Oh man, they gave us a podcast, and they gave us a podcast. We are so hello, Hello, here we are and the podcast.
I'm Freddie Rodriguez.
Say my name is my name? My name, I'm Wilmer Valderama.
I'm very excited for all of you who have been witnessing this union. It feels like it's like a wedding now, no, I I just also want to call out to all the fans and and all the supporters of the podcast. You know, we're a couple of episodes in now and the feedback has been awesome, you know, and you guys are downloading and that means a lot to us because these conversations as therapeutic as they are for us, yeah, so they're also for you.
It's like a big therapy.
Session, like every dinner and every coffee you and I have ever it is.
Yeah, we're just sort of unloading, you know.
Ask me how I'm doing.
How are you I'm tired? You're tired?
Yeah, yes, I'm really tired.
But but but why are you tired? And we had this discussion upstairs, but we're gonna we're gonna open it up to the audience. Where are you tired?
You know, I'm tired because I've I've realized that in the growth of some of my entrepreneurial ambitious I realized that I'm only one man. Yes, and I've been really privileged to have like an amazing team, right, Like the department heads of all of our our entire company do a beautiful, effortless job of keeping you know, the dream rolling in different.
Hills, you know.
So, so that's been that's been great. But I'm a little tired because I'm also shooting a full time show. I'm shotting a full procedural drama on on CBS, and so in between takes, I'm sending my emails. Between scenes, I'm making calls, and lunchtime I'm doing my zooms. And then when I get home, I finish my catchups and I read the scripts that I got to read or whatever it is. Yeah, and then I hang out with my four year old daughter, and you know, and that's
kind of how it's been. It's been working, you know, But I.
Don't know how you find the hours in the day. Really, it's impressive, bro, I'm not I'm not just saying that because you're in front of me. I thought I worked hard and then I saw you and I was like, I ain't got sh it on this, No, bro, you.
Know you know what it is. I think we talk about it all the time.
It's like, you know, you get an opportunity to do something our families have never done, and you're like, well, not only have to really know it, yeah, but I also have to now kind of you know, drive it forward.
You know, I have to kind.
Of like, okay, do it in a level that nobody's ever done before. And you know which actually kind of drives us, you know, to to our episode of the week. I think a lot about what we've been talking all the way up to now. And you know, yes, if anybody can hear that, it's my washer and dry that's just outside the door.
Just didn't just didn't. You know we are and to speak easy. You got you do have to go through the life room.
You got coffee, you got laundry, I got it tied and downy, we got room keys.
But without without like strain too far away from the episode. One of the things that I was excited to explore today is the audacity to dream something different than our family. How and why did we have the you know, last to dream something our parents were so far remove know they were, you know, and and I wanted to explore it because in the last couple of episodes we've gone to know each other's stories before we were even an
idea to our family. And you know, the inspirations, the thing that it took.
What was that break? You know?
But like the mentality, like what multi generational expectation did you have to break to make what we do possible?
Like you know what I'm saying, you know, you know where I'm going, and you know, I know we covered a little bit of this in the previous episode, but I think what you're saying is, and this is where both of our families are similar because they came from somewhere else to the United States. Is there's a bit of a one track mind, right, wouldn't you agree a little bit?
Right? We're families because they're somewhere else. Right, Your family was in Venezuelan and Colombia, in Puerto Rico, and and uh, you know, there is this mentality of like we're gonna leave this beautiful country landscape weather, uh, and We're going to go somewhere else because that's where the opportunities are, right, And I think that there's a bit of a blueprint
that comes with that. Right. Sometimes a blueprint is you go there, you go to school, you get a job, you get married, you have a couple of kids, and that's the way life goes. And that blueprint is to be repeated in some way. And when you deviate from that blueprint is when I guess us we have to ask ourselves what you just said? You know, where do we get the audacity.
I mean and bigging back in with what you're saying.
I think it's a sort of interesting thing to reflect that that our parents were also taught by their their parents and their parents' parents to do enough to survive, right, like continue to search and making sure the light stays on.
Survive is the key word there, right.
Like and in our culture, you know, we're we're workers, right, We're you.
