September 29, 2022 • 34 mins
The actors who played Puppet and Little Puppet, Danny de la Paz and Daniel Villarreal, share their experiences on-set and in the aftermath.
Danny de la Paz (Puppet) and Daniel Villarreal (Little Puppet) weren't just actors cast in American Me — they were part of a family of actors and filmmakers assembled by Edward James Olmos over the years that culminated with two powerful performances in American Me. They also share how the news hit them when they heard about the murder of gang interventionist and crew member, Ana Lizarraga.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
When I first found out that he wanted to do
this film and I read this grip, I was like,
oh man, we're gonna get killed on this thing. You
know you really want to do this? Yeah, we gotta
do it, you know, we gotta tell the story from
drama class in high school to full some prison. How
the hell did I get here? It's like you know
(00:20):
when you watch a horror film and like the devil
is inside you. It's like that, like there is no hole. Yeah,
that's what it was, like, like Who's who in the zoo?
And we had to sign the paper saying, like I
said that, we we had to acknowledge that if we
were taking hostage that they would not bargain for us.
And we had to sign a relief and you signed
(00:42):
that release. Yeah. What makes a movie a cult classic?
Is it a far fetched premise like Starship Troopers. Let
me tell you something. I'm from Buenos Aias and I
said kill them all? Yeah yeah? Or is it like
Larry Clark Kids, where the characters are so real they
(01:06):
remind us of ourselves. Not much matter when you find
something that you care about, So that's all you've got.
What could movies like Fear and loathing clue an American
Me possibly have in common. I think it's that they
create worlds we want to inhabit without any of the
real world consequences. Of course, these worlds can be all
kinds of things. They can be fantastical, futuristic, hyper realistic.
(01:30):
They can be fun dangerous, or the best combo fun
and dangerous. But it's the fantasy of escaping into this
world that makes cult audiences become obsessed, and once obsessed,
the characters inhabiting that world become almost real to us.
I think Edward James, almost indirecting American Me, intended for
the film to feel real. I'm not sure he intended,
(01:53):
or wonder if he even understood at the time that
people would actually want to live in the world of
American Me to be friends with the guys in the
fictional gang depicted in the film. That kids would glorify
and even want to join a gang after seeing the movie,
the exact opposite intention he had for the film. Maybe
part of it is just the performances. It's not unexpected
(02:16):
that when a great actor like e j O directs
a movie that he'd get the best performances out of
his actors. But some of these characters have become legend
in certain communities, and I think we have to credit
that to the actors themselves who brought these characters to life.
My name is Daniel Vieria and I played Little Puppet
in American Daniel Virrel first met Edward James almost acting
(02:38):
alongside him in another classic movie film, Stand and Deliver Equipment,
Got It Gotta come to this class prepared? Do you
woke in my head? Edward James almost plays this teacher
in the Hood and Daniel plays his difficult student. In
(02:59):
a famous scene, Daniel's character gives his teacher the finger
and e j O turns the insult into a math problem.
Finger man, I heard about you. You're the finger man
on the Fingerman too. You know what I can do?
An auto multiplied by nine nine times three was what
(03:22):
the two became friends, and one day, about a year
after Standing the Deliver came out, Daniel and Edward were
on a plane together leaving Miami. Edward or Eddie as
Daniel calls him, told him about this project. He was
directing a movie about the origins of a notorious street
gang known as the Mexican Mafia, and he asked Daniel
if you wanted to be in it, and despite some reservations,
(03:44):
Daniel said yes. One of those tiny decisions we make
that we never anticipate will change our lives forever. Eddie
had told me that we were going to do American
me and to me, it didn't matter what character I
was gonna play. I was just part of. It's just
more like it's like a mission, you know, like we're
(04:04):
doing something to see ourselves for trade as we are,
who we really are, you know, in an honest way.
We make more of than movies. We we changed the
way people look at us to bring humanity to the
portrayal of our people, the people in our community, to
bring the humanity to these characters, not stereotypes. They're not
good guys, are bad guys that are human beings. That
(04:27):
second voice that is my name is Danny the LAPAs
and I play Big Puppet in American Meeting. Daniel and
Danny played an important duo in American Met, two brothers,
Puppet and Little Puppet, who get tied up in the
world of the fictional Emmy Gang and who subplot in
the film is one of the most memorable parts of
the story. This is my brother. Isn't they call him
(04:48):
little Puppet. He's a genius homes. I don't get carried
a little puppet. He's little Doughey and an artist, a
tattoo artist, to be exact. Big Puppet, on the other hand,
is the older brother tall when we go to EGO,
a mustache, a real banger, more versed than the ins
and outs of gang life. You don't know nothing. Let
(05:10):
up be responsible for him. Little Puppet is this chubby
cheek nubi and fulsome prison on his first rap. Thank
you for helping us get this little meeting together, right, Yeah,
and do anything for mecha man when you come up.
If you need anything to let us know. Running into
any problems, We'll take care of it all right. Welcome
to More Than a Movie American Mean, a podcast that
digs into the history and mystery of American Mean, film
(05:33):
directed by and starring Edward James Almost that had a
huge impact on Latino cinema and culture. I'm your host,
Alex Fometto, and I'll be diving into the behind the
scenes controversy. This iconic film, directed, written, and starring Edward
James Almost was a big deal for the Latino community,
(05:53):
but there was serious blowback, even possible murders and threats
that continue to scare people even to this day. While
I've been researching and interviewing people related to this film
over and over again, I get eerily similar responses, basically
ghosted or flat out told leave this alone. Every episode
all peeled back a layer on the mystery and myths
(06:15):
surrounding this film. Thirty years later, in our last episode,
we spoke with Jacob Vargas a k a. Baul from
American Me and what it was like being an l
a kid on the set of American Me. In this episode,
I dig a little deeper into the darker side of
what still haunts American Me three decades later. This is
Our Puppet Show, a sit down with two of the
(06:36):
most memorable characters from the movie Big Puppet and Little Puppet,
Danny de la Pass and Daniel Vieiral. We'll talk about
working with Edward James, almost what they know about the
murder of Analyst Saraga, and whether or not Danny number three,
Danny Trejo, was telling the truth about American Me. More
than anything, I wanted to talk to Daniel and Danny
because there are two guys who really understood the potential
(07:00):
risks of making a movie like American Me, and they
did it anyway. And because my producer Nigel wanted the
podcast challenge of interviewing two guys with the same name
and nearly the same character name at exactly the same time.
