San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Lou Diamond Phillips shares a scary career moment
‘Prodigal Son’ actor, who broke out with ‘La Bamba,’ does not speak Spanish, which led to a scary moment on set
The Fox drama “Prodigal Son,” back for a second season, puts a different spin on the police procedural, with a young criminal psychologist teaming up with his father, a convicted serial killer, to unravel the latest case.
Lou Diamond Phillips co-stars as Gil Arroyo, the police lieutenant who was wounded at the end of last season, which complicates things as he “tries to maintain his position as head of the team, and not only that but take care of everyone; his paternal instincts really kick in this season,” Phillips said.
The show is “more twisted and dark than ever,” he added, “and funnier. I don’t know how these guys do it. It’s equal parts shock and awe and hilarity.”
The starring role that launched Phillips’ career was the 1987 Ritchie Valens biopic “La Bamba,” and his list of credits since is long and filled with numerous roles in film (memorably in both “Young Guns” films as well as “Stand and Deliver”) and television (“Numb3rs” and “Longmire” among many others).
When asked about a worst moment in his career, he replied: “I have a great story, but it brings back anxiety. This actually happened late in my career, sadly enough. But other than ‘La Bamba,’ it’s the only time I ever thought I would get fired.”
My worst moment
“I remember on ‘La Bamba,’ literally on the third day, (producer) Taylor Hackford said, ‘If you don’t knock this out of the park, kid, we’re gonna send you back to Texas.’ And that was like, ‘OK, no pressure.’ And it was early enough in the process where they really could have just fired me and it would have been no skin off anybody’s nose, so I remember the fear. But after that I had a few hits and you get comfortable.
“So a few years back, when I was getting ready to do the national tour of ‘Camelot’ playing King Arthur, I was offered the opportunity to do a cameo in the film “Che” (from 2008) that Steven Soderbergh was directing with Benicio del Toro. For me, it was like an automatic yes, and producers of ‘Camelot’ were very kind to let me out of rehearsals so that I could fly to Spain, shoot for one day and then fly back.
“The only caveat was the that film was going to be in Spanish and I don’t speak Spanish. I’m half Filipino — at some point on ‘Prodigal Son’ we’re going to reveal that my character is Filipino as well — but with ‘La Bamba’ and ‘Stand and Deliver,’ people just assume I’m Latinx. I’ve always been very clear, and it’s never been a secret that I’m not.
“So I am not fluent in Spanish, even though I grew up in south Texas. Sadly, I’m one of those Americans who is not multilingual, but I have spoken Spanish in projects in small doses. So we made it clear to the producers that I don’t speak Spanish, but that I could learn the three scenes I was doing phonetically. I had a 10-hour flight from L.A. to Madrid to learn the scenes, so everything was fine. And I found out later that Benecio recommended me, so this was thrilling.
“Off I go on the plane, and I have an audio recording of the lines so I can get the pronunciations and the inflects correct. I’m working the entire flight over, and I’m supposed to have a full day when I get there to work with the translator and dialect coach and then we’ll shoot the day after that. So I arrive at the hotel at 10 or 11 at night and the translator is there and tells me that not only has the schedule changed and I’m filming at 6 o’clock the next morning, but the scenes have all been rewritten! So the six pages I learned by rote on the plane no longer apply.
“Now I’m scared to death. I stayed up until 2 o’clock in the morning, knowing I had to get up at 5, learning the new stuff with the translator, who was so kind to stay with me to work on it. When I got to the set, they tell me that Benicio really likes to keep it loose, so he improvises a lot. And now I’m feeling even more screwed.
“One of assistant directors says, ‘Eh, don’t worry so much about the lines,’ and I said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa — I cannot improvise in Spanish.’ And one of the producers finds out and comes over and says, ‘You don’t speak Spanish?’ And I said, ‘No! My manager and my agent both made it clear that I don’t speak Spanish, but that I can learn the scene.’ And the producer was apoplectic and saying, ‘All these actors who lie on their résumé.’ And I was like, ‘No, I never lied! For 30 years, I’ve never misrepresented myself !’
“The producer is absolutely furious at me. I haven’t even met Steven Soderbergh yet and now I’m convinced they’re going to put me back on a plane and send me home. And at this point in my career that’s like, wow. The amount of embarrassment and shame, I can’t even begin to describe.
“So I’m drilling the material with the translator in the event that I’m not getting fired, and then an assistant director comes to bring me to set, which is in the middle of a forest. Steven comes by and gives me a perfunctory hello, so automatically I think I am definitely getting fired. Then Benicio strides out in his Che Guevara fatigues and he’s very tall and I am so intimidated, I’m almost pissing myself. And as I’m standing there, the rest of the actors and background actors and the crew are gathering around. It’s a crowd of people. And Steven says, verbatim: ‘OK, this is the part where you leave.’
“And my heart just sank. I thought, he assembled the entire cast and crew to fire me publicly? Oh my God, I have never been more humiliated in my life. And I just stood there staring at him.
“And then he looks at me and says, ‘So Lou, you’ll enter from here.’
“And it becomes clear to me: Oh, he’s talking about the scene, where the character leaves. I was literally wiping tears from my eyes.
“So yeah, that was probably the most panic-ridden couple of hours I’ve had as an actor.”
Was Phillips in a good headspace to perform after all that?
“It went so smoothly after that, it was ridiculous. I was massively relieved, and after the first couple of takes Steven gave me a really nice compliment. He said, ‘Not many actors listen well, you listen extremely well.’
“In the film I play Mario Monje, who was the secretary of the Communist Party in Bolivia, so it wasn’t just a Spanish but Spanish with a Bolivian accent. It was an important couple of scenes; Che Guevara comes to the jungle to get not only the blessing, but the support, of the party to continue his coup and revolution, and the two characters did not see eye to eye. There was a copy of the script in Spanish and another in English, so I knew what I was saying and I could follow the conversation.
“I was very proud to have been in the film. There is an effort to be much more authentic these days, so now there are certain roles where I just say no; even though I could play it, I should step aside for somebody else.”
The takeaway?
“First of all, transparency (laughs) and communication, because if you find yourself in a situation where you have to explain yourself, I would really rather do that upfront.”
“There is an effort to be much more authentic these days, so now there are certain roles where I just say no; even though I could play it, I should step aside for somebody else.”
Lou Diamond Phillips