Know, we're we are in the beehive, like just working and working and working, you know, and you know, and I think that you know, I think I also wonder there was always thinking my dad. Did my dad think about long terms to build? I don't think he was equipped to understand how to create multi generational wealth or what he was going to.
Leave behind right.
I think he was kind of caught in a web where he just needed to make sure there was enough food on the table and that we had a roof, no matter, no matter the cost to himself and my parents' relationship and that of stuff. So it's interesting to think about that, and that's why, like that sacrifice almost made me feel like, oh, that sacrifice.
Is being made so I can do something more right, right. And I don't know where along the way I thought that that was what the sacrifice was for, but I quite literally think now as I look back, not just culturally but the trajectory of the Valda Lama family, everything that was done just so it was so.
We, my sisters and I had a better shot, And like, why aren't you gonna do that better shot?
I mean, think about it.
You remember you telling me about your your grandfather, the hard heart is working guy. You got a day off and he's like, I'm gonna help my neighbor paint the.
House, right, you know what I mean?
Like like it's it's like the ever search of just not just being in service, but like affording you.
A better step in the ladder, like a little.
Higher stuffing about it, right, Like to get closer to you know, do you know where I'm going with one percent?
And that's a really interesting observation. I think that I don't think i'm speaking abo having my parents too, right. I don't think that my parents or my dad, or my uncles or aunts came to Chicago and we're thinking about generational wealth or what to leave behind or any of the things that you just mentioned. I think they were just trying to survive, right, check a check right week per week, maybe save a little bit and go and buy a house, or buy a building, or maybe
invest a little here and there. But I think that that was the extent of it. I think that that them us growing up in the States, we started to learn about generational wealth. We started to learn about leaving things behind or leaving stuff behind for our kids. And that's one of the luxuries that we get from living here, right, That that that our that our folks didn't get when they were living where they were living.
At So so in that same vein, like, what do you think what was the common denominator from for for us to have a different mentality, right, Like, we had to have been aware of the struggle, right, that's number one I would say, like, that's ingredient number one. See our parents struggling to keep it even Yeah, Like maybe that's the ingredient one. But then like what makes you go,
I'm going to be this right? And but for us, like, look again, we picked a whole artist states get in so so do as we say, not as we did, right, But it is a very funny thing to think about, Like, you know, Okay, now I'm going to be a little more ambition than ambitious than my parents.
But like what made you go, Oh, but I'm going to go that much more ambitious?
Right? Yeah? Let me ask you something before you decided to go down this path, were there other things that you were interested in, other professions that you were interested in or interested in pursuing, Like what what were you interested in?
So when I first got to the United States at thirteen, yeah, coo, so I was about to turn fourteen, but really I was thirteen. I wanted to be a pilot for the Air Force. I wanted to fight and f sixteen No way, man. I saw those those fighter jets and I was like, I want to do that, and I want to do it wearing the American flag on my shoulder.
He's like, that's what I want to be.
Yeah.
I started meeting different people from different branches of the military, and I was like, I want to serve, you know.
And the other one was psychology.
Hmm.
I was fascinated by strangers.
Yeah.
I am still very much fascinated by the human mind. You know how every decision is based on thousands of echoes, of lessons and traumas that shape your instinct every single day, And like peeling those layers was fascinating to me, you know, And I think that's that's that's that was an interesting thing for me.
I mean, I was fascinated by it. I was really intrigued by it. And I think as soon as I become an actor, it's like, oh I.
Can I can't play I'll play a pilot on TV or a film, and but at the same time, I get to explore individuals, people and all these characters.
But you don't but you don't think that if you would have gone down the path of becoming a pilot or or or psychology, you don't think that you would have approached that with the same fervor and ambition that
you approached acting. So it may be, it may be that that component was in you no matter what, right, and you just happened to choose acting and so then you activated that component in you that made you go further than So this would have been inevitable in whatever profession you would have chosen.
Yeah, which, which is kind of what I'm trying to get to, you know, I'm trying to get to what is the common denominator that could really.
Be passed on?
Yeah?
Like what how do we pass this on to everyone listening?
Right?
Like how do they relate to this point?
Yeah?
And we're trying to make everyone out there it's either carrying the burden of multi generation or inheritance.