Thanks Nigel. Quick disclaimer, the audio got really fucked up
at the studio we use, so unfortunately the Puppets might
sound a little funny. Daniel, you first, can you talk
(07:24):
a little bit about how you how how similar was
your life to Little Puppets life and and how did
you how did you get into that character, into that role? Um, well,
I was, I was a little homeboy since uh, you know,
I was twelve. So I was. I was in a
gang from twelve to seventeen. I was pretty much part
(07:45):
of it. And then because because of my mentor who
taught me photography, slowly I became less and less of
that and more and more, like you know, I started
to to want to be something more than you know,
I was born into. But it never left me, you know,
you know, it's like it's like that that little homeboy
(08:06):
will always be a part of me. So I was
like the real thing, but I was separating enough from
it and knew enough about art to be able to
see that I could do a performance versus just being
you know, a lot of people thought I was like
some kid off the street that they had just thrown
in and Danny, were you a gang banger growing up?
(08:27):
Or No? I was Kevin from the Wonder Years that
I'm not kidding. You may think that's funny, but that
was my upbringing. I was Mexican American. We went to
the Mexican weddings, you know, we did all that stuff
that Mexican Americans do. Um My parents spoke Spanish. My
(08:47):
father was from Chiuahua, Mexico. But I was raised in Whittier, California,
and at that time in the sixties, we didn't have
There wasn't any gangs I did. There was nobody around
to ask you where you're from, or you know. I
had my shwin By school with the with the banana
seat and the sissy bar and you know I had
I used to take cards and clip them on of
the tire spokes so that, you know, the will make
(09:09):
that funny sound. And I mean I had a kid's
beautiful kid's life. I used to lay out in the
on the grass in the front yard, on my back
on a blanket under a tree that we had in
our front yard and with my transistor radio listening to
Vince Gully called the Dodger Games. So you're playing puppet
your characters a real gangs. Yeah, he's deep. So then
(09:29):
how did you get into that? You know? Bolivard Knights,
I mean, that's what that was my baptism by fire
right there. Boulevard Knights is kind of the first movie
exclusively about Chicano life in l A. It came out
of nineteen nine and was written by one of the
guys who wrote American Me, Desmond Nicano. It's the story
of a young boy played by Danny de la pass
and his slow indoctrination into East l A gang life.
(09:50):
Those real gangsters that they put in that movie to
be the gangsters that were in my gang, the v
g V. They were the real deal, and they embrace
me and let me into their lives and taught me
what it felt like to be them and what it
was like to be a homeboy, you know, who grew
up in that environment and was surviving in the you know,
(10:10):
mid to late seventies or whatever. Um, yeah, that was
an amazing experience being with them, something I would never forget.
If it wasn't from my experience of all of our nights,
I don't think I would have been able to have
pulled off a role like Puppet in American Me. And
let me tell you something people may not have respect for.
They judge, oh, you're playing a gangster. What do you
play those gangster rules? Um? Playing Puppet in American Me
(10:35):
would probably I would put it at the level the
difficulty level of let's say, playing Hamlet. Can you tell
me about what your what the audition process was like.
Eddie pretty much knew everybody already. He knew all of us.
He would just get all of us together, Okay. He
would decide, at this time, in this place, you're gonna meet,
have the large tables and give us all scripts and
(10:58):
then say, okay, you read this, you read this, you
read that, you read that. So we'd read that for
like ten pages or whatever, and then he would switch
it up and after we read like two page thirty,
can I do now? You read this part and you
read Puppet And it was so relaxed because you weren't
like just one on one and all nervous about your performance.
(11:21):
There was everybody and their grandmother sitting there and you're
just reading from the script. I mean, there was just
no better way to disarm people and make them feel
comfortable than to do it that way. The puppets, the
Danny's really are actors, real actors, dudes obsessed with the craft,
with character, with the emotion behind a particular moment, and yes,
(11:44):
even more so if that moment happens to have them
in it. What really pissed me off was that they
could look at the film and not see the craftsmanship
behind the performances. They just thought, what they yanked us
off the streets, and that's the artist in them. But
they're also workers. They exist within an industry that then
and now is dominated by non Latino white people. I
(12:06):
wanted to know, were they aware of the rarity of
the moment they were in that here they were in
the early nineties in a film directed by, starring and
about Chicano's. Not only that, also the only the whole
crew was Chicano everybody. It was like a big giant
family electricians, the sound department, and that we were all
(12:29):
on the same page. We partied like more faults, so
like five in the morning and then we went to set.
You know, it was great. It was a great party.
I hadn't party. It was a great experience working on
the film. The bond, the bond that we all fell with,
and the fact that we were finally being recognized. This
was an a picture. We had the best catering, we
(12:51):
had beautiful costumes, we had the set than Champagne, We
had a we had it all and tell you sir,
and yeah, it was just awesome. And so there the
movie was shot in a real prison. What was it
like to interact with to see real prisoners in a
real prison for you? For me, it was such a
(13:13):
remarkable experience. When we first got the Remember, we would
we would be up on this like um a platform
kind of at the far end of the yard where
you could observe the yard like like you were watching
studying wildlife for something game. It was yeah, you see, yeah,
(13:38):
that's what it was, like like who's who in the zoo?
And we had to sign a paper saying like we
had to acknowledge that if we were taking hostage, that
they would not bargain for us, and we had to
sign and you sign that release. Yeah, that's what I
thought to myself. Wow, from our own drama class in
high school to full some prison, How the oh did
(14:00):
I get here? You know the vine in the prison,
you could the fear. The fear was palpable. Let's just
put it that way. You could sniff it out. You
just throw out that script just like child's play compared
to the real thing. And and the first day they
put us in the cell like by ourselves. Wow, you've
(14:21):
never felt that kind of like, you know, you don't
know what that say to you? Can you do, Daniel?
Can you describe that to me what it's like. It's like,
you know when you watch a horror film and like
the devil is inside you. It's like that, like there
is no hope and you think, oh my god, you
know this this is where you live, like you're the
night of the living dead. And that some of some
(14:42):
guys have been there for like twenty two years of
this ship every day. I remember one day we were
in the in the actual you know, old prison because
we were an old Folsom and when they were building
new Folsom. And there's a long, long bench that ones
along the wall there and you can sit on the
bench right and looked up and see the three or
(15:05):
four tiers. I forget what it was of of cells,
but everybody was out in the yard and we were
alone in there, and I remember looking up into all
those cells and thinking to myself, Wow, that's a lot
of fucked up childhood's right there. That's a lot of
people that didn't get love. That's a lot of people
that just got beat down since the time they came
(15:27):
out of the womb. That's a lot of negative stuff.
And that's what I saw. I saw five six seven
year olds just standing there behind the bar, staring back
at me, and I thought to myself, there before the
grace of God, go I you know, it could have
been me. So I want to talk a little bit
(15:50):
about your your characters. We got Puppet, We have Little Puppet.
There's there's a subplot, right like you guys in addition
to being in a gang, you have your own story, right, Danny,
Maybe you set that up for us, like what what's what?
