Latest / Dos Amigos / Adam Rodriguez: From the Bronx to the Big Screen
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: All right, hey, this is Freddie Rodriguez and I'm Wilmer
- 0:07Speaker 1: brother Rama. Welcome to the Those Amigos podcast. You know
- 0:11Speaker 1: you can see we're already laughing Roman. Well if you're not,
- 0:15Speaker 1: you can hear our smile also, but you can see
- 0:18Speaker 1: it as well. So all of you who have been
- 0:20Speaker 1: watching and listening to our podcast for so long, thank
- 0:23Speaker 1: you so much. He is a very special episode for
- 0:26Speaker 1: us because our third amigo today is someone not only
- 0:30Speaker 1: very dear, but he's really blood brother with us.
- 0:33Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 0:33Speaker 3: Absolutely, he is my family. His mother is my mother,
- 0:37Speaker 3: his father is my father. I know his family dearly,
- 0:40Speaker 3: and I love him like he's my brother. Ladies and gentlemen,
- 0:44Speaker 3: please help woman, and I welcome Adam Rodriguez.
- 0:51Speaker 4: For this interview.
- 0:52Speaker 5: You can keep your shirt on.
- 0:54Speaker 4: Please you. I'm like, where are my hat? I'm like,
- 1:00Speaker 4: how am I looking?
- 1:01Speaker 3: Because the crowd speaking of shirt on, I remember and
- 1:06Speaker 3: I'm going to just start here. Adam came to my
- 1:08Speaker 3: house one time and we were playing poker and my
- 1:10Speaker 3: wife cooked. You know, she's Puerto Rican, she could Puerto
- 1:14Speaker 3: Rican rice. And Adam came with his own tupp aware
- 1:17Speaker 3: of like salmon.
- 1:18Speaker 5: When was this?
- 1:19Speaker 1: This is like a decade and you're in production probably
- 1:22Speaker 1: like imagine, Mike, Yeah, I went to every restaurant in
- 1:25Speaker 1: LA with that, because I didn't stop my social life.
- 1:28Speaker 6: I would literally go to restaurants. Luckily, I go to
- 1:31Speaker 6: the same places all the time, so nobody gave me
- 1:32Speaker 6: any ship. But like I would bring my little prepared
- 1:35Speaker 6: meal and sit and have socialized.
- 1:37Speaker 4: But I was just gonna eat whatever was in that.
- 1:40Speaker 2: Elsie was like, aren't you going to eat?
- 1:41Speaker 3: I made rice and I was like, no, man, I
- 1:44Speaker 3: got my little salmon here.
- 1:46Speaker 2: We're like, come on, man, we were drinking back then.
- 1:48Speaker 2: We're like, come have a drink with us. No, man,
- 1:50Speaker 2: I'm having my little salmon.
- 1:52Speaker 1: But I got it to explain to our listeners and
- 1:54Speaker 1: our yours. So what happens is when you're entering a
- 1:58Speaker 1: role and you're preparing for a role, you have to
- 2:00Speaker 1: be incredibly strict because not only you have to be
- 2:03Speaker 1: in some type of shape, but you also have to
- 2:05Speaker 1: maintain it for a certain amount of time.
- 2:08Speaker 5: I can't even imagine for Magic Minke, because you know
- 2:10Speaker 5: that was.
- 2:10Speaker 4: That changed my life.
- 2:11Speaker 1: Man.
- 2:11Speaker 6: Those movies are that first one especially, but then the
- 2:14Speaker 6: second one as well, Like you know, taught me about
- 2:17Speaker 6: diet and how critical diet is to getting in shape
- 2:21Speaker 6: because when that call came in.
- 2:23Speaker 4: So I've been training with a guy named.
- 2:25Speaker 6: Tito Raymondo and now it's become a dear, dear friend
- 2:29Speaker 6: of mine over the years. We probably know each other
- 2:31Speaker 6: twenty years now. And you know, remember when I got
- 2:34Speaker 6: that job, man, I was like, listen, man, I wasn't
- 2:38Speaker 6: like I got to be a male stripper.
- 2:40Speaker 3: Man.
- 2:40Speaker 4: We only had six weeks to prepare, and I.
- 2:42Speaker 2: Was, you know, six weeks, only had six weeks.
- 2:45Speaker 6: I always keep my body moving, but I'm never like,
- 2:47Speaker 6: I don't walk around with a six pack.
- 2:49Speaker 4: That's just not me. I enjoyed, I enjoy eating. I
- 2:52Speaker 4: love food.
- 2:53Speaker 6: I'm not like, you know, oh my god, I don't
- 2:55Speaker 6: see a six pack, Like what's up?
- 2:57Speaker 4: So I was like, is this going to be possible?
- 3:00Speaker 7: Man?
- 3:00Speaker 6: You know, because I don't have six weeks to do this? Like,
- 3:03Speaker 6: am I going to have to take steroids?
- 3:05Speaker 5: I don't want to.
- 3:06Speaker 4: I don't want to do that.
- 3:07Speaker 6: Yeah, but this is a massive opportunity in my life
- 3:11Speaker 6: to like, you know, and I got to show up
- 3:12Speaker 6: prepared and a challenge for you to big time challenge
- 3:15Speaker 6: you know, Steven Soderberg and McConnaughey and Channing and you know,
- 3:21Speaker 6: and just an opportunity to be in a in a
- 3:24Speaker 6: film that I knew was going to be seen on
- 3:25Speaker 6: a scale that nothing I'd ever done before was going
- 3:28Speaker 6: to be seen. And so, I mean, I don't think
- 3:29Speaker 6: anybody could predict how big it was was going to
- 3:32Speaker 6: be and spawn a whole other business. But you know,
- 3:34Speaker 6: I just didn't want to show up and be the
- 3:36Speaker 6: weak link, you know, and and you know.
- 3:38Speaker 5: They shoot around you.
- 3:42Speaker 2: Like yeah, like.
- 3:48Speaker 5: Forward.
- 3:50Speaker 6: So I was on a mission, man, to just like
- 3:52Speaker 6: make sure I was my very best. And he was like, no, no,
- 3:55Speaker 6: we don't need to do that, like you're not gonna
- 3:58Speaker 6: And I was relieved because it was the first time
- 3:59Speaker 6: i life, I had ever even considered, you know, maybe
- 4:03Speaker 6: doing well.