Yeah.
Right, some maybe enjoying, right, enjoying what's been passed down, right and right. But but but for most people, like like us growing up, we were passed down you know, the ability to just like survive, like just do enough to live, you know what I mean, and be a worker, you know, work hard work or work as many hours as you can, you know, because that's like that was the way.
Yeah, what about you?
Did you would you have had a different profession at some point?
Do you think?
Because I know your family was going in one direction, right, your brother.
Yeah, yeah, I think back I and I know I've said this a couple of times. I just wasn't you know, I wasn't interested in anything else, Like, there was nothing else I was particularly interested in. And so when I discovered the arts, I think that I think that one, I was born with a certain uh and I'm just ambitious person by nature, and so I think that whatever I would have chosen, if I was passionate about it, I would have approached it with the same ambition and fervor.
I think that survival, right our our family's position in the United States and their need for survival was injected in me at such a young age, and so there was this there was this do or die attitude. You know, there was this all my eggs that are in one basket attitude because you know, I didn't have a trust fund, right, My family wasn't rich. I didn't have anything to fall back on, and so there was this attitude of like,
this is going to work or nothing, buddy, and that's it. Yeah, because I had not I didn't have rich parents, or I didn't have like a rich uncle who was going to leave me a million bucks.
You know, do you think that's what's missing from most ingredients.
So for most recipes to success, the ambition aspect. No, what you had just mentioned is like it has to work. I have anything else, I want to do nothing else. You think that leap and faith in you is what Actually it's the ingredient that that that separates you from trying it and doing it?
You know, is it? Is it sort of the magic bullet? Is it the magic ingredient?
You have to be that delusional to be like, I mean, I can't do nothing else?
Why else? But why else would you choose a profession where where you just don't know where your next check is coming from? You have to be a tad delusional in order to right and and it and it's you against the two three hundred other people.
And we're the first parachute is in our family?
Right? Like, yeah, you know, while while you're you know, I've met your your siblings. You know they all are normal.
Well, I'm like, I like you and I Marilyn and I are pretty crazy.
No, but they you know, right, they they did what what the parents expected them to do and are doing very well at it. Right. But but we had a certain we had a screw loose uh in there to say I'm gonna.
Jump in the ring and this is the only thing I want to do, and this is it.
So I mean that trigger is something for me because I had made a promise to my parents.
Going back to that episode, what we talked about.
My dad's car was tolen, and I told my dad, don't worry, Dad, I'm gonna be an actor. I'm gonna make this money and I'm gonna have restaurants and i'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna we're gonna buy us a house. We're never gonna have to pay rent again. That are
like all these things that I have promised. I feel like when he gave me permission, like when he said, okay, mayho, you can do that, I feel like, oh, not only he gave me permission, Not only he say yes, I could go to soccer practice, you know, to acting class. I know, like you could try that. But I feel like, Okay, now I have to make this work because.
You made a promise. Yeah.
Interesting, you know, I don't know, and I and I think this this hypothesis, this interesting philosophy or equestion.
So you were being beholden to this thing I had committed you committed.
Yeah, right, I committed.
I committed to saying this is okay, I got to take care of my family. I'm taking the role of this was fifteen years old, right, I'm like, I'm gonna make sure that we don't have to worry like this again, and then my mom and my dad doesn't have to worry this hard.
And you're the oldest, right, the oldest. Yeah, so there's also that component being the oldest the two younger sisters, right like right, like you know.
Yeah, I still think I still I'm still wondering what was that that other thing? Right because you go, okay, well I'm gonna be I'm going to be an actor. Right I could just learn how to speak English three years before that, right right, right, like I'm going to be an actor and thinking it was just like saying I'm going to be a lawyer, I'm going to be a cop, I'm going to.
Be a teacher, like it was just like going to be an actor, like what But.
But I remember you saying when when you started to tell me that you started acting, I was like, well, Wilmore, did did you do it? When you told me your story about you know, your first auditions, and all that, and I'm like, well, did you do it before? And you were always like, well, I was. I was sort of the class clown. I was sort of this So like you, you you recognize that you had this particular
ability way way before you had the audacity of hope. Right, So maybe subconsciously you were like, well, I I was born with an ability to kind of do it. Yeah. Maybe that was as opposed to saying I want to be a star? Are I want?