Who is Puppet? Who is little Puppet? And how are
we introduced to them? If you take that script to
(16:12):
America me and you extrapolate only the Puppet, Little Puppet scenes,
You're gonna have a little short movie. Okay, So our
job in that film was we were kind of in
our own little movie. A tragic little movie for sure.
As spoiler alert, the Puppets short film ends pretty tragically.
(16:34):
I don't want to be in the m anymore, I say,
I want to be a John Dow. When Little Puppet
gets out of prison, he gets married, gets mad, faded,
and declares that he's done with Lamy, who are living
in vagers. Feel have some fucking kids, say, And in
(16:55):
his drunkenness, he accidentally gets Santana, the leader of Lammy,
thrown back in. Isn't so? The gang puts the green
light on Little Puppet? And who do they choose to
execute him? Of course his big brother. All right, let's
go tell me what your experience of the reception that
(17:26):
the movie received was. Daniel when when I when I
first found out that he wanted to do this film
and I read this grip, I was like, oh, man,
because we had done um Standing Delivery, which was such
a positive film, and I was, man, we're gonna get
killed on this thing. You know you really want to
do this thing? Yeah, we gotta do it. You know,
(17:48):
we gotta tell this story, so so we're kind of
brace for it. It was. There was such a negative
reception to it when it came out. God, you know,
people hated it. You know, they were so sick of
being portrayed as you know, like animal. You know who
hated it? The entire community. Well, they bombed. I mean basically,
(18:09):
let's put it this way. People would walk into the
theater out of screening, let's say, and there was a
lot of you know, energy and enthusiasm, and they're buying
the popcorn and getting their cokes and everybody was talking.
You hear the volume of the sound when the movie ended,
It was complete silence. You know that last where the
(18:29):
kid goes which one is everything? It don't matter, don't matter.
You know. The hopelessness of it impacted everybody that saw it.
(18:51):
And I don't think people like to be hit over.
They had like that. They it was like like a
wake up call and and they end with that, and
that's what they remember. They don't realized what the movie
is about. They just see that and they go, why
do you show that? You know, why are you showing you?
Why what do you what are you tearing us down.
Why are you making us feel bad? Why are you
making us look at this? Just trying to sweep it
(19:13):
under the carpet. We're trying to put it in the closet.
We don't want to look at this. But that was
the whole point, like you said, shedding the light when
that movie was made, Like and not just for your
personal careers, right, like that's what that's a separate but
just for for people like you as a whole, where
you like ship Man. Maybe it's changing, like maybe now
we'll be seeing more people like me in movies. Did
(19:35):
you ever have that thought of where you're like, Na, no, this,
I know how this place works. I think I knew
when I saw the reviews. Oh I. I couldn't believe
the ignorance of these people who were writing these reviews.
They didn't know, they didn't get it at all, did
right over their heads. What really piste me off was
that they could look at the film and not see
(19:58):
the craftsmanship behind performances. They just thought what they yanked
to stop the streets. You know, real gangsters, what is it,
They're just doing what they do in real life. Hello,
I mean that just pissed me off. Coming up, we'll
hear from the Danny's about their reaction when they heard
someone from the crew had been murdered. Welcome back to
(20:26):
More Than a Movie, Alex Flameto, and we're talking to
the actors Daniel Vierrel and Danny de la Pass. We'll
hear for the first time what it was like when
they found out the movie they made was getting people
killed back in Los Angeles. But first the critics. The
movie actually got pretty good reviews. Roger Ebert gave it
three and a half stars, and Ebert said something really
(20:47):
interesting in his review. Edward James Almost, who directed the
movie and plays Santana, says the film is based on
a true story that doesn't mean much to me by
the time the movies finished with them. True stories are
as fictional as any other. But did the people in
the community like the film? And how did the people
whose quote true story the movie was supposedly based on
(21:11):
feel about their lives becoming as fictional as any other
we know? Mexican mafia leader Joe Morgan filed a defamation
lawsuit against Almost after the film's release, not to mention
Danny Trejo's account of his alleged conversations with Morgan, I'd
say that's two thumbs down. And then there were the
murders the film's gang consultants that were killed after the
(21:31):
movie's release, including longtime gang intervention is Annalys Saaga. I
didn't want to make this interview about that, but I
had to ask. So I want to talk about a
particular um drive by murder that occurred not not not
(21:53):
far after the release of the film. Yeah, it was.
It was in May, with the film come out in March,
and she was murdered about two months later, and some
of the speculation is that it was in connection with
the making of this movie. My understanding is that she
she had a relationship would like am prior to the movie.
Obviously she was our our technical adviser, and then she
(22:17):
ended up in the movie. But she was run in
because she knew the world, and so my understanding was
that there was some kind of beef that has something
to do before the movie. I don't really know. I
don't neither, but I think American me was, you know,
maybe the straw that broke the camel's back. But there
was more to it than just Americans. What you're trying
(22:39):
to say, because we we we've been I've been hearing
things and then I recently I read, uh, you know,
in an interview that Danny Trego did for g KO
where he basically is saying that Eddie almost lied, you know,
and and and I made a comment on that, saying,
if that is so, why were we allowed to shoot?
We could never have made the film with that We
(23:01):
allowed to use like three hundred prisoners. You know, they
would they could have killed us at any moment if
if if had ordered. We were in France, um along
the Riviera at the kan Film Festival with American me
when we heard the news of Anna's assassination basically, and
(23:25):
I remember feeling a little bit scared. I was in
a foreign country, I was far from home, and I
was like, Wow, what am I gonna be going back
home to, you know. I It was an eye opener
for me. I I didn't know what to think. Do
I have to fear from my life, of the life
of my family for having chosen a role that I
(23:45):
liked very much and wanted to play. I do remember
feeling that at the time, I want to take a
step back and just uh talk a little bit about
who Eddie is in and Danny tray Hoo's you know
this is what you read in g Q was actually
(24:05):
part of his autobiography, right. And one of the things
that Trejo talks about is that on his meeting with
Edwards James almost Eddie came dressed in prison blues. Was
calling him, you know, Holmes and and I and I
asked this because you guys actually know Eddie very closely.
And Eddie was in a rock band, like from what
I understand in high school, he was not a banger, right, No,
(24:29):
So so what I mean you have to talk to
Ralo about that because I can't answer for him. I
don't actually want you to comment on what trey hoo said.
I want you to tell me. I know Eddie. I
have been around Eddie almost for a long time, and
if I felt that he was that kind of guy,
I would not work with him. Yeah, I I if
he was a phony, stupid wanna be too, a little guy,
(24:51):
you know, trying him Brentley like you don't get the
funk out of here? You know? Was he a method actor?