- 4:03Speaker 1: Nowadays nowadays, that's like the first thing, you know, a
- 4:08Speaker 1: trainer is going to be. It's like all right, cool,
- 4:09Speaker 1: we're gonna get you on this and this, and there's
- 4:11Speaker 1: no like negotiations like can I do it with food?
- 4:14Speaker 6: Can just Fortunately Tito was you know, he had a
- 4:17Speaker 6: bodybuilding career and he was natural. He stopped the bodybuilding
- 4:20Speaker 6: actually because the next level for him would have had
- 4:23Speaker 6: to be you know, to get on you know, steroids,
- 4:28Speaker 6: a whole program of that kind of thing. And he
- 4:31Speaker 6: was like, no, you don't need to do it, man,
- 4:33Speaker 6: but you're gonna have to work your ass off in it.
- 4:34Speaker 6: And I never worked so hard man, between the diet
- 4:37Speaker 6: and you know, two three hours a day of cardios.
- 4:40Speaker 2: How many how many days were you working out with.
- 4:42Speaker 6: I worked out six days a week. Yeah, I was
- 4:44Speaker 6: working out six days a week. Sunday was like, uh,
- 4:48Speaker 6: you know you could have one cheat meal on a Sunday.
- 4:50Speaker 5: What did that cheat meal look like?
- 4:51Speaker 6: Usually, like I love breakfast, It was probably like pancakes.
- 4:55Speaker 5: You know that's early.
- 4:56Speaker 6: And and then I would hit cardio and because I yeah,
- 5:00Speaker 6: I was doing cardio seven days a week. I mean
- 5:02Speaker 6: I remember seeing you seven time, man, So I was
- 5:06Speaker 6: on set. You know, I was getting up, you know,
- 5:08Speaker 6: before my call time, getting cardio in, then getting my
- 5:12Speaker 6: workout in. You know it's not usually before work or
- 5:15Speaker 6: if I got an early call time.
- 5:16Speaker 4: Whatever it was. I was navigating all of that. And
- 5:18Speaker 4: then my meals were just programmed for for the day.
- 5:21Speaker 6: So I had six weeks man, and and and what
- 5:23Speaker 6: I saw what my body could do.
- 5:24Speaker 4: I was like, wow, this is incredible.
- 5:27Speaker 2: Who prepared your meals?
- 5:29Speaker 4: So I had my shout out to Rohan.
- 5:30Speaker 5: My boy wrote Rohan.
- 5:32Speaker 7: Yeah, Rohan is a chef, Rohan and he he yeah,
- 5:39Speaker 7: he just he was up for some sidework at the time.
- 5:42Speaker 4: So him and I would meet at like a parking
- 5:44Speaker 4: lot of a smart and final deal beach.
- 5:49Speaker 3: Here's the chicken breast, two big bags with food like
- 5:54Speaker 3: fourteen meals in them for a few days, and we
- 5:57Speaker 3: would exchange.
- 5:57Speaker 4: And like I'd give him the old bags with old container.
- 6:01Speaker 6: I mean, I got exactly what it looked like a
- 6:05Speaker 6: drug deal and look like it up to Miami vice man.
- 6:07Speaker 4: But yeah, we got it done.
- 6:09Speaker 6: And then when I learned that, when the second movie
- 6:11Speaker 6: came up, I was more confident bout knowing that I
- 6:12Speaker 6: could be able to do it.
- 6:13Speaker 5: Yeah I'm sand at this point.
- 6:15Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, but yeah, I just learned a tremendous amount
- 6:18Speaker 6: about that man.
- 6:19Speaker 5: So so just kind of recapping a little bit.
- 6:22Speaker 1: Everyone loves you for many things, but I want to
- 6:24Speaker 1: make sure we gave you flowers a couple of things.
- 6:26Speaker 5: So so you are iconically we're one.
- 6:28Speaker 1: Of the first, you know, batch wearing a good guys
- 6:33Speaker 1: Latinos on TV, you know, see Outside Miami, which was yea,
- 6:38Speaker 1: and you know, for us to have like a dude
- 6:41Speaker 1: that was catching the bad guys and that wasn't the
- 6:43Speaker 1: bad guy on the cop show, it is absolutely beautiful.
- 6:45Speaker 5: You were one of those first ones to be on
- 6:47Speaker 5: prime time to do that.
- 6:48Speaker 1: So I want to make sure people understand and realize
- 6:50Speaker 1: how how much space we got to make for that,
- 6:53Speaker 1: because because of characters like yours, you know that cast
- 6:57Speaker 1: could be colorful after that, right, So that that's that's
- 7:00Speaker 1: something you should know that we all know it isn't
- 7:02Speaker 1: we all know that? Then you go from there.
- 7:05Speaker 4: It's funny real quick.
- 7:06Speaker 6: Just a footnote on that that I got my SAG
- 7:08Speaker 6: card as a standing in photo double for a guy
- 7:11Speaker 6: that was Latino wearing the badge even before that on
- 7:14Speaker 6: New York Undercover Michael de Lorenzo.
- 7:16Speaker 3: Yes, well, well look we got to start from the beginning, yes, yes,
- 7:20Speaker 3: right back, because I was kind of what were you
- 7:22Speaker 3: where were you born?
- 7:23Speaker 4: I was born in New York. I was born in Yonkers,
- 7:25Speaker 4: all right.
- 7:25Speaker 5: Really got a flat so hard look that New York cat.
- 7:31Speaker 3: He came here repid, so so okay, so you're born
- 7:37Speaker 3: in Yonkers, right, what did your what did your pop
- 7:39Speaker 3: and your mom do?
- 7:42Speaker 4: My father, he was figuring it out.
- 7:44Speaker 6: My dad was always a hard worker, hard working guy,
- 7:48Speaker 6: just trying to figure out to ray shout out pop
- 7:52Speaker 6: uh to where to direct that energy really, you know.
- 7:55Speaker 6: And so he was a military guy for years and
- 7:59Speaker 6: then he sold insurance.
- 8:00Speaker 4: He drove limos.