You know, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.
You know. Uh, you know it's funny, and this is like an awful comparison, but just follow me for a second. I remember reading an article with Michael Jordan and they said they asked him, you know, could could anybody be Michael Jordan? And he said no, people could be at different levels or degrees of Michael Jordan goes, but I was born with a with a very specific ability to do what I do, and and within my journey, I just I just kept developing that thing, that skill that
I was born with, you know. And he recognized that really early on, you know, So it could be that you were born with a very specific ability to do something your your subconscious told you that, and you just kind of went with that because because what else would make you go that crazy to put your eggs in that basket? You know what I mean?
Yeah? Yeah, because I was always in dancing and actings.
I was six years old, but I did it just because it was mandatory in school, right, Like in Venezuela, these classes are mandatory, but you must.
Have gotten everybody's doing it, but you must have gotten somebody going like hey.
I mean I saw people laughing, right, probably more than everybody else. Was tasting the fruits of an entertainer. I was like, oh, I'm entertaining high school right right. But but they were not until I came to the United States, where I was like, okay, the more acting now I do it in school, the better my English, right right, so using it from my English, and then there I was like, hey, you should do some commercials. You make
some money here there or whatever. And that's like that's like, wha, I can make money doing this thing.
Yeah.
I never was thinking I was going to be like successful, famous actor like that. The ambition wasn't that I'm going to be the most famous, you know. The ambition was like Oh, I heard that I can make a couple of commercials and make little money, right, and then that turned into the first pilot of you know, the show.
And but but but A foundation of that was rooted in very early experiences when you were doing it in school. And I'm sure everybody I was.
Subliminately shopping a tool, right, like basically but everybody.
I'm sure it was getting a laugh. But the laughs and the looks might have been different towards you, because I think that people recognize or might have recognized, an ability that you may not have even recognized in yourself.
Yeah, you know, I don't think.
I don't think I fully comprehended that I maybe was equipped to do it, Yeah, until I started doing it. What about you, did you have a moment where you were like, wait, I've never done this before, but it came natural.
Yeah. I remember I was in the seventh grade and I had a teacher named mister Levine, And like I said in the previous episodes, we had no arts at all at school, and he would he would make it a point that on Fridays he would inject some form of art in the class. And we were having a talent show at our school. Did you guys have talent shows?
We were having a talent show. And I don't know how he got this because this was pre internet, but he went and he got a scene from Different Strokes, you know, with Gary Coleman, that TV show, and he must have seen something in me that I didn't see, because he said, look at the talent show, We're going to do the scene from Different Strokes and you're going
to play Arnold. And I was seventh it was seventh grade, so I was like twelve, you know, and I was like okay, and so like I got up, and this was at a point in my life when like I just I was just really lost, and I wasn't in sports, I wasn't doing anything really and I got on that stage and I performed the scene from Different Strokes, and I saw the look on everyone's face, and it was the first time that anyone looked at me like I was doing something that was good wow, which I'm sure
must be the look that someone gets when they're really good at baseball, when they're really good at basketball, when they're really good at a math paper, when people go, WHOA, you're different, You're good at this thing, and it was the first time anyone looked at me like that. So it had nothing to do with like, oh the applause or like I'm going to be a star.
What did that mean to you?
I just thought, oh, it's the first time anyone's looked at me like that. Maybe I'm onto something. And then the next year is when this theater company came to
my school and I got involved. And part of the motivation for getting involved was that experience I had the year prior, when I was like twelve, you know, so you probably don't remember, but you might have had the same experiences when you were in Venezuela, where people were kind of like, well, well on a second, you know, the arts is a requirement for everybody, but there's something a little a little different about this.
Guy, right, Yeah, No, for sure, I remember a clear moment where I was on stage and I said something and the entire audience started laughing, and I was like, yeah, well, I like the way that failed, you.
Know, yeah, and I just kind of kept kept kept at it.