Though he had he had his own method, you know,
I mean, if he sounds silly and like, no, I
don't I can't imagine how doing that. But then I
don't know. I don't you know. I wasn't there when
you were on set with him, though, and you would
(25:11):
cut would he remain kind of in character? He was
the director. I think his directing is amazing and he
doesn't get, you know, credit for it. You know, well
that all right, that's another he's talking about those great performances.
You have to talk about him. Him him, Yeah, you know,
did I did I come up with the line? God
damn me? No? He was standing off camera, the camera's running,
(25:34):
We're doing the scene, and he says, say, god, damn, God, damn.
I just said it because he told me I could.
I could hear him right there by the camera, and
then I saw the scene. I was like, wow, I
(25:54):
can't believe how effective that was. He gave it everything.
He had everything and everything into it. He watched by
the side of the camera. You could see him squinting
looking at your performance. He wasn't just looking at the monitor.
He was watching you. Oh yeah. He He was in
every scene and every line. His imprint is on all
(26:19):
of our performances. I mean, he wasn't like Fellini, where
he was doing every part but he would right there,
you know, emotionally but spiritually, yeah, he was there in
all of us. Coming up, we'll talk six degrees of
Edward James almost, but first a blood sacrifice for the
corporate overlords. Welcome back to more than a movie. You
(26:45):
know who I am and what this is about. Now,
Danny de la Post tells us what it was like
to fake strangle his buddy Daniel Viirou. And you know,
they say six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but there's so
few Latinos in Hollywood that everyone is one degree of
Edwards James almost. You know, it's like everybody at least
knows one person who knows j You know, that's how
(27:05):
big of a legend it was for you guys. Can
you talk a little bit about Daniel Maybe you can
talk a little bit about who is Edwards James almost
within the sort of Latino film, television and theater world.
What does he represent? He loves his culture. He is
the ambassador for the Chicago community. He absolutely wants to
(27:28):
tell our stories. He wants to show how beautiful we are.
Doesn't he everything he does? I mean, basically, you know,
at he's the man. You know, he's he's the man,
and any of us would do, you know, anything for him.
I was very much a believer in community, and that's
(27:49):
what Eddie almost brought to this business, you know, a
sense of a community. And then you know, he gave
us those beautiful roles in American Me. That's like a
gift to give an You know how many actors would
have wanted to play puppet or a little puppet in
American Meat. He's been a mentor. It's incredible. One of
the first times Danny and Daniel saw Edward James almost
(28:11):
he was acting in a play by a Chicano theater
company named De'atro Campesino. In many ways, American Me and
all other films about Chicanismo would have never existed without them. Now,
for those of you who aren't theater nerds like me,
Tatro Campesino is arguably the most influential Chicano theater company
of all time. Founded literally on the picket lines of
Delano by playwright Luis Valdez, they performed for the likes
(28:34):
of Caesar Chavez, Dolores and hundreds of migrant workers putting
their bodies on the line in pursuit of fair wages.
But sure, let's talk about Steppenwolf or whatever. Valdez would
go on to write movies like La Bamba and The
Cisco Kid, but what really established him as a writer
was the play Daniel and Danny saw e j O
in all those years ago. The play was called zoot Suit.
(28:55):
Our Patrico realities will only make sense if you grasp
their stylization. It was a secret thing living to put
on the zoo. Zoo Suit is a play written by
Luis Valdez. The play is about the zoot Suit riots
that took place in Los Angeles in the early nineteen forties,
(29:18):
based on the true story of these young Chicanos. They
were actually arrested for crimes that they didn't commit and
put on trial. In Danny and I were probably at
the same performance of Zoso to play that Eddie almost
was in, and when we saw him, that's what we
wanted to do. I had never seen anything like that,
(29:40):
you know, because that was like my first live theater performance.
I know you've got many, but seeing him up there
doing what he was doing, it was amazing, you know.
And and when I saw I was like, that's what
I want to do. I had the same reaction you did.
I thought, oh my god, I'm playing at Chicano in
this film, even though I am Chicano. But these people
(30:01):
in this play, they were so connected to their chickenesem
that it just blew me out of the water. It
was almost like I didn't think I didn't feel worthy
to be in Bolivard Nights. At that moment, I was like, Wow,
I don't think I could and I could have been
cast in that play because I wouldn't have been Chicano
(30:23):
enough to be accepted into that mill. You You know,
there's so much controversy surrounding this movie, but I wanted
to end things on a positive note. I wanted to
know what's the thing they love most about American ma. Well,
I think it's it's the scene with Danny where he's
telling Eddie to take my name off to live, you know,
(30:47):
and that that the that the Grilled Chiefe and Mine
would be. You know, that movie doesn't have a lot
of comedy in it, but I do laugh when he's
learning how to drive the bolts wide and it's funny.
You know, it's funny to see this gangster, hardcore gangster.
I mean, I even I can't drive a vold Swagen bug.
(31:09):
So I did appreciate that. But my very favorite scene,
and I'm it's not because it's you and me, but
it's almost like it's somebody else. But when Puppet opens
that door to get out of prison, and you the
audience don't know. You know, he has a mission. Is
he gonna do it? Is he not gonna do it?
(31:29):
And he looks at his brother, and the brother looks
back at him, and you see the look on his face.
He's so happy to see his brother out. All the future,
the possibilities, what's gonna happen, and then they embrace for
me knowing what's going to happen. You know that that's
just a really sad, you know, powerful moment to me.
(31:54):
I like that scene, and the actually just like the
craft of it is that he could put it off
until the very last day when you couldn't put it
off anymore. And I was begging on his door, saying,
you have to come out and kill me, you have
to come. I did not want to come out of that,
just not want to do it. And then we did
it more than two any times. And I remember the
(32:15):
welts on your neck, the big red welts you had
from the friction of the that scene where my eyes
rolled back, it's because he had passed out and my
finger are going to like this and they were telling
you to let me go, and he would not, so
my eyes went back and then he got some scared
and I just keep doing this. Yeah, yeah, you know,
(32:37):
at the very end of that day exhaustion. I was spent,
but then you were spenting. You choked him out. It
was taxing for both of us. Then the sound was bad.