- 8:01Speaker 6: He was a lawyer too, right, Well, he was trying
- 8:04Speaker 6: to figure it out, and my mother, I think, was
- 8:05Speaker 6: getting a little fed up, and he's like, listen, you
- 8:08Speaker 6: need to pick.
- 8:08Speaker 4: Up the pack.
- 8:09Speaker 6: You know, we got to move on because you know,
- 8:12Speaker 6: you need to get get life figured out or whatever.
- 8:16Speaker 4: And so when I was I.
- 8:18Speaker 6: Guess I was about five, he moved up to Boston
- 8:23Speaker 6: to go to law school. He started going to college
- 8:26Speaker 6: end of the seventies. He went to Fordham University in
- 8:30Speaker 6: the Bronx and then he moved up to Boston and
- 8:32Speaker 6: went to Northeastern Law School. And so he gi bill, Yeah,
- 8:37Speaker 6: he took advantage of the gi bill and then he
- 8:39Speaker 6: went up there and he was he lived there. He
- 8:41Speaker 6: would come home, you know, probably once a weekend for sure,
- 8:44Speaker 6: sometimes more, I mean once a month for sure.
- 8:47Speaker 4: Sometimes twice because he had to come home to do
- 8:49Speaker 4: army reserves.
- 8:50Speaker 6: So he would come home, do his reserves, see us,
- 8:53Speaker 6: and then go back. He probably came home maybe more
- 8:56Speaker 6: than once a month. But yeah, so that was the
- 8:58Speaker 6: deal for like four years. And then he got out
- 9:00Speaker 6: of that, and then it turns out he he instead
- 9:03Speaker 6: of practicing law, he ended up working, you know, for
- 9:06Speaker 6: New York government, just like working in an office for
- 9:10Speaker 6: small business. I'm trying to remember what it was. It
- 9:12Speaker 6: was something to do with women in small business. He
- 9:14Speaker 6: worked at an office there, and then he worked for
- 9:16Speaker 6: Mario Cuomo, the Governor's office.
- 9:19Speaker 4: You know, my dad.
- 9:20Speaker 6: He just bounced around wherever there was a good opportunity
- 9:22Speaker 6: bouncing around. He's very charismatic guy is you know, yeah, yeah, you.
- 9:27Speaker 4: Know, he's a sweetheart, he really is.
- 9:30Speaker 6: And that personality actually, I mean, as the story goes on,
- 9:34Speaker 6: you'll see really where that had such a big impact
- 9:38Speaker 6: on my life later on down the road because I
- 9:41Speaker 6: got my first break, you know, not to fast forward
- 9:44Speaker 6: too quickly, but really got my first big break from
- 9:48Speaker 6: a guy that my dad was in the army reserves with.
- 9:53Speaker 5: How did that come up?
- 9:55Speaker 4: Man?
- 9:56Speaker 6: So I started doing I started doing background on New
- 10:02Speaker 6: York Undercover and.
- 10:05Speaker 4: Doing that for a couple of years.
- 10:07Speaker 6: And through that process was you know, I knew I
- 10:10Speaker 6: wanted to act, but I just wanted to be on
- 10:12Speaker 6: a set somewhere, and so the opportunity to do background
- 10:14Speaker 6: work came up. There. I became a regular sort of
- 10:18Speaker 6: uh you know, part of the background crew on that
- 10:21Speaker 6: on that show, and then became a photo double and
- 10:24Speaker 6: a stand in, and that's where I got my SAG card.
- 10:27Speaker 6: Made lifelong friends there, you know, Malik Yoba and his
- 10:34Speaker 6: his sister Rahima and you know, just a crew of
- 10:37Speaker 6: people there that took me under their wing. And it
- 10:39Speaker 6: was that was actually the first place that I loved
- 10:42Speaker 6: that I could do a whole episode just talking about
- 10:44Speaker 6: my experience on that show. It was the first group
- 10:45Speaker 6: of people I met that they believed in me. You know,
- 10:49Speaker 6: there was a crew there, riche Owings. It was Dick
- 10:52Speaker 6: Wolf Show, Yeah, Dick Wolf Show. And it was huge, man,
- 10:54Speaker 6: I mean that time it was huge because it was
- 10:57Speaker 6: very you know, it was the first time you saw, uh,
- 11:00Speaker 6: you know, an urban cast like.
- 11:02Speaker 5: That, black and brown together, black and brown.
- 11:05Speaker 6: You know, you've seen black and white a million times.
- 11:07Speaker 6: Bill Cosby and you know the guy that he used
- 11:11Speaker 6: to do I spy with him, blanking out on his
- 11:12Speaker 6: name Robert something maybe. But anyway, you know you I
- 11:15Speaker 6: mean countless you've seen Black and White. Nick noted the
- 11:18Speaker 6: Eddie Murphy you know, the black and brown together on
- 11:20Speaker 6: that show you had never seen.
- 11:22Speaker 4: And the soundtrack.
- 11:23Speaker 2: Was hip hop was all over.
- 11:25Speaker 6: That show, and it was current and in the moment,
- 11:27Speaker 6: and you know, people our age were like, oh, that
- 11:30Speaker 6: feels like us. You know, it was really ahead of
- 11:33Speaker 6: its time in that way.
- 11:34Speaker 5: And shout out to Michael too.
- 11:36Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, Mike.
- 11:41Speaker 6: He was a dancer and he was in Fame. Man,
- 11:43Speaker 6: he was in Fame, the television show Fame. You know, uh,
- 11:47Speaker 6: super talented guy.
- 11:48Speaker 4: Man. So those people on that show, they they just
- 11:53Speaker 4: were so good to me. Man.
- 11:55Speaker 6: Richie Owings was a costume designer and uh you know
- 11:59Speaker 6: they had some people in other departments. Anyway, they helped
- 12:02Speaker 6: me get head shots. Shout out to Stephen McBride man.
- 12:05Speaker 6: He was a photographer and basically my first photo shoot
- 12:07Speaker 6: I ever did. Like the people, they were like, look,
- 12:09Speaker 6: we want to put it, put together. Photo shoot will
- 12:11Speaker 6: make you the subject of it. They just helped me
- 12:13Speaker 6: out in ways that you know that I'm so grateful for.
