An eye for reel life
Film star Lou Diamond Phillips doesn’t shy from tough parts — even when it means playing the bad guy
LOU Diamond Phillips wants to keep it real. The 57-year-old has long been drawn to playing real-life characters, whether it’s the doomed rock star Ritchie Valens of 1987’s “La Bamba” or, in the case of his latest film, an abusive stepfather. In “Quest — The Truth Always Rises,” the indie film that closes the Festival of Cinema NYC on Aug. 10, Phillips plays Gus, the nemesis of Mills, a troubled 12-year-old graffiti artist whose life is modeled on that of filmmaker Santiago Rizzo. And Rizzo is thrilled to have Phillips in his film. “He’s not afraid to be honest and take risks and [is] fearless of his image, playing a role that many will find uncomfortable,” says Rizzo, 38, who remembers seeing Phillips in “La Bamba” when he was 6. “He shows the manipulative side of the abuser. Lou plays him spot-on. ” As Phillips recalls it, portraying Valens — the rising star whose life was cut short, at 17, in a 1959 plane crash that also claimed Buddy Holly — was daunting. “I do remember being
scared to death every single day,” Phillips tells The Post. He says that, “as an unknown kid from Texas” who was being given a break, “I was reminded quite often that I needed to knock it out of the park.”
That he did, even earning the Valens family’s “stamp of approval,” he says. “Every single day was a catharsis for them . . . knowing that Ritchie was finally getting the credit he deserved.”
Yet even after “La Bamba” and his Golden Globe-nominated turn in 1988’s “Stand and Deliver,” Phillips still felt undeserving of attention. That changed when he was cast alongside young actors Kiefer Sutherland, Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen in “Young Guns” that same year.
“What a magical time,” he marvels. “When I stepped on set, there I was with Kiefer and Emilio and Charlie, a lot of what I consider to be Hollywood nobility. Suddenly I was like, ‘OK, I’ve made it. I’ve been accepted.’ ”
Decades later, the LA-based actor continues to flourish. In the Fox drama “Prodigal Son,” premiering Sept. 23, he plays a cop who teams with the son of a serial killer to track down an apparent copycat murderer.
Part of his success may well lie in his ethnic fluidity. The son of a Filipina mother and a father with Scottish, Irish, Cherokee, Chinese and “1 percent Viking” roots, he’s landed roles as varied as Latino singer Valens, a Spanish outlaw in the “Young Guns” films and the king of Siam in his 1996 Tony-nominated Broadway debut in “The King and I.” He’s also played a Cheyenne, Wyo., bar owner in A&E’s “Longmire” and a Chilean miner in the 2015 nonfiction film “The 33.”
Even so, Phillips says, Hollywood’s vaunted new inclusivity has “a patina of exclusivity” because mixed-race actors can be nixed for not matching a character’s exact identity.
“It’s unfair to go, ‘Oh well, they’re not Latino enough, or they’re not black enough or they’re not Asian enough,’ ” he says.
“Some roles must be very specific and authentic, but there needs to be more opportunity across the board.”