They could hear the motor of the of the airplex
camera and we had to do all the dialogue cal
dialogue right out the freaking Ventana. It was gone. On
(33:00):
the next episode, I'll speak with actor sal Lopez, who
plays Bero Santana Montoya, Santana's father in American Me. I'll
just say that I think he was very courageous to
take this on and just like in the movie, there
are consequences more than a movie. American Me is a
production of Exile Content Studios in partnership with I Heart
My Podcast Network and Trojan Horse Media. The show is
(33:23):
produced by me Alex frometto at Angry Yuka on the
internets and our Senior producer is Nigel Durra. Our executive
producers are Rose red Ando Vila and Kareem Tash. Production
assistance from Sabine Jansen and Alcdabio and Stella Emmett. Mixing
and sound designed by Guado Albornos. Our executive producers at
I Heart are Giselle Bonsas and Arlene Santana. For more podcasts,
(33:44):
listen to the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Five
When I first found out that he wanted to do
this film and I read this grip, I was like,
oh man, we're gonna get killed on this thing. You
know you really want to do this? Yeah, we gotta
do it, you know, we gotta tell the story from
drama class in high school to full some prison. How
the hell did I get here? It's like you know
(00:20):
when you watch a horror film and like the devil
is inside you. It's like that, like there is no hole. Yeah,
that's what it was, like, like Who's who in the zoo?
And we had to sign the paper saying, like I
said that, we we had to acknowledge that if we
were taking hostage that they would not bargain for us.
And we had to sign a relief and you signed
(00:42):
that release. Yeah. What makes a movie a cult classic?
Is it a far fetched premise like Starship Troopers. Let
me tell you something. I'm from Buenos Aias and I
said kill them all? Yeah yeah? Or is it like
Larry Clark Kids, where the characters are so real they
(01:06):
remind us of ourselves. Not much matter when you find
something that you care about, So that's all you've got.
What could movies like Fear and loathing clue an American
Me possibly have in common. I think it's that they
create worlds we want to inhabit without any of the
real world consequences. Of course, these worlds can be all
kinds of things. They can be fantastical, futuristic, hyper realistic.
(01:30):
They can be fun dangerous, or the best combo fun
and dangerous. But it's the fantasy of escaping into this
world that makes cult audiences become obsessed, and once obsessed,
the characters inhabiting that world become almost real to us.
I think Edward James, almost indirecting American Me, intended for
the film to feel real. I'm not sure he intended,
(01:53):
or wonder if he even understood at the time that
people would actually want to live in the world of
American Me to be friends with the guys in the
fictional gang depicted in the film. That kids would glorify
and even want to join a gang after seeing the movie,
the exact opposite intention he had for the film. Maybe
part of it is just the performances. It's not unexpected
(02:16):
that when a great actor like e j O directs
a movie that he'd get the best performances out of
his actors. But some of these characters have become legend
in certain communities, and I think we have to credit
that to the actors themselves who brought these characters to life.
My name is Daniel Vieria and I played Little Puppet
in American Daniel Virrel first met Edward James almost acting
(02:38):
alongside him in another classic movie film, Stand and Deliver Equipment,
Got It Gotta come to this class prepared? Do you
woke in my head? Edward James almost plays this teacher
in the Hood and Daniel plays his difficult student. In
(02:59):
a famous scene, Daniel's character gives his teacher the finger
and e j O turns the insult into a math problem.
Finger man, I heard about you. You're the finger man
on the Fingerman too. You know what I can do?
An auto multiplied by nine nine times three was what
(03:22):
the two became friends, and one day, about a year
after Standing the Deliver came out, Daniel and Edward were
on a plane together leaving Miami. Edward or Eddie as
Daniel calls him, told him about this project. He was
directing a movie about the origins of a notorious street
gang known as the Mexican Mafia, and he asked Daniel
if you wanted to be in it, and despite some reservations,
(03:44):
Daniel said yes. One of those tiny decisions we make
that we never anticipate will change our lives forever. Eddie
had told me that we were going to do American
me and to me, it didn't matter what character I
was gonna play. I was just part of. It's just
more like it's like a mission, you know, like we're
(04:04):
doing something to see ourselves for trade as we are,
who we really are, you know, in an honest way.
We make more of than movies. We we changed the
way people look at us to bring humanity to the
portrayal of our people, the people in our community, to
bring the humanity to these characters, not stereotypes. They're not
good guys, are bad guys that are human beings. That
(04:27):
second voice that is my name is Danny the LAPAs
and I play Big Puppet in American Meeting. Daniel and
Danny played an important duo in American Met, two brothers,
Puppet and Little Puppet, who get tied up in the
world of the fictional Emmy Gang and who subplot in
the film is one of the most memorable parts of
the story. This is my brother. Isn't they call him
(04:48):
little Puppet. He's a genius homes. I don't get carried
a little puppet. He's little Doughey and an artist, a
tattoo artist, to be exact. Big Puppet, on the other hand,
is the older brother tall when we go to EGO,
a mustache, a real banger, more versed than the ins
and outs of gang life. You don't know nothing. Let
(05:10):
up be responsible for him. Little Puppet is this chubby
cheek nubi and fulsome prison on his first rap. Thank
you for helping us get this little meeting together, right, Yeah,
and do anything for mecha man when you come up.
If you need anything to let us know. Running into
any problems, We'll take care of it all right. Welcome
to More Than a Movie American Mean, a podcast that
digs into the history and mystery of American Mean, film
(05:33):
directed by and starring Edward James Almost that had a
huge impact on Latino cinema and culture. I'm your host,
Alex Fometto, and I'll be diving into the behind the
scenes controversy. This iconic film, directed, written, and starring Edward
James Almost was a big deal for the Latino community,
(05:53):
but there was serious blowback, even possible murders and threats
that continue to scare people even to this day. While
I've been researching and interviewing people related to this film
over and over again, I get eerily similar responses, basically
ghosted or flat out told leave this alone. Every episode
all peeled back a layer on the mystery and myths
(06:15):
surrounding this film. Thirty years later, in our last episode,
we spoke with Jacob Vargas a k a. Baul from
American Me and what it was like being an l
a kid on the set of American Me. In this episode,
I dig a little deeper into the darker side of
what still haunts American Me three decades later. This is
Our Puppet Show, a sit down with two of the
(06:36):
most memorable characters from the movie Big Puppet and Little Puppet,
Danny de la Pass and Daniel Vieiral. We'll talk about
working with Edward James, almost what they know about the
murder of Analyst Saraga, and whether or not Danny number three,
Danny Trejo, was telling the truth about American Me. More
than anything, I wanted to talk to Daniel and Danny
because there are two guys who really understood the potential
(07:00):
risks of making a movie like American Me, and they
did it anyway. And because my producer Nigel wanted the
podcast challenge of interviewing two guys with the same name
and nearly the same character name at exactly the same time.
Thanks Nigel. Quick disclaimer, the audio got really fucked up
at the studio we use, so unfortunately the Puppets might
sound a little funny. Daniel, you first, can you talk
(07:24):
a little bit about how you how how similar was
your life to Little Puppets life and and how did
you how did you get into that character, into that role? Um, well,
I was, I was a little homeboy since uh, you know,
I was twelve. So I was. I was in a
gang from twelve to seventeen. I was pretty much part
(07:45):
of it. And then because because of my mentor who
taught me photography, slowly I became less and less of
that and more and more, like you know, I started
to to want to be something more than you know,
I was born into. But it never left me, you know,
you know, it's like it's like that that little homeboy
(08:06):
will always be a part of me. So I was
like the real thing, but I was separating enough from
it and knew enough about art to be able to
see that I could do a performance versus just being
you know, a lot of people thought I was like
some kid off the street that they had just thrown
in and Danny, were you a gang banger growing up?