- 12:26Speaker 6: So anyway, I'm doing this for a couple of years,
- 12:29Speaker 6: doing extra work.
- 12:30Speaker 2: But how did you even get into it? Into extra work?
- 12:32Speaker 5: Well in his past, Like Wendy, You're like, you know what, acting.
- 12:36Speaker 4: How did that? Okay, you know what?
- 12:37Speaker 6: Taking it back to that, yeah, you know, leading up
- 12:40Speaker 6: to all that, it was always sports, baseball in particular,
- 12:43Speaker 6: I thought like, Okay, that was going to be my path.
- 12:45Speaker 6: I'll go to college and play baseball. Maybe I'll be
- 12:47Speaker 6: lucky enough to take it, you know. Somewhere from there,
- 12:50Speaker 6: about eighteen, you know, I had a couple of injuries
- 12:53Speaker 6: that I realized, like, this just isn't going any further.
- 12:55Speaker 6: I didn't have the discipline to get back on the
- 12:57Speaker 6: horse and go after it in the way that that.
- 12:59Speaker 4: I realize now as a baseball was my spouse. Yeah, yeah, and.
- 13:05Speaker 6: I look back on it now and I'm like, yeah,
- 13:06Speaker 6: you see, the guys that make it, they just either
- 13:08Speaker 6: you got to be uber, uber talented on a level
- 13:11Speaker 6: that's like, you know, hard to believe. But even with that,
- 13:13Speaker 6: even with the talent, if you don't have the discipline
- 13:16Speaker 6: and the drive to work hard, the talent's only going
- 13:19Speaker 6: to take.
- 13:19Speaker 5: The perfect star.
- 13:20Speaker 4: Yeah it is. You got to have it all man,
- 13:22Speaker 4: especially to make it to that level. And so.
- 13:26Speaker 6: I didn't have that, and I was trying to figure
- 13:29Speaker 6: out what the next move was. And so I knew
- 13:31Speaker 6: it wasn't college for me because I wasn't this, wasn't
- 13:35Speaker 6: interested in learning in a structured environment in that way.
- 13:38Speaker 6: That just that just wasn't for me. I love learning,
- 13:42Speaker 6: but I'm more of an autodid act. I like to
- 13:44Speaker 6: learn on my own and read on my own and
- 13:46Speaker 6: process the information myself and not, you know, not have
- 13:50Speaker 6: it be about getting a grade or having you know,
- 13:52Speaker 6: somebody else's opinion about how I'm learning it and being
- 13:56Speaker 6: judged in that way. So, but my mother was like, listen,
- 14:01Speaker 6: you either staying out to Janet shout out mom, uh yeah,
- 14:05Speaker 6: stay in school, go get a full time job, or
- 14:07Speaker 6: join the military. Those were those were my options. So
- 14:10Speaker 6: she was you're not going to sit around while you
- 14:13Speaker 6: try and figure it out.
- 14:13Speaker 4: To my mother with your dad, she was pissed that
- 14:17Speaker 4: I wasn't going to I can see her doing this
- 14:19Speaker 4: pissed for years.
- 14:21Speaker 6: She was pissed that I wasn't going to college. I
- 14:22Speaker 6: mean even after I started working as an actor. I
- 14:25Speaker 6: think it really was a thorn in her side.
- 14:27Speaker 3: So you're eighteen, you said, you're like, I'm not going
- 14:29Speaker 3: to college.
- 14:30Speaker 2: Janet cracks the whip.
- 14:31Speaker 4: Cracks the whip. So I'm like, cool. I had a
- 14:33Speaker 4: job as a bellman at a hotel.
- 14:34Speaker 3: Oh well what hotel I was?
- 14:36Speaker 6: Uh, I was contracted by Marriott. Marriott was the contractor,
- 14:40Speaker 6: so technically I was an employee of Marriott, but it
- 14:43Speaker 6: was an IBM owned property. It was this beautiful campus
- 14:46Speaker 6: across the water from Manhattan, uh, in an area called Palisades,
- 14:51Speaker 6: New York. And it was basically a facility where they
- 14:53Speaker 6: educated and hosted all of like Fortune five hundred.
- 15:00Speaker 4: Events.
- 15:00Speaker 6: Basically, so like you know, let's say, like the c
- 15:03Speaker 6: suite staff of a Fortune five hundred company might be
- 15:06Speaker 6: sent there for a week.
- 15:07Speaker 1: It's like a corporate stay for the for the think
- 15:10Speaker 1: tanking and exactly.
- 15:12Speaker 6: So we were serving those folks and I was a
- 15:16Speaker 6: bellman and I did that for a couple of years.
- 15:18Speaker 4: Man out of high school.
- 15:20Speaker 2: I mean, people make careers out of that.
- 15:22Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, no, I never thought about it. Never, Never
- 15:25Speaker 6: for a moment that I think I was going to
- 15:27Speaker 6: stay there in.
- 15:28Speaker 5: The hotel you man, Like, yeah.
- 15:31Speaker 6: You're making I'm sure I wasn't making, like not the
- 15:35Speaker 6: kind of like I always had big aspirations, man, I
- 15:37Speaker 6: always yeah, but dreams for me, it was like yeah,
- 15:40Speaker 6: never that's for better or for worse, you know.
- 15:46Speaker 1: Yeah, So what was there an image or something that
- 15:49Speaker 1: made you go like I can do that?
- 15:52Speaker 6: So I'm you know, I always believed growing up. I
- 15:57Speaker 6: I was a latchy kid. There was you know, my
- 15:59Speaker 6: mom was always at work, my father was always at work,
- 16:01Speaker 6: and so you know, I was home probably eight hours
- 16:05Speaker 6: a day by myself, me and my sister, eight to
- 16:07Speaker 6: ten hours a day between the morning and the evening.
- 16:10Speaker 6: And so I watched a crazy amount of television and movies,
- 16:13Speaker 6: Like the TV was on twenty four seconds?
- 16:14Speaker 2: What like what was what was man?
- 16:16Speaker 6: Like every single thing like you know, oh Man, yeah, Ships,
- 16:20Speaker 6: Charlie Different Charlie's Angels, Bionic Man, Bionic Woman, yeah, or
- 16:26Speaker 6: six million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, wonder Woman, Uh, credible.
