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