(08:27):
Or No? I was Kevin from the Wonder Years that
I'm not kidding. You may think that's funny, but that
was my upbringing. I was Mexican American. We went to
the Mexican weddings, you know, we did all that stuff
that Mexican Americans do. Um My parents spoke Spanish. My
(08:47):
father was from Chiuahua, Mexico. But I was raised in Whittier, California,
and at that time in the sixties, we didn't have
There wasn't any gangs I did. There was nobody around
to ask you where you're from, or you know. I
had my shwin By school with the with the banana
seat and the sissy bar and you know I had
I used to take cards and clip them on of
the tire spokes so that, you know, the will make
(09:09):
that funny sound. And I mean I had a kid's
beautiful kid's life. I used to lay out in the
on the grass in the front yard, on my back
on a blanket under a tree that we had in
our front yard and with my transistor radio listening to
Vince Gully called the Dodger Games. So you're playing puppet
your characters a real gangs. Yeah, he's deep. So then
(09:29):
how did you get into that? You know? Bolivard Knights,
I mean, that's what that was my baptism by fire
right there. Boulevard Knights is kind of the first movie
exclusively about Chicano life in l A. It came out
of nineteen nine and was written by one of the
guys who wrote American Me, Desmond Nicano. It's the story
of a young boy played by Danny de la pass
and his slow indoctrination into East l A gang life.
(09:50):
Those real gangsters that they put in that movie to
be the gangsters that were in my gang, the v
g V. They were the real deal, and they embrace
me and let me into their lives and taught me
what it felt like to be them and what it
was like to be a homeboy, you know, who grew
up in that environment and was surviving in the you know,
(10:10):
mid to late seventies or whatever. Um, yeah, that was
an amazing experience being with them, something I would never forget.
If it wasn't from my experience of all of our nights,
I don't think I would have been able to have
pulled off a role like Puppet in American Me. And
let me tell you something people may not have respect for.
They judge, oh, you're playing a gangster. What do you
play those gangster rules? Um? Playing Puppet in American Me
(10:35):
would probably I would put it at the level the
difficulty level of let's say, playing Hamlet. Can you tell
me about what your what the audition process was like.
Eddie pretty much knew everybody already. He knew all of us.
He would just get all of us together, Okay. He
would decide, at this time, in this place, you're gonna meet,
have the large tables and give us all scripts and
(10:58):
then say, okay, you read this, you read this, you
read that, you read that. So we'd read that for
like ten pages or whatever, and then he would switch
it up and after we read like two page thirty,
can I do now? You read this part and you
read Puppet And it was so relaxed because you weren't
like just one on one and all nervous about your performance.
(11:21):
There was everybody and their grandmother sitting there and you're
just reading from the script. I mean, there was just
no better way to disarm people and make them feel
comfortable than to do it that way. The puppets, the
Danny's really are actors, real actors, dudes obsessed with the craft,
with character, with the emotion behind a particular moment, and yes,
(11:44):
even more so if that moment happens to have them
in it. What really pissed me off was that they
could look at the film and not see the craftsmanship
behind the performances. They just thought, what they yanked us
off the streets, and that's the artist in them. But
they're also workers. They exist within an industry that then
and now is dominated by non Latino white people. I
(12:06):
wanted to know, were they aware of the rarity of
the moment they were in that here they were in
the early nineties in a film directed by, starring and
about Chicano's. Not only that, also the only the whole
crew was Chicano everybody. It was like a big giant
family electricians, the sound department, and that we were all
(12:29):
on the same page. We partied like more faults, so
like five in the morning and then we went to set.
You know, it was great. It was a great party.
I hadn't party. It was a great experience working on
the film. The bond, the bond that we all fell with,
and the fact that we were finally being recognized. This
was an a picture. We had the best catering, we
(12:51):
had beautiful costumes, we had the set than Champagne, We
had a we had it all and tell you sir,
and yeah, it was just awesome. And so there the
movie was shot in a real prison. What was it
like to interact with to see real prisoners in a
real prison for you? For me, it was such a
(13:13):
remarkable experience. When we first got the Remember, we would
we would be up on this like um a platform
kind of at the far end of the yard where
you could observe the yard like like you were watching
studying wildlife for something game. It was yeah, you see, yeah,
(13:38):
that's what it was, like like who's who in the zoo?
And we had to sign a paper saying like we
had to acknowledge that if we were taking hostage, that
they would not bargain for us, and we had to
sign and you sign that release. Yeah, that's what I
thought to myself. Wow, from our own drama class in
high school to full some prison, How the oh did
(14:00):
I get here? You know the vine in the prison,
you could the fear. The fear was palpable. Let's just
put it that way. You could sniff it out. You
just throw out that script just like child's play compared
to the real thing. And and the first day they
put us in the cell like by ourselves. Wow, you've
(14:21):
never felt that kind of like, you know, you don't
know what that say to you? Can you do, Daniel?
Can you describe that to me what it's like. It's like,
you know when you watch a horror film and like
the devil is inside you. It's like that, like there
is no hope and you think, oh my god, you
know this this is where you live, like you're the
night of the living dead. And that some of some
(14:42):
guys have been there for like twenty two years of
this ship every day. I remember one day we were
in the in the actual you know, old prison because
we were an old Folsom and when they were building
new Folsom. And there's a long, long bench that ones
along the wall there and you can sit on the
bench right and looked up and see the three or
(15:05):
four tiers. I forget what it was of of cells,
but everybody was out in the yard and we were
alone in there, and I remember looking up into all
those cells and thinking to myself, Wow, that's a lot
of fucked up childhood's right there. That's a lot of
people that didn't get love. That's a lot of people
that just got beat down since the time they came
(15:27):
out of the womb. That's a lot of negative stuff.
And that's what I saw. I saw five six seven
year olds just standing there behind the bar, staring back
at me, and I thought to myself, there before the
grace of God, go I you know, it could have
been me. So I want to talk a little bit
(15:50):
about your your characters. We got Puppet, We have Little Puppet.
There's there's a subplot, right like you guys in addition
to being in a gang, you have your own story, right, Danny,
Maybe you set that up for us, like what what's what?
Who is Puppet? Who is little Puppet? And how are
we introduced to them? If you take that script to
(16:12):
America me and you extrapolate only the Puppet, Little Puppet scenes,
You're gonna have a little short movie. Okay, So our
job in that film was we were kind of in
our own little movie. A tragic little movie for sure.