- 16:32Speaker 6: Spider Man used to come on like the old old
- 16:34Speaker 6: Spider Man would come on on like Saturday mornings, and
- 16:37Speaker 6: I mean it was bad.
- 16:38Speaker 4: It wasn't even like the incredible.
- 16:40Speaker 6: Hope was good with with with with lou fregnant bhil
- 16:44Speaker 6: uh bixby, thank you nice pull.
- 16:47Speaker 4: I was trying to and.
- 16:48Speaker 6: Uh, you know so I mean just all the time,
- 16:51Speaker 6: love Bold. I mean everything that was on in that era.
- 16:54Speaker 6: Like I mean, I knew the TV schedule top to bottom.
- 16:56Speaker 6: You could ask me what was on TV at what time?
- 16:58Speaker 6: I knew exactly, Yeah, what was on at what time?
- 17:03Speaker 6: And I just you know, I loved all that. And
- 17:04Speaker 6: then movies. You know, as a matter of fact, I
- 17:06Speaker 6: ran into east Side not that long ago, and I
- 17:09Speaker 6: was telling him. I was like, man, I hadn't watched
- 17:11Speaker 6: Bad Boys in a long time, the original Bad Boys,
- 17:13Speaker 6: Sean Penn and the Eastside, and I was just telling
- 17:15Speaker 6: east I'm like, man, you know, it's so interesting now
- 17:18Speaker 6: as a grown man to watch his you know, watching
- 17:21Speaker 6: his work in that movie.
- 17:23Speaker 4: And I'm like, it was fantastic. He was such and
- 17:26Speaker 4: still is. I mean, but he.
- 17:28Speaker 5: Yes, how many people can face off with Tom Critiz.
- 17:33Speaker 6: Come on, man, you know, but you even see him
- 17:35Speaker 6: back then with Sean Penn, and he was, I mean,
- 17:38Speaker 6: he held the screen strong and anybody in that movie
- 17:40Speaker 6: and Bad Boys he was you know, he was on
- 17:43Speaker 6: fire Man, and then I put Leabamba on for the
- 17:45Speaker 6: kids not that long ago. And brilliant man, just brilliant
- 17:49Speaker 6: the guy, you know.
- 17:51Speaker 4: I mean, he's so good, He's so damn good man.
- 17:56Speaker 6: But you know, so there were a few people, and
- 17:59Speaker 6: I know, you guys know like that you could look
- 18:01Speaker 6: at and be like, oh, that could.
- 18:02Speaker 4: Be me, you know, but there were only a couple.
- 18:04Speaker 4: Won't that many?
- 18:06Speaker 6: Freddie Prinz, you know East Sigh at that time, Jimmy
- 18:09Speaker 6: Jimmy hadn't even really emerged yet really until late eighties
- 18:13Speaker 6: that I remember seeing. Hey, Erica, Erica Strada was early
- 18:16Speaker 6: you know Erica Strada for sure. I remember meeting him
- 18:20Speaker 6: at the Puerto Rican Day Parade when I was a kid,
- 18:21Speaker 6: went to the Puerto Rican Day Parade his back of
- 18:23Speaker 6: my father was driving limos and so I got to
- 18:26Speaker 6: meet Erica Strada somehow. I remember that, like probably late seventies,
- 18:30Speaker 6: seventy eight.
- 18:31Speaker 5: This is before soap operas or after.
- 18:37Speaker 4: No No he was doing at the time. This is like, yeah,
- 18:44Speaker 4: he was a guy.
- 18:46Speaker 6: So you know, there weren't There weren't a lot of
- 18:48Speaker 6: faces that you went and that allowed you to imagine
- 18:52Speaker 6: yourself being in one of those casts and so New
- 18:58Speaker 6: York Undercover. So taking it back to how I had
- 19:02Speaker 6: this moment. So I'm working as a bellman. I'm enrolled
- 19:04Speaker 6: in community college just to keep my mother happy, and
- 19:07Speaker 6: and this is where I could stay living at home.
- 19:08Speaker 4: At the time, I wasn't ready to move out yet.
- 19:10Speaker 6: I'm still eighteen, trying to put my dough together. And
- 19:15Speaker 6: I started sending my head shots out. So I'm like, oh,
- 19:19Speaker 6: let me you know, you had headshots so well. So
- 19:21Speaker 6: I was like, maybe acting is a thing, right. So
- 19:23Speaker 6: I'm going to this community college and I'm like taking
- 19:26Speaker 6: an acting class.
- 19:27Speaker 4: And I had a moment where I was like, damn,
- 19:30Speaker 4: I could do this. This feels great to do.
- 19:32Speaker 2: What made you take it? What made you take an actor?
- 19:34Speaker 4: Because I was always I was interested in the arts. Man.
- 19:36Speaker 6: I just was like, whether it was music or it
- 19:39Speaker 6: was you know, I was basically interested in anything where
- 19:43Speaker 6: I felt like there was something free form about it,
- 19:46Speaker 6: you know, the idea of going to school and taking
- 19:49Speaker 6: a very rigid, structured classroomtality. Yeah, I needed something I
- 19:54Speaker 6: was I don't know, something in me just felt like
- 19:56Speaker 6: I was trying to find myself and these were the
- 19:58Speaker 6: places I thought I was going to do it, and so, yeah,
- 20:02Speaker 6: I ended up in this theater class at this community
- 20:06Speaker 6: college and we had to prepare a scene. And I
- 20:09Speaker 6: had come in and I had dabbled a little bit before.
- 20:12Speaker 6: I had taken like a scene study course with this woman.
- 20:15Speaker 6: Years prior. I would drive this woman. She had an
- 20:19Speaker 6: apartment in Manhattan and then her husband was a surgeon.
- 20:21Speaker 6: They had an apartment, I mean a house up in Nayak,
- 20:24Speaker 6: New York, and I would have to drive her back
- 20:26Speaker 6: and forth.
- 20:26Speaker 4: On the weekends.
- 20:27Speaker 6: And then in return, instead of paying me, I was
- 20:30Speaker 6: allowed to take this class of.
- 20:31Speaker 4: Hers for free.
