From director Ben Hernandez Bray and producer Joe Carnahan (who developed the script together), the indie drama El Chicano is a very different kind of superhero story about a masked street legend who fights the evil that lives in the East Los neighborhood that’s stuck in a turf battle. When LAPD Detective Diego Hernandez (Raúl Castillo) is assigned a career-making case investigating a vicious cartel and learns that his brother’s supposed suicide might have actually been a murder, he becomes torn over the best way to seek justice.
At the film’s Los Angeles press day, Collider got the opportunity to sit down with co-stars Raúl Castillo, George Lopez (who plays Diego’s boss, Captain Gomez) and Aimee Garcia (who plays Diego’s love, Vanessa) and talk about why it’s both about time and the right time for a movie like El Chicano, their reaction to the script, telling such a personal story, getting to explore their character through the relationship dynamics, and having a bad-ass superhero look. Lopez also talked about his experience working with director David Ayer on The Tax Collector, while Castillo talked about making Knives Out with director Rian Johnson, and Garcia talked about her upcoming projects, including the 4th season of Lucifer (available to stream at Netflix on May 8th).
Collider: Does it feel like it’s about time for a movie like this, or does it feel like the right time for a movie like this?
RAUL CASTILLO: It definitely feels like it’s about time, and that it’s the right time.
GARCIA: I feel like people are just tired of the same old thing. When people take a tried and true formula and break the mold, it just blossoms into success. You take Crazy Rich Asians, which is a classic, typical, old school romantic comedy formula, and boom, it does gangbusters. You take Black Panther, which is a superhero formula, and boom, it does a billion dollars in 26 days. You take Into the Spider-verse, you put an Afro-Latino as the lead and you even have a female Spider-Woman in that movie, and boom. You take Coco, and boom, it does $800 million dollars. People love it when it’s something fresh and so personal that it’s universal, and that’s what I think El Chicano is.
I would imagine that when it comes to scripts, you also get a lot of stuff that is formulaic and stereotypical. When something like this came your way, what was your reaction?
CASTILLO: When I got the script, I felt like I was being duped, in some way, and like this couldn’t exist because it hadn’t been done before. We don’t live in a world where I’ve seen this as a reality, so it was more of a mystery than anything to me, when I started reading the script. But the minute that I met Ben Bray, our director, it all made sense. Once you meet him, you understand that it’s fantastical, but it’s really rooted in family, in pain and in love, and those real human elements elevate what could just be an average superhero film.
LOPEZ: Before, if you threw a lot of money at a movie, it would be successful because it cost so much to make, and that’s not necessarily the case anymore. You can have a small movie become a big movie, just by the connection of it with the people that go see it. This could be one of those, like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, that comes out and the story was just about love, and love doesn’t have a color. In this particular example, it’s almost what makes Alcoholics Anonymous so successful. If you take people who have been beaten up and torn down and are weak, in some spots, and you try to get them to understand that life can be better. In Hollywood, if you get a group of actors who have been around for generations and a movie like this comes by, it makes you see that it is possible and that we do matter. Our lives matter, our stories matter, and our movies matter. We can play this game, too, given an opportunity. That’s exciting.
What was it like to walk onto a set like this, where you’re not the only one, and everybody looks like you?
GARCIA: I’ve been lucky enough to just go from show to show to show, and from to project to project to project, and usually there’s maybe one or two people that you can speak Spanish to, who are Latino. So, for me, it was so refreshing to see not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but 10 flushed out characters, who just happen to be Latino. That was mind-blowing to me because I had never seen that. I remember going to see Wonder Woman, and there was a transitional scene, where she was in the forest with the guys and her horse was in front of the guys’ horse, and I started crying because I’d never seen that before. I’d never seen a girl in front of the guys. It wasn’t even a big scene. It wasn’t a big action scene, it was a transitional scene, going from point A to point B, but it was the first time that I’d ever seen a woman lead guys, and I just started crying. At that moment, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, I really am affected by what I see!” It was so powerful to see that and feel validated. So, I hope that when people see their family, their brother, their uncle, their mom, their girlfriend, their fiancé, and their childhood friends, who they lost for whatever reason, in this film, they’ll feel connected to something bigger and think, “I’m not alone.” For me, the best stories in movies make you feel less alone.
Raúl, anytime you do a movie like this, or you play a character like this, you want a cool costume or look to go with it. What was it like to see what all of that would look like?
CASTILLO: It was like being a little kid. You’re putting on 60 pounds of leather, running around doing all kinds of action sequences, and rolling around in the rain, at three in the morning. It was physically demanding, in a way that was really, really exciting, and that was a great way to connect into the story and into the physicality. But I only had to wear the El Chicano costume so much. He only becomes it, at a certain point in the film, so I cherished those moments. Those were really fun. It was really hard work. This entire team, in front of and behind the camera, worked really hard to make this film, but we had a lot of fun doing it. There was a lot of love in the room. There was no room for cattiness or pettiness. We were all working together towards a common goal. The fact that it was rooted in this genre film was really exciting for me. I’ve never done anything like this, so I was like a little kid in a candy store, just getting to do this awesome stuff. It was fun.