As spoiler alert, the Puppets short film ends pretty tragically.
(16:34):
I don't want to be in the m anymore, I say,
I want to be a John Dow. When Little Puppet
gets out of prison, he gets married, gets mad, faded,
and declares that he's done with Lamy, who are living
in vagers. Feel have some fucking kids, say, And in
(16:55):
his drunkenness, he accidentally gets Santana, the leader of Lammy,
thrown back in. Isn't so? The gang puts the green
light on Little Puppet? And who do they choose to
execute him? Of course his big brother. All right, let's
go tell me what your experience of the reception that
(17:26):
the movie received was. Daniel when when I when I
first found out that he wanted to do this film
and I read this grip, I was like, oh, man,
because we had done um Standing Delivery, which was such
a positive film, and I was, man, we're gonna get
killed on this thing. You know you really want to
do this thing? Yeah, we gotta do it. You know,
(17:48):
we gotta tell this story, so so we're kind of
brace for it. It was. There was such a negative
reception to it when it came out. God, you know,
people hated it. You know, they were so sick of
being portrayed as you know, like animal. You know who
hated it? The entire community. Well, they bombed. I mean basically,
(18:09):
let's put it this way. People would walk into the
theater out of screening, let's say, and there was a
lot of you know, energy and enthusiasm, and they're buying
the popcorn and getting their cokes and everybody was talking.
You hear the volume of the sound when the movie ended,
It was complete silence. You know that last where the
(18:29):
kid goes which one is everything? It don't matter, don't matter.
You know. The hopelessness of it impacted everybody that saw it.
(18:51):
And I don't think people like to be hit over.
They had like that. They it was like like a
wake up call and and they end with that, and
that's what they remember. They don't realized what the movie
is about. They just see that and they go, why
do you show that? You know, why are you showing you?
Why what do you what are you tearing us down.
Why are you making us feel bad? Why are you
making us look at this? Just trying to sweep it
(19:13):
under the carpet. We're trying to put it in the closet.
We don't want to look at this. But that was
the whole point, like you said, shedding the light when
that movie was made, Like and not just for your
personal careers, right, like that's what that's a separate but
just for for people like you as a whole, where
you like ship Man. Maybe it's changing, like maybe now
we'll be seeing more people like me in movies. Did
(19:35):
you ever have that thought of where you're like, Na, no, this,
I know how this place works. I think I knew
when I saw the reviews. Oh I. I couldn't believe
the ignorance of these people who were writing these reviews.
They didn't know, they didn't get it at all, did
right over their heads. What really piste me off was
that they could look at the film and not see
(19:58):
the craftsmanship behind performances. They just thought what they yanked
to stop the streets. You know, real gangsters, what is it,
They're just doing what they do in real life. Hello,
I mean that just pissed me off. Coming up, we'll
hear from the Danny's about their reaction when they heard
someone from the crew had been murdered. Welcome back to
(20:26):
More Than a Movie, Alex Flameto, and we're talking to
the actors Daniel Vierrel and Danny de la Pass. We'll
hear for the first time what it was like when
they found out the movie they made was getting people
killed back in Los Angeles. But first the critics. The
movie actually got pretty good reviews. Roger Ebert gave it
three and a half stars, and Ebert said something really
(20:47):
interesting in his review. Edward James Almost, who directed the
movie and plays Santana, says the film is based on
a true story that doesn't mean much to me by
the time the movies finished with them. True stories are
as fictional as any other. But did the people in
the community like the film? And how did the people
whose quote true story the movie was supposedly based on
(21:11):
feel about their lives becoming as fictional as any other
we know? Mexican mafia leader Joe Morgan filed a defamation
lawsuit against Almost after the film's release, not to mention
Danny Trejo's account of his alleged conversations with Morgan, I'd
say that's two thumbs down. And then there were the
murders the film's gang consultants that were killed after the
(21:31):
movie's release, including longtime gang intervention is Annalys Saaga. I
didn't want to make this interview about that, but I
had to ask. So I want to talk about a
particular um drive by murder that occurred not not not
(21:53):
far after the release of the film. Yeah, it was.
It was in May, with the film come out in March,
and she was murdered about two months later, and some
of the speculation is that it was in connection with
the making of this movie. My understanding is that she
she had a relationship would like am prior to the movie.
Obviously she was our our technical adviser, and then she
(22:17):
ended up in the movie. But she was run in
because she knew the world, and so my understanding was
that there was some kind of beef that has something
to do before the movie. I don't really know. I
don't neither, but I think American me was, you know,
maybe the straw that broke the camel's back. But there
was more to it than just Americans. What you're trying
(22:39):
to say, because we we we've been I've been hearing
things and then I recently I read, uh, you know,
in an interview that Danny Trego did for g KO
where he basically is saying that Eddie almost lied, you know,
and and and I made a comment on that, saying,
if that is so, why were we allowed to shoot?
We could never have made the film with that We
(23:01):
allowed to use like three hundred prisoners. You know, they
would they could have killed us at any moment if
if if had ordered. We were in France, um along
the Riviera at the kan Film Festival with American me
when we heard the news of Anna's assassination basically, and
(23:25):
I remember feeling a little bit scared. I was in
a foreign country, I was far from home, and I
was like, Wow, what am I gonna be going back
home to, you know. I It was an eye opener
for me. I I didn't know what to think. Do
I have to fear from my life, of the life
of my family for having chosen a role that I
(23:45):
liked very much and wanted to play. I do remember
feeling that at the time, I want to take a
step back and just uh talk a little bit about
who Eddie is in and Danny tray Hoo's you know
this is what you read in g Q was actually
(24:05):
part of his autobiography, right. And one of the things
that Trejo talks about is that on his meeting with
Edwards James almost Eddie came dressed in prison blues. Was
calling him, you know, Holmes and and I and I
asked this because you guys actually know Eddie very closely.
And Eddie was in a rock band, like from what
I understand in high school, he was not a banger, right, No,
(24:29):
So so what I mean you have to talk to
Ralo about that because I can't answer for him. I
don't actually want you to comment on what trey hoo said.
I want you to tell me. I know Eddie. I
have been around Eddie almost for a long time, and
if I felt that he was that kind of guy,
I would not work with him. Yeah, I I if
he was a phony, stupid wanna be too, a little guy,
(24:51):
you know, trying him Brentley like you don't get the
funk out of here? You know? Was he a method actor?
Though he had he had his own method, you know,
I mean, if he sounds silly and like, no, I
don't I can't imagine how doing that. But then I
don't know. I don't you know. I wasn't there when
you were on set with him, though, and you would
(25:11):
cut would he remain kind of in character? He was
the director. I think his directing is amazing and he
doesn't get, you know, credit for it. You know, well
that all right, that's another he's talking about those great performances.