- 20:32Speaker 6: And so you know, so I did that. But I
- 20:34Speaker 6: was just messing around, like I never thought about doing
- 20:36Speaker 6: it for a living. And here I was, like eighteen now,
- 20:39Speaker 6: in this class, eighteen or nineteen at the time, and
- 20:43Speaker 6: realizing that I needed to start getting a little more
- 20:45Speaker 6: serious about.
- 20:46Speaker 4: Life and figuring out a direction for myself.
- 20:49Speaker 6: And like I said, I was taking this theater arts
- 20:52Speaker 6: course doing this scene. In the middle of the scene,
- 20:54Speaker 6: I just.
- 20:55Speaker 4: Felt like I was flying. Man.
- 20:56Speaker 6: So had that feeling that you get, you know, when
- 20:58Speaker 6: you're doing the thing and having and it feels great.
- 21:01Speaker 4: And I was like, this is this is it? This
- 21:04Speaker 4: is this is.
- 21:05Speaker 6: What I'm looking for, you know, this is I want
- 21:07Speaker 6: to chase this high again somewhere else like this was
- 21:10Speaker 6: this is what I felt like when something exciting was happening,
- 21:14Speaker 6: when I'm playing baseball or doing something where you feel
- 21:18Speaker 6: those butterflies a little bit, but like the action is
- 21:20Speaker 6: happening and that feeling of like everything else disappears, you know.
- 21:25Speaker 4: And so I was like, I'm going to chase that.
- 21:27Speaker 1: So that like, oh, what about you know, some background
- 21:31Speaker 1: work and so start somewhere in there.
- 21:32Speaker 6: So all right, let me get head shots, let me
- 21:34Speaker 6: do this and do that. And so I got head shots,
- 21:37Speaker 6: I wrote cover letters. I sent them out to like
- 21:39Speaker 6: every single casting agency in the Tri state area.
- 21:43Speaker 5: And how'd you find that?
- 21:44Speaker 2: Like in the yellow Pages.
- 21:46Speaker 6: Back in the day, there was this thing called the
- 21:49Speaker 6: the Little Blue book Man, and you got it at
- 21:51Speaker 6: Samuel French, which was in midtown in Times Square, there
- 21:55Speaker 6: was a Samuel French bookstore.
- 21:57Speaker 4: They had all the plays.
- 21:58Speaker 6: And then they would have this book and I keep
- 22:00Speaker 6: wanting to call it the rob Report, but it's not.
- 22:02Speaker 6: It's the Something Report. And it had a list of
- 22:05Speaker 6: all the talent agencies from top to bottom, biggest to
- 22:08Speaker 6: the smallest, casting directors and everything. So I just went
- 22:11Speaker 6: in there, man, I bought a stack of like two
- 22:13Speaker 6: hundred yellow envelopes, put a cover letter and my head
- 22:16Speaker 6: shot and all them sent out, you know, sent out.
- 22:19Speaker 2: A stack at eighteen years old.
- 22:22Speaker 4: Yeah, it was probout eighteen or nineteen at the time.
- 22:24Speaker 6: That's a you know, trying to figure it out, man,
- 22:28Speaker 6: just to see like what, you know, what, what can
- 22:31Speaker 6: we drum up here? And and then while that was
- 22:37Speaker 6: I mean, there's so many men I think back, I'm like, man.
- 22:39Speaker 2: So what was the first bite? Like when you when
- 22:41Speaker 2: you were sending that out?
- 22:44Speaker 4: A couple of bytes came in.
- 22:45Speaker 6: I think I did I did some background on a movie,
- 22:50Speaker 6: and I can't remember what it was. And then the
- 22:53Speaker 6: bite I remember most distinctly, man, and because it led
- 22:56Speaker 6: to a lifelong friendship, was I get a call when
- 22:59Speaker 6: I had some work.
- 23:00Speaker 4: As a bellman and I get home. It's late. I
- 23:04Speaker 4: listen to my messages and uh, and there's a call.
- 23:06Speaker 6: It's probably about ten o'clock, not that late, but uh,
- 23:10Speaker 6: there's a call on there and it says, Hello, this
- 23:13Speaker 6: is Ulysses Terrero from TMT no way only because there's
- 23:19Speaker 6: an opportunity to work for an Academy Award winning director. Uh,
- 23:23Speaker 6: and I need to know if you're available and have
- 23:26Speaker 6: a bartender's uniform for uh.
- 23:29Speaker 4: I forget if it was the next day or the
- 23:30Speaker 4: day after whatever it was. So I'm like, oh shit, man,
- 23:34Speaker 4: Academy Awards. That sounds crazy.
- 23:35Speaker 5: I'm like, this sounds shut out releases, Yulie you.
- 23:39Speaker 4: I pick up the phone right and I call right away.
- 23:41Speaker 6: I have bartender close because I'm bartending at a place
- 23:44Speaker 6: on the on the weekends when I'm not doing the
- 23:46Speaker 6: bellman job, a bartend at this little restaurant and uh.
- 23:50Speaker 6: So I called the guy back, but it's after hours, right,
- 23:53Speaker 6: So I call the same number and.
- 23:54Speaker 4: He's like, yeah, what's up.
- 23:58Speaker 6: And I was like, it's the same person that left.
- 24:01Speaker 4: And I'm like, yeah, what's up?
- 24:03Speaker 6: Man. I was like, listen, I got a message on
- 24:04Speaker 6: my answering machine answering machines, so I said, uh, you
- 24:11Speaker 6: know there's uh there was a message about some extra
- 24:16Speaker 6: work for this Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
- 24:20Speaker 6: let me do so, uh you have you have bartending?
- 24:22Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 24:22Speaker 4: I have that, all right? Can you be down at
- 24:24Speaker 4: Tramps at such and such a time. Yeah, yeah, I'll
- 24:28Speaker 4: just say yes and so. But but of course I'm like,
- 24:31Speaker 4: who's the director, you.
- 24:32Speaker 6: Know, because I'm trying to know, like who is this
- 24:34Speaker 6: kind of like who's the director? And he's like, uh,
- 24:37Speaker 6: I can't tell you. I can't tell y'all. That's that's
- 24:40Speaker 6: confidential information.
- 24:40Speaker 4: That be pandemonium in the.
