters are finally more in tune with the responsibility we have as we portray these characters on screen. You know, back then, you know, some of these characters were either not the imperfect or the bad guys you know, or you know, they were in the mob or whatever it is,
you know. And and so to to see that there is a a new generation of Latino characters, did you feel a little responsible for like what you do now or how you pass down the torch?
Oh?
Man, that's a good question. Do I feel responsible?
Yeah?
Yeah, to an extent, I feel the responsibility. I always felt the responsibility, especially after seeing those guys and me realizing that I'm the guy who came next. I'm like, if I got to follow that up, man, I better be on my A game twenty four to seven, you know. So yeah, in that sense, I felt the responsibility. You know, A great feeling is when I meet like new actors you know, who are coming up, who are doing wonderful work.
Who who.
Say to me that they've you know, watched me when they were in school, or they came up watching me, or they studied my work and that inspired them to become actors. And so that, you know, I always feel this responsibility, not not necessarily to like mentor them, but to but to really be available to people like that, you know, because they're just going through what we went through now, uh, and if there's anything that I.
Could ever offer.
So that they don't fall into any pitfalls or or learn certain etiquettes or or you know, certain gems of how our industry works, and to make the path maybe a little more or smoother for them, you know.
And you said something that really triggered another point for us is, you know, they're about to go through similar journeys that we went through. Right now, how is this industry and compared to when we broke, you know, in comparison, like what do they have against them, you know, you know, and.
What they have for them?
I would say, if you you know, if I go first, I would say that what they have what they have for them, is that the level of technology that can support your independent art from the industry itself is so much more available for you to show what you can be. You can sharpen your tools sooner to become a director, to become a writer, to become mean, there's so much Like you can go to YouTube and teach yourself how to write a screenplay.
You can go to YouTube and teach.
Yourself how to light a simple scene so you can shoot it with an iPhone or whatever. You know, you have a situation here now where like you know, you have a moment in time now where where where I think young people, you know have the tools if they really want it, and at that point they can make
their own stuff and they can work backwards from it. Now, what they have against them is a fracture industry who's trying to figure out how to sustain how to sustain a signal, how to sustain an audience, how to engage with content that can continue to push limits and not feel the same movie with a different title.
Right, How do you open the door.
For new talent and for a new wave of superstars who can expand ideas into levels and universes that television and movies have not gone before. And there's a struggle for that entry point, you know, and how do you break in? But so it's an interesting balance, right because for us, when we aim to be what we are now, our biggest struggle was that there were not enough parts for Latinos. And if they were, you knew where they were, You knew what they were and where they wanted you
to be. And I started thinking about also, you know, there was only four channels doing network stuff.
Cable wasn't really the.
Aboundance of opportunity like you thought, you know, and you know, theater you know, they was not sustainable for a lot of actors, right, and then movies were like, you know, a pop here eight months later, popped there, you know. And so it's likeness, instant of signal. But do you think, for you in your mind, what do they have for them and what do they.
Have against It's a good question, right, I Mean, if we're just talking about sort of Latinos and latinos, you know, it's what they've always had against them, right I And look, I'm just pointing out the facts, right, I mean, just turn on the TV and and and count how many Latinos and latinos you see on TV right now, Right, So that's indicative of the opportunities that that's being afforded, whether it's you or I or the generation that came
after us or the generation who was here before us. Right. So, so the opportunities are certainly slim. It's hard to say whether it's it was slimmer back then or it's slimmer now. You know, you know, when you try to gauge how many of our people that you see on TV, at least like what you said. You know, back then, we at least had like movies. Movies were abundant, whether whether it was you know, studio movies.
Or the I mean there was three or four releasing every weekend, and they're all were like real, yeah, real.
Iconic stuff that we still remember to yeah, yeah.
And people were making money on movies.
They were making movies for the first time, like ideas for the first time, refreshed ideas. They're always trying to do, what's a movie we haven't made, Let's put that in three thousand screens.
Yeah.
Nowadays it's like, who, how do we get capitalized on on the success of that movie?
Let's make another one like that?
You know, yeah, yeah, I mean even you know, it's it's great that that fans have grown up watching my movies, you know, from the nineties, from the two thousands, you know. And I'll sometimes get fans that will go, hey, man, how come you don't make you know, they'll name one of my movies from the nineties and two thousands, and I'll just go, well, they don't make movies like that.
Anymore, man, They just don't.
Yeah, And if they do, you know, there's there's no budget behind those movies. People are not making moneies off those movies, you know. So at least when we were coming up, we had we had a couple of different
avenues that we can that we could go in. Now, the movies that actors, you know, have the opportunity to fight for are these gigantic budget movies, and they're so far and few between, right, So then that that means that a lot of the quote unquote movie stars are sort of funneling into the movie into the TV industry, right right, And now everything is sort of name driven in the television industry, which it wasn't like that when you and I were coming up, And so a lot
of those roles are being gobbled up by them right, and so like the newer generation, although it may seem like the opportunities are more vast, a lot of those roles are being gobbled up by other actors so that there's less opportunities for them.
I think, I don't know, I may I may be wrong.
I know, I think you're right.
I think you're nailing it, dude, because the illusion is that there's so many streaming platforms, there's so many networks, cable networks, you know that that are all making script is stuff, nonscripted stuff.
So the illusion is that there should be tons of parts.
Yeah, but you know, it's it's also seems like, you know, you know, it's not going to be things that are going to help you the amount of stuff that you're going to have to do to sustain, right, the volume that you have to now capture or or or get as an actor in order to just sustain. Because because there's no such thing as like, I just got a movie that a lot of people saw and that's going to pave the way for me to get a new movie, Bryan, give me that energy to now I'm going to get
a TV show and all that. So that makes it really difficult, right, because now it's like, you could do four movies and nobody saw that she have to go back to audition for the next one, right, because there's no such thing as that, And so I guess why all the question is, you know what we think about this? You know, how does that translate to multiple industries?
Right?
Multiple careers of different genres, different industries. What can people expect to think about right now? Like what would you be? What would be the advice for a young person that's like, okay, well I want to be you know, I want to be a doctored or I want to be you know, like, how do we you know, what is inspiration for that? We can talk about that. It fuels ambition again into in this younger generation.
Well that was part one. Stay tuned for part two.
Stay tuned. Those Amigos coming right back.
Dose Amigos is a production from w V 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's Abos.
Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez Aaron Burlson and Leo Clem at WV Sound.
This episode was shot and edited by Ryan Posts and mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison Devenport and Halo Boy.
Our cover our photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny host.
Claw And thank you for being a third amigo today.
I appreciate you guys always listening to those amos.
For more podcasts from My Heart, visit the ir Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
So you next week.