You have to talk about him. Him him, Yeah, you know,
did I did I come up with the line? God
damn me? No? He was standing off camera, the camera's running,
(25:34):
We're doing the scene, and he says, say, god, damn, God, damn.
I just said it because he told me I could.
I could hear him right there by the camera, and
then I saw the scene. I was like, wow, I
(25:54):
can't believe how effective that was. He gave it everything.
He had everything and everything into it. He watched by
the side of the camera. You could see him squinting
looking at your performance. He wasn't just looking at the monitor.
He was watching you. Oh yeah. He He was in
every scene and every line. His imprint is on all
(26:19):
of our performances. I mean, he wasn't like Fellini, where
he was doing every part but he would right there,
you know, emotionally but spiritually, yeah, he was there in
all of us. Coming up, we'll talk six degrees of
Edward James almost, but first a blood sacrifice for the
corporate overlords. Welcome back to more than a movie. You
(26:45):
know who I am and what this is about. Now,
Danny de la Post tells us what it was like
to fake strangle his buddy Daniel Viirou. And you know,
they say six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but there's so
few Latinos in Hollywood that everyone is one degree of
Edwards James almost. You know, it's like everybody at least
knows one person who knows j You know, that's how
(27:05):
big of a legend it was for you guys. Can
you talk a little bit about Daniel Maybe you can
talk a little bit about who is Edwards James almost
within the sort of Latino film, television and theater world.
What does he represent? He loves his culture. He is
the ambassador for the Chicago community. He absolutely wants to
(27:28):
tell our stories. He wants to show how beautiful we are.
Doesn't he everything he does? I mean, basically, you know,
at he's the man. You know, he's he's the man,
and any of us would do, you know, anything for him.
I was very much a believer in community, and that's
(27:49):
what Eddie almost brought to this business, you know, a
sense of a community. And then you know, he gave
us those beautiful roles in American Me. That's like a
gift to give an You know how many actors would
have wanted to play puppet or a little puppet in
American Meat. He's been a mentor. It's incredible. One of
the first times Danny and Daniel saw Edward James almost
(28:11):
he was acting in a play by a Chicano theater
company named De'atro Campesino. In many ways, American Me and
all other films about Chicanismo would have never existed without them. Now,
for those of you who aren't theater nerds like me,
Tatro Campesino is arguably the most influential Chicano theater company
of all time. Founded literally on the picket lines of
Delano by playwright Luis Valdez, they performed for the likes
(28:34):
of Caesar Chavez, Dolores and hundreds of migrant workers putting
their bodies on the line in pursuit of fair wages.
But sure, let's talk about Steppenwolf or whatever. Valdez would
go on to write movies like La Bamba and The
Cisco Kid, but what really established him as a writer
was the play Daniel and Danny saw e j O
in all those years ago. The play was called zoot Suit.
(28:55):
Our Patrico realities will only make sense if you grasp
their stylization. It was a secret thing living to put
on the zoo. Zoo Suit is a play written by
Luis Valdez. The play is about the zoot Suit riots
that took place in Los Angeles in the early nineteen forties,
(29:18):
based on the true story of these young Chicanos. They
were actually arrested for crimes that they didn't commit and
put on trial. In Danny and I were probably at
the same performance of Zoso to play that Eddie almost
was in, and when we saw him, that's what we
wanted to do. I had never seen anything like that,
(29:40):
you know, because that was like my first live theater performance.
I know you've got many, but seeing him up there
doing what he was doing, it was amazing, you know.
And and when I saw I was like, that's what
I want to do. I had the same reaction you did.
I thought, oh my god, I'm playing at Chicano in
this film, even though I am Chicano. But these people
(30:01):
in this play, they were so connected to their chickenesem
that it just blew me out of the water. It
was almost like I didn't think I didn't feel worthy
to be in Bolivard Nights. At that moment, I was like, Wow,
I don't think I could and I could have been
cast in that play because I wouldn't have been Chicano
(30:23):
enough to be accepted into that mill. You You know,
there's so much controversy surrounding this movie, but I wanted
to end things on a positive note. I wanted to
know what's the thing they love most about American ma. Well,
I think it's it's the scene with Danny where he's
telling Eddie to take my name off to live, you know,
(30:47):
and that that the that the Grilled Chiefe and Mine
would be. You know, that movie doesn't have a lot
of comedy in it, but I do laugh when he's
learning how to drive the bolts wide and it's funny.
You know, it's funny to see this gangster, hardcore gangster.
I mean, I even I can't drive a vold Swagen bug.
(31:09):
So I did appreciate that. But my very favorite scene,
and I'm it's not because it's you and me, but
it's almost like it's somebody else. But when Puppet opens
that door to get out of prison, and you the
audience don't know. You know, he has a mission. Is
he gonna do it? Is he not gonna do it?
(31:29):
And he looks at his brother, and the brother looks
back at him, and you see the look on his face.
He's so happy to see his brother out. All the future,
the possibilities, what's gonna happen, and then they embrace for
me knowing what's going to happen. You know that that's
just a really sad, you know, powerful moment to me.
(31:54):
I like that scene, and the actually just like the
craft of it is that he could put it off
until the very last day when you couldn't put it
off anymore. And I was begging on his door, saying,
you have to come out and kill me, you have
to come. I did not want to come out of that,
just not want to do it. And then we did
it more than two any times. And I remember the
(32:15):
welts on your neck, the big red welts you had
from the friction of the that scene where my eyes
rolled back, it's because he had passed out and my
finger are going to like this and they were telling
you to let me go, and he would not, so
my eyes went back and then he got some scared
and I just keep doing this. Yeah, yeah, you know,
(32:37):
at the very end of that day exhaustion. I was spent,
but then you were spenting. You choked him out. It
was taxing for both of us. Then the sound was bad.
They could hear the motor of the of the airplex
camera and we had to do all the dialogue cal
dialogue right out the freaking Ventana. It was gone. On
(33:00):
the next episode, I'll speak with actor sal Lopez, who
plays Bero Santana Montoya, Santana's father in American Me. I'll
just say that I think he was very courageous to
take this on and just like in the movie, there
are consequences more than a movie. American Me is a
production of Exile Content Studios in partnership with I Heart
My Podcast Network and Trojan Horse Media. The show is
(33:23):
produced by me Alex frometto at Angry Yuka on the
internets and our Senior producer is Nigel Durra. Our executive
producers are Rose red Ando Vila and Kareem Tash. Production
assistance from Sabine Jansen and Alcdabio and Stella Emmett. Mixing
and sound designed by Guado Albornos. Our executive producers at
I Heart are Giselle Bonsas and Arlene Santana. For more podcasts,
(33:44):
listen to the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Five
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