- 24:42Speaker 6: Streets if I was to tell you what pandemonium in
- 24:45Speaker 6: the scale. So I'm like, well, ship man tomorrow or
- 24:48Speaker 6: day after whenever it was.
- 24:49Speaker 4: I was like, I'm I'm about.
- 24:50Speaker 5: To like be in comt.
- 24:52Speaker 6: Somebody maybe like man, maybe somebody's going to get a
- 24:54Speaker 6: look at the kid, and like who knows, you know,
- 24:56Speaker 6: you know, it's still silly enough to believe that that's
- 24:59Speaker 6: all it would work.
- 25:00Speaker 4: It could happen that way, right, like you yeah, yeah, yeah,
- 25:16Speaker 4: Oh I got a funny story like that too. Actually.
- 25:20Speaker 6: So I show up at this thing and it's like
- 25:24Speaker 6: it is a low budget movie, as low budget as
- 25:27Speaker 6: you can imagine, and it's taking place in this little
- 25:30Speaker 6: this spot in New York called Tramps. There used to
- 25:33Speaker 6: be a club. And I get there and I meet
- 25:37Speaker 6: the guy that was on the other end of the
- 25:40Speaker 6: phone call, and and it's Ulysses. You guys know Juli
- 25:44Speaker 6: and uh, you know, young Dominican guy looks like you know,
- 25:47Speaker 6: it looks like somebody I'll be friends with, Like he's
- 25:49Speaker 6: my age, Like he's a casting director. Those guys who pioneers,
- 25:52Speaker 6: they got started early. You know, UIs still going, still going,
- 25:55Speaker 6: stronger than ever. Love you, brother, And so he puts
- 26:01Speaker 6: me in as the bartender. He tries to get me
- 26:02Speaker 6: some light in the movie. Turns out the director won
- 26:05Speaker 6: an Academy Award for Best Foreign Short Film, so.
- 26:09Speaker 4: He did have a not a lie. But I had
- 26:13Speaker 4: no idea who the guy was.
- 26:15Speaker 5: I don't know about the PanAm or from where. I
- 26:19Speaker 5: believe oh Man Brazilian, Mexican.
- 26:23Speaker 4: I believe he was Israeli.
- 26:26Speaker 6: I'm not sure. I would have to look it up.
- 26:28Speaker 6: The movie was called The Minotaur, and I don't know
- 26:31Speaker 6: if it ever saw the light of day. I have
- 26:33Speaker 6: no idea saw All I know is I was there
- 26:35Speaker 6: for about eighteen hours. It was non union extra work.
- 26:38Speaker 6: I might have made fifty bucks, right, but I made
- 26:43Speaker 6: up and I made a friend for the rest of
- 26:44Speaker 6: my life. Like you know, So I met Yuli, and
- 26:47Speaker 6: then Juli would put me on to anything he was doing,
- 26:50Speaker 6: you know, extra work wise for the next couple of years.
- 26:53Speaker 6: And then I went down to New York undercover because
- 26:57Speaker 6: it was one of the shows in town. Like I
- 26:59Speaker 6: was basically just walking into casting offices around town and like.
- 27:02Speaker 4: Dropping my head shot off. And my dad knew a
- 27:05Speaker 4: guy that was that was a teamster in New York
- 27:09Speaker 4: that used to know my grandfather.
- 27:11Speaker 6: This guy, Sonny Volkee. He shout out to Sonny. Sonny
- 27:15Speaker 6: was married to a woman who used to bartend at
- 27:16Speaker 6: a bar in Spanish Harlem that my my mom's dad
- 27:19Speaker 6: used to go in all the time, and so family
- 27:23Speaker 6: knew each other or whatever, and Sonny was he was like, yeah, yeah,
- 27:26Speaker 6: I had already sent my head shot down to New
- 27:28Speaker 6: York undercover and Sonny was like, yeah, go again.
- 27:30Speaker 4: We do the driving over there. So then yeah, project,
- 27:33Speaker 4: So I had gotten one day of non union extra
- 27:36Speaker 4: work there and.
- 27:37Speaker 5: Then who did you get to see shoot at that day?
- 27:42Speaker 4: The day that I did it, I played like a
- 27:44Speaker 4: little like a like a delivery boy. I had an
- 27:46Speaker 4: apron on.
- 27:47Speaker 6: It was like I was delivering something to the precinct
- 27:50Speaker 6: from a bodega or something like that, and you know
- 27:52Speaker 6: I brought up a little bag or whatever was in
- 27:54Speaker 6: the bag coffee, saying but that's a feature extra, right,
- 27:57Speaker 6: So no, I didn't have any lines that I was
- 27:59Speaker 6: I was talking about, you're you got a shot?
- 28:01Speaker 4: I got something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So I
- 28:07Speaker 4: meet on that day.
- 28:08Speaker 6: Actually I ended up meeting Rahima, a girl named Paschelle
- 28:13Speaker 6: who Michelle Robinson who was uh was the costumer, and
- 28:19Speaker 6: vet man blanking out on e Vet's last name. So
- 28:21Speaker 6: these three women that were running the wardrobe department, they
- 28:23Speaker 6: were working for a guy named Richie Owings, and Rahima
- 28:28Speaker 6: was my age. And so anyway, we all just become friends,
- 28:32Speaker 6: like we become cool. And they were like, yeah, we
- 28:35Speaker 6: gotta look out for you, like we gotta make sure
- 28:36Speaker 6: you gotta think.
- 28:37Speaker 1: About the New York community. The filmmaker New York community
- 28:40Speaker 1: was very small. Yeah, if you were doing something in
- 28:44Speaker 1: New York, they're usual suspects, right, Like they're gonna be
- 28:48Speaker 1: calling to do the wardrobe of this, especially.
- 28:53Speaker 6: Right there was not Yeah, more movies were being done
- 28:56Speaker 6: there at that time, but television hadn't had the resurgence yet, right,
- 29:00Speaker 6: But even.
- 29:01Speaker 5: Movies were like maybe one into maybe one to a year.
- 29:05Speaker 4: I mean that's not yeah, no, no, at this time.
- 29:07Speaker 4: I got to tell you.