One of the best aspects of this film is the relationships between your characters. What did you most enjoy about getting to explore that with each other, and really getting to learn about your characters through those relationships?
LOPEZ: [Raúl and Aimee] actually met, a year before the start of the shoot. To try to create instant connections on screen can be tough. There are a lot of things where you can clearly see actors that do not have chemistry together, and you’re like, “Who thought that was a good idea?!” The things that have made me emotional are not written toward any particular color. They’re just written toward the story. Those are the moments that never leave you. Movies are amazing because you can’t take them home, physically, but you take them home in your heart, and soul, and they stay with you forever.
GARCIA: It’s a really unique story because it’s original content. It’s not based on anything else, except for our director’s broken heart, and him reeling with family tragedy and loss, which is very universal to being human. Everyone has been heartbroken. That’s where the story stems from. And then, you have a superhero element on top of it, but it’s not like he's stopping planes or flying or jumping. He’s just fighting for justice. What I like about El Chicano is the same thing with Peter Parker, where the audience isn’t ahead. He’s discovering his abilities, as we, as viewers, are seeing it, and then we’ll be along for the sequel. It’s not like he just descends from the heavens and he’s the superhero. He’s just one of us until, mid-way through, circumstances cause him to step up and transform, and we, as the audience, transform with the character.
LOPEZ: I’m not sure if our community would follow Raúl flying around. We’d rather have him like this.
GARCIA: On a motorcycle.
LOPEZ: You really believe that guy is gonna fly around and save you? If this character could fly, he’d have left East L.A., years earlier. He’s be like, “Man, I can fly?! Fuck, I ain’t goin’ back to get killed! I’m leaving!”
GARCIA: I play Vanessa, and she does come back. She can teach anywhere, but she decides to go home. That’s such a cool, redeeming quality about these characters. They’re flawed, but they all stay. These characters want better for themselves and their community, but they don’t forget their community, and they don’t forget where they came from. That’s such a beautiful message to anybody.
George, what was it like to work with David Ayer, who seems like being grounded and real is very important in his filmmaking, on The Tax Collector?
LOPEZ: Oh, damn! Yeah, he’s like that, all of the time. I hadn’t met him before, and I walked into the room with him and he had his feet up and was like, “So, what do you think?” I was like, “Of what?” He said, “The script.” It was powerful, but intense. He grew up in South Central, and that tampers you with wit, and with a determination and drive to succeed, and with a darkness that, unfortunately for him, he carries around most of the time. I’ve got a little bit, but I don’t wanna carry that around, 24 hours a day. He does. His energy changes a room, and there’s very few people I’ve ever met that can do that. He has an amazing eye, and he’s an amazing writer. They showed The Tax Collector to Cholos and they got scared, so what does that tell you? They showed it to dudes in the ‘hood, and they were like, “Wow! Damn, bro!” They got scared. Cholos got scared, watching The Tax Collector. It’s heavy madness. It’s messed up. But Tim Burton was dark, so we should have an opportunity to tell those stories that we want to tell and not say that we can’t be dark, or do horror, or do comedy, or do other things.
Raúl, how was the experience of working with Rian Johnson on Knives Out?
CASTILLO: It’s quite different, in the realm of his films. It’s a throw-back, almost Agatha Christie type of whodunit. It’s not like Star Wars or Brick. The cast is incredible. Rian is a visual filmmaker. All of his shots are so thoughtful. It’s very interesting to watch him work ‘cause he’s very different than a lot of directors that I’ve worked with. I don’t have a huge part in the movie, but he and Ram [Bergman], his producer, were incredibly welcoming. That cast is amazing. Michael Shannon is a friend, from the theater world in New York, and it was great to run into him on the set. That cast, in general, has some heavy-hitters, but there were just good vibes on set. From what I observed, there was really good chemistry. You never know, when you put that many heavy-hitters in one project, how it’s gonna end up. With El Chicano, it was good. And with Knives Out, there were good vibes on set. Everyone was having a good time, and laughing and being playful, and then, when it’s time to get to work, we’d get to work, and it was serious work. Rian is a beast of a director, so it was great to get to experience that, for a little bit.
Aimee, what are you most excited about, with the upcoming fourth season of Lucifer?
GARCIA: We drop on Netflix on May 8th, and I’m very proud to be the only Latina scientist on TV. Ella goes on a bit of a darker turn this season, so I’m excited. And then, (the animated feature) The Addams Family comes out on Halloween. I’m creating a Latina superhero, with IDW and my writing partner, AJ Mendez, who’s a total bad-ass. She was like the #1 female wrestler in the world, at one point. And then, I’m writing a Latino family comedy and a horror movie.
El Chicano is now playing in theaters.