But beyond the feeling you and you're probably your young brain was too young to comprehend, but beyond just the feeling of people laughing at your joke. Maybe subconsciously you were like, oh, I possess a certain natural ability to do this, you understand, It's like something that you were an inherent ability that you were born with, as opposed to like I'm gonna be up there and just make everybody laugh and get all the girls.
Yeah, glasgown is different than like an actual artist. Right.
If you were to give somebody who is listening to this, this this conversation a word of advice to break that like multi generational expect expectance, there is this multi generational inheritance that that says like you got to do the same as your whole family. Like what what advice would you give somebody that says like, dude, like you don't understand, right, like like I've ever heard it all the time, right, like,
oh you don't understand. Lucky for you for la la la la, it wasn't very lucky for us spirit like you took some interesting stuff, right. But I think to you to your point, like you know, what a word of advice would you give those who are just saying like you know, ah man, easy for somebody else or you don't understand is to.
Uh listen to that inner voice inside that's telling you that you possess a particular ability that may not fall in line with what your family expects you to do, you know. And I think that that's where you and I are very similar, right, Like we we at a very young age discovered that we possessed a certain ability and that, maybe not consciously, was the driving factor behind
our audacity to hope. Right, And so for any other person that's in a similar position as us, is to have the audacity to hope and to and to go out there and to chase your dream, but to listen to that voice inside of you that's telling you that you're good at this thing, you know, and to give it a shot. Right, I mean you would you say something different?
No, No, I think that's a very very important thing to empower.
Right.
I would also say if I was asked that, you know, I don't know. I was listening to your advice. The reason why I was getting pantservice because it really triggered a lot of different things that individuals had to me.
That all amount is coming back to. But also there's like a fragment.
Anthem of things that happened that made me go I can do it, right, put me in the driver's seat.
Uh.
You know that the one thing that makes you sit in the front road at the classroom, you know, the thing that makes you go, I'm gonna raise my hand before everybody else. That's the that's the ship right there. You gotta like cultivate. That's the stuff right there that
you gotta be like pay attention to. You know, if you're the first one to raise your hand, if you're the first one to sit in the front, if you're the first one to turn in your test, you're going to be the first one to be trusted to try.
Ah. Right, So that was that's what I would probably tell people.
Cultivate your your search for excellence and you'll find yourself doing what you love.
Cultivate your search for excellence. Cultivate that because it's in the search. It's in how you perfect the search process. You know, that gets you to do what you love.
Because the more you practice that, the better your attempts, the better your product, the better your ideals, your values get shaped into the traits you need to hold success later. That's what I would say, right, Like, just obsess over perfecting the art, right you know of manifestation, which is like I went aisle. If somebody says we need a volunteer, you don't raise your hand, you walk up right.
That there's a difference between like all volunteer.
See if they pick me right and I need a volunteer, and I'm gonna walk right up and just you.
Know, there's there's a difference. Right.
Remember in the first couple of usas we're talking about like you know, one hundred percent of the actors, you know, like fifty percent are gonna do this. You know, the other forty percent is going to do that five percent is going to do, you know, something they think is different, and then that other five percent is going to approach it in.
A way that feels like this is an attraction.
I gotta watch somebody make this choice, right, So I think for me to you know, just kind of piggyback, and what you're triggered to me is that I would say, if somebody asks for a volunteer, you don't raise your hands say I'm down. You walk up and say it's me right, right, So you start perfecting the the art of being audacious about Yeah, that's you're going.
To be trusted. You'll be the first one to be trusted to do what you want to do.
But it's how much you upsess over the process of perfecting the art of it that is kind of make you give you the ability to hold on to that opportunity, right, And it's not getting the opportunity, it's about holding it right, right, because hard work and give you the opportunity. Right, hard work and working on your craft is going to give you the opportunity. But it's it's how landless you're going to be about holding it. That's where the hard work, you know, comes in.
What do you think? What do you think about that?
Yeah, I see what you're saying. And when that moment of truth happens, you know, I can't even begin to tell you how many jobs I've gotten because like I get in the room with somebody and I'm like, no, this is this is me, Like this is my you know something about I don't know what the confidence that that that I bring to to knowing the character or the project or whatever, that that kind of put me over the edge, you know, because the person on the
other side wants to feel confident and comfortable that they're hiring someone who really understands the material and the project and it's going to deliver, right, So there's a certain confidence and that that I've walked in with And is.