- 29:08Speaker 6: At this time, this is like, let's call it like
- 29:11Speaker 6: ninety four through ninety seven. There were there was, there
- 29:16Speaker 6: were quite a bit of movies being shot at the time.
- 29:18Speaker 2: Well, didn't didn't we work together?
- 29:21Speaker 4: Back then? We never worked together.
- 29:23Speaker 6: I went on a cattle call for dead presidents and
- 29:27Speaker 6: waited online like somewhere in the village, but I never not.
- 29:31Speaker 6: I think Jesse might have done. I think Jesse might
- 29:34Speaker 6: have done some background on that. Yes, And so that's
- 29:38Speaker 6: how I got to see Jesse Torero.
- 29:41Speaker 3: Yeah, shout out to Jesse Terrerorero man, yo, quick, quick,
- 29:45Speaker 3: good story I had. We would have these like monthly dinners,
- 29:51Speaker 3: you know, me Adam, Jesse Terrero whenever ULI was in town,
- 29:56Speaker 3: David Ortiz, And one day Jesse goes, yo, man, I
- 30:01Speaker 3: was your standing on dead presidents?
- 30:04Speaker 4: And I was like what you were?
- 30:06Speaker 2: And there was something about like Jesse's sort of body language,
- 30:10Speaker 2: like of course you were.
- 30:12Speaker 5: Man, that's crazy. But I didn't know until like I
- 30:17Speaker 5: love Jesse too ariosold.
- 30:19Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I mean, I've done how many music
- 30:23Speaker 1: videos you do.
- 30:24Speaker 5: I don't know, probably five.
- 30:25Speaker 3: I've been his Vigo, I saw those, Yeah I Didluma Ones,
- 30:32Speaker 3: I did that.
- 30:32Speaker 5: We've seen that.
- 30:35Speaker 3: Yeah, that did a few shout outs to Jesse to
- 30:38Speaker 3: he's a giant, he's speaking of cinematic guy. Just such beautiful,
- 30:43Speaker 3: beautiful human beings man, So shout out to them.
- 30:45Speaker 5: And always looked out for the homing.
- 30:47Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, So how did how did New York
- 30:50Speaker 2: Undercover change your life?
- 30:51Speaker 4: Like?
- 30:52Speaker 2: How did how did things change from there?
- 30:54Speaker 6: You know, I think it changed my life in the
- 30:55Speaker 6: way that I got to be on a set almost
- 30:57Speaker 6: every day of the week.
- 30:58Speaker 4: All of a sudden, were you Were you.
- 30:59Speaker 2: There for all five seasons?
- 31:01Speaker 4: No, No, I was there. I think that show lasted
- 31:03Speaker 4: three or three and a half seasons, and I came in.
- 31:06Speaker 4: It was already running when I came in. It might
- 31:08Speaker 4: have been already on for.
- 31:11Speaker 6: The first let me see the first The first time
- 31:16Speaker 6: I did background on that was I want to say,
- 31:21Speaker 6: say October and ninety four, maybe right, And then it
- 31:27Speaker 6: became a regular thing the following like around February of
- 31:30Speaker 6: ninety five, it became a regular thing. And then I
- 31:34Speaker 6: did that for another year and a half, almost two
- 31:37Speaker 6: years until I moved out to La But I mean
- 31:39Speaker 6: it changed my life in the sense that, you know,
- 31:41Speaker 6: it cracked the egg man, like I got to see
- 31:43Speaker 6: how this happens every day, how the machine works, how
- 31:47Speaker 6: what the flow.
- 31:48Speaker 4: Is like, you know where to be at what time,
- 31:50Speaker 4: and what is going mean all of it. It was
- 31:54Speaker 4: like going to school, you know.
- 31:55Speaker 6: And then on top of that, being embraced by people
- 31:57Speaker 6: who were you know, participate in that on a on
- 32:01Speaker 6: a on a level that was you know, uh, a
- 32:05Speaker 6: bigger contribution than I was as a background player at
- 32:07Speaker 6: the time, you know. Was uh, you know, it was
- 32:11Speaker 6: incredible because it was like it was making community, you know,
- 32:14Speaker 6: I was. I made friends that I'm still friends with
- 32:17Speaker 6: to this day after all.
- 32:18Speaker 4: Those years, you know what I mean. Like and so
- 32:21Speaker 4: it was.
- 32:21Speaker 6: It was also one of those things sometimes like when
- 32:24Speaker 6: you're looking at something from the outside d you feel
- 32:27Speaker 6: like so far removed from it, and you know, you
- 32:32Speaker 6: can't really imagine how you could ever be a part
- 32:35Speaker 6: of it. And then all of a sudden, I was,
- 32:37Speaker 6: I was in the middle of it, you know, and
- 32:39Speaker 6: and you realize, like, oh man, it's just people.
- 32:42Speaker 1: All right, So I'm gonna hold you right there because
- 32:44Speaker 1: this conversation obviously has uh has a lot more layers
- 32:47Speaker 1: to it, and the dance in the detail from you
- 32:50Speaker 1: Adam is inpeccable.
- 32:51Speaker 5: So this is part one. Thank you for watching part one,
- 32:53Speaker 5: and I hope you guys stayed for part two.
- 32:56Speaker 3: If those Amingos, Dos Amigos is a production from WV
- 33:03Speaker 3: Sound and iHeartMedia's Michael through That podcast Network, hosted by Me,
- 33:08Speaker 3: Freddie Rodriguez and Wilmer Valdorama.
- 33:10Speaker 1: Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlson and Sophie Spencer Zabos.
- 33:15Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Wilmer Valdorama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlson,
- 33:19Speaker 3: and Leo Klem at WV Sound.
- 33:22Speaker 1: This episode was shot and edited it by Ryan Posts
- 33:24Speaker 1: and mixed by Sean Tracy and features original music by
- 33:27Speaker 1: Madison Devenport and Hala Boy.
- 33:29Speaker 3: Our cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed
- 33:33Speaker 3: by Deny Holtz.
- 33:34Speaker 5: Clau and thank you for being there third amigo today.
- 33:36Speaker 5: I appreciate you guys always listening to Those Amigos.
- 33:39Speaker 3: More podcasts from my Heart, visit the ir Heart Radio app,
- 33:42Speaker 3: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
- 33:45Speaker 5: See you next week,