Andy Garcia's Phone Call With Brando

Hi, I'm Andy Garcia and I'm here at Young Hollywood Studios. Go see a dark truth. Great movie.

Thank you. I am here with the incredible Andy Garcia. So great to have you here.

Thank you. Wonderful to have you at Young Hollywood in our hotel suite. It's wonderful to be young again.

You are young. You are young Hollywood.

Thank you. Right. Why are you laughing?

I'm not laughing. I'm I'm I'm nodding my I'm I'm I'm bobbling my head like Jack Kerns. Like Jack Kern over over the shoulder. Are you a fan?

Laker fan, yes.

You are? Yes. Like you go to games. Are you like court side? Are you doing all that?

Uh, I'm a season ticket holder.

You are? Yeah. Cuz it's always like when you go to those things, you always see like certain people in the front row all the time. It's like there's certain people that are like fixtures.

I I am a fixture. I'm not in the front row. Not in the front row.

Second row, right?

Yeah. You're on the bench. I I see the back of their heads. Right. Francisco Francis is the only one whose testimony can possibly hurt us in court. Morgan hired someone to do the actual job. Not just someone. Jack Lugozia.

So a dark truth, a wonderful film. You are one of those people that you sort of you morph. You play so many such a variety of different roles. And one thing that stood out to me about this film is the sort of sense of reality not only just with your performance, but with the violence. And the way I I feel like the way violence is portrayed in a lot of movies, it's too slick. It's not real. And there's such a sense of reality in this film. And I know you produced it. Was that sort of something that was intentional?

Uh, yeah, we only had could afford a certain amount of bullets. So it couldn't be like the rapid

Is that what it really was? It was just single shots, you know. Right, right. Well, smaller budget, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. No, no. That's actually something that that uh I spoke to Damian, the director, about early on when he first came into script and I said that, you know, this movie has to be rooted in in a real reality. There's there's violence in it. There's a lot of gunfire, but it has to be, I feel it has to always be kept to how it would really happen and not anything more than that.

So to tap into a little bit of sort of like your process. I mean, obviously, as an actor, you always want something to be real. Do you shape the performance in that in that direction in any way, or are you not really conscious of it when you do that?

Well, you you shape, and you shape uh the overall arc of the story. You know, as you're developing the screenplay. Uh, then then you, you know, you obviously you have try to draw the parallels in your own emotional life and your own experiences to

As a talk show host?

Yeah. As a talk show host. You're very slick.

Oh, as a radio so, yeah. Yeah, I got me a little nervous for my job here at Young Hollywood.

Exactly. What we can do is search for the truth. And defend it.

So you're directing, producing, acting. Do you like to sort of do it all together at once, or do you or do you sort of like to sort of separate it and not?

It saves on the budget.

There's a lot of budget saving going around. Yeah, yeah. You can do sandwiches too, you know. Perhaps with

Do you do that too?

I heard you're a good cook.

I am a good cook.

What's your go to what's your best meal?

Uh, Cuban, I would say fricassee.

Okay, what is that?

Chicken fricassee. It's like a it's like a casserole type of dish, you know.

Do you have a special ingredient?

Uh, it's the touch. I can't say that. If I told you I'd have to kill you.

Uh oh. And you're also into music as well.

I do. I am.

Tell Young Hollywood, what is on Andy Garcia's playlist?

Oh, there's a lot of cacao on it. There's a lot of traditional Cuban music. There's a lot of blues. There's a lot of jazz. There's a lot of old Motown.

No, Justin Bieber.

Yeah, there's a lot of Justin Bieber.

Katy Perry, any of those?

No, you know. No, I leave that to my son and you know.

Are they into it?

They they listen to a lot of that stuff, you know, and hip-hop and things like that.

But I'm sure you've influenced them with with with

I try. I try but uh, they they uh resist. You know, they're they're they're rebellious, so.

Who'd who'd you learn most from?

I've been blessed that I've worked with some extraordinary film directors and I've always wanted to make films. It wasn't just about acting for me. This is something that I was stimulated by. Yeah, so.

And did they hear something about read something about Brando? Was he one of those people that sort of spoke pearls of wisdom or did he just

Yeah, I think anything that Marlo Brando ever says is pearls of wisdom in my book, you know. Very very. No matter what he was rambling about, to me there were there was always a pearl of wisdom. Yeah. I once called him about a movie that I was doing called that I eventually made called The Lost City. I called him to play my father. And we I told him I was making a movie about Cuba. He spoke about Havana and Cuba for like an hour. And I finally said, "Well, I have this character in the uh, in the film. There's my father. Would you I would be honored if you would consider playing him." And then there was a long pause. And I figured he hung up on me cuz he wants you want to talk to Marlon about acting, you know. He's done. He's out. Yeah. So I just kind of He had me hanging there. And then he finally said, "Does he play the congas?" And I said, "Well, you know, he he's a professor of constitutional law at the University of Havana, but I guess he could play the congas, you know."