That kind of what you're saying?
Holding that and the confidence come from you know, you have done the work right, So you're not going to volunteer by walking all the way up. Yeah, if you don't feel like I'm going to pull this off, right.
You know, it's not as soon as I missed, you know what I mean?
Dude?
You know, so that's that's kind of how it works. But but anyways, thank you for it. Indo me in that I think this was this was kind of a fun one too, you know, as we start leading into this this you know, the you know, the the other explorations of this show. I'm very excited to eventually have a you know, have a guest here. I get someone that you know, maybe reflects and another expertise that you and I are like, oh, man, tell me more about aliens.
I want to get through the alien episode.
The alien episode.
That's what I want. Give me what I want. I want an alien episode.
Yeah, but it'll be interesting.
Right.
So like here, I'm pretty sure any any other actor or whatever, like who's worth their weight in salt have had very similar experiences like that, right who have who come up to their sort of moment of truth of like, oh wait a minute, there's something there that I was born with that I'm going to continue.
Then you cultivate into an art form, you cultivate into a service, you cultivate into.
You know, to a product and you package it and people you know, you.
Remember DJ Am, Yeah, I do remember DJ So he was one of my best friends. And Am and I would talk about this stuff late night all the time, really, and he said to me, do something, No, find something, he said, find something that.
You love to do so much that you would do.
It for free and then get somebody to pay you for it.
Wow. Yeah, he was man the inventor of like the mash.
Oh yeah, he's sweet Home Alabama with Biggie.
I mean, come on, man, Like he's such an incredible DJ.
And we miss him because he was a pioneer. He would have been the guy with a residence yead Abiza. He would have been the guy who would have been doing all the radio hits with all the artists like cause he was.
He was a mentor to so many DJs. You know.
Steve Oki was one of his you know, his friends, and and he you know, he really helped Steve you know, find that groove and then Steve Aoki took it to a whole different universe.
Right. It was performative aspect everything and all that.
And shout out to you know, Steve Oki, because that's my brother right there. You know, many many moons together as well. But but yeah, I think am When he said that, I was like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, what is it that you love to do so much that you'll do for free and then somehow find somebody to pay you for it?
That's the dream, right.
I worked with the Hughes brothers before, and I remember them telling me that I guess they went to some form of either film school. I mean, you know, they did that movie Menic Society when they were like nineteen years old, so this must have been when they were super young, you know, maybe fifteen or something. But they were in some film class. I don't know if it was film school or a class at their school or something.
I remember them telling me that they almost failed, they almost got an F because they they were so sure of what their abilities were, the abilities that they were born with, that that they were almost like, you know, beyond what they were being taught in the class. And so the teacher would assign certain assignments to everyone in class, and they just wouldn't do it. And at a certain point the teacher recognized them and their abilities and allowed and and sort of altered the program to fit them
and their abilities, you know. And shortly after that they went and they did medicine, society and and the rest is history. But again going back to what we were talking about about recognizing these sometimes people were just born with certain abilities, you know, and you have to and you have to master those abilities. You have to follow that voice in the back of the eard had telling you you were born with a with an ability to do this.
Well, I feel incredibly inspired by that. Well, right, I hope that everyone enjoyed this episode. I hope that you found a little inspiration and what we're here to do. And uh, I think the next episode should be about a secret topic.
A secret topic.
Yeah, I have an idea, I have any idea. I guess you'll have to tune into the next episode and into the next episode see how see how he goes.
I'm Freddi Rodriguez and I'm Wilmer Valderama Amigos Podcasts. Salute Those Amigos is a production from WV Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael through That podcast Network, hosted by Me, Freddie Rodriguez and wilmri Valdorama.
Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer's Abbews.
Our executive producers are Wilmrivaldorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson and Leo at WV Sound.
This episode was shot and edited by Ryan Posts and Max by Sean Tracy and features original music by Madison Devenport and Halo Boy.
Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny Holtzclaw and.
Thank you for being a third Amigo today. I appreciate you guys always listening to those Amiingos.
For 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.