Since making his television debut in an episode of Miami Vice in 1984, Luis Guzman has steadily built a successful and versatile acting career. With great talent and a keen sense of observation, he has brought to life memorable characters in more than 30 films (including Carlito's Way, Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Traffic, Confidence, and The Count of Monte Cristo), as well as the upcoming 20th Century Fox release of Runaway Jury, with Gene Hackman and John Cusack.
The kind and caring family man--and proud father of five children--makes his home in Vermont. But for this fall season, the generously good-humored Guzman has taken up residence in Los Angeles as he steps into a role many actors only dream of--starring in his own series, Luis. The half-hour comedy, airing Friday nights on Fox, revolves around a donut shop owner (Guzman) in Spanish Harlem and also stars a cast of talented and very diverse actors, including Diana-Maria Rivas as his ex-wife and Jaclyn DeSantis as his daughter.
During a break from a recent rehearsal of the show, Guzman sat down to talk to BSW about his new show, his past as a people watcher, and his need to love the community.
BSW: Is this your first situation comedy series?
Luis Guzman: Yeah. Well, I did House of Buggin' with John Leguizamo, but that was more a variety kind of thing. This is definitely my first situation comedy.
BSW: How do you like sitcoms overall as opposed to feature films?
Guzman: This is like going into a different kind of league. I just consider it as getting a different set of tools. It's working in front of an audience, it's knowing the comedic timing, the comedic rhythms.
BSW: Do you like working in front of an audience?
Guzman: Oh, yeah. We did the pilot, and that was a wonderful experience in front of an audience. I was nervous as hell. We reshot the pilot, that went great, and we just shot our first episode this Friday. I guess for me after five minutes of being out here and onstage, I go into a zone and I just fly and have a great time
BSW: Do you feel that the audience feeds your performance?
Guzman: Absolutely, and I think it's a two-way thing because how they react will determine what I might do next. I guess part of the beauty of what I do for this show also is that sometimes I don't know what I'm going to do next. I know the lines because you have to keep in rhythm with the words and the part and what's going on. But physically I just do stuff, and I don't know where it comes from. I don't think about it. And they react to it and it's great, it's wonderful.
BSW: What is the biggest challenge you've found so far in doing a situation comedy?
Guzman: I guess the biggest challenge becomes your memory muscle. We just taped the show Friday; today is Monday, and we have a new set of 49 pages to kick into the brain--and kick out last week's stuff--but it becomes fun and becomes an exercise.
BSW: Are you surprised about the audience's reaction during taping, because you don't have an audience all week during rehearsals?
Guzman: Sometimes when you get an audience you find a laugh where in the rehearsal there wasn't a laugh, and it just becomes a thing of momentum, and it just keeps building. We block and shoot on Thursdays, and Thursdays I'm going at 70 percent or 75 percent. Friday during the daytime I'm doing 70 percent or 75 percent. But when that audience comes in, I'm at 150 percent because first of all, it's the adrenaline rush, it's the audience reacting to stuff you do--the physical stuff, the dialogue stuff. And, man, I'm just having fun. And even when I slip on the line, I'll make fun of it, and they'll react to me having fun, and it's great.
BSW: How did the Luis show come about?
Guzman: [Producer] Michael Bregman and my agent Ken Kaplan set up meetings with the different studios, and we met with about eight different entities out here--Fox, Warner Bros., DreamWorks, ABC I believe was one of them--and we just were pitching ideas to them, and everybody at that time was saying how interested they would be in doing some business with me. The two who made offers to me were Warner Bros. and Fox. And I kind of thought, I really want it to be on Fox, because I think of them as the more gritty kind of network, and I just like their programming. And we worked out a deal, I met with a bunch of show runners--Will Gluck [executive producer on Luis] was the last guy I met, and I like what he had to say?so we pitched them some ideas.
BSW: So the concept was yours, to be the donut shop owner?
Guzman: Well, the original concept was that I owned a beauty salon in Spanish Harlem, and again that I had an ex-wife, I had a daughter, stuff like that. But they wanted to go in a different direction, which became about a donut shop, which is OK because that will allow me the opportunity to have more of a variety of people who come walking through that door. It sets it up for so many different kinds of situations, which I think is more fun
BSW: Did you hang out in donut shops to get a feel for it?
Guzman: Well, it's funny, 'cause I grew up on the Lower East Side in New York City, and there was always like a luncheonette I used to go in to have my breakfast, and all the different characters that walked in there
BSW: You were taking notes all along?
Guzman: That was even before this [show], because I'm a very observant person. I love watching people in their nature, because sometimes I use those things in my work. Like watching somebody having a conversation in a phone booth, sometimes there's some emotional stuff going on, and you see somebody yelling or you see somebody crying or you see somebody happy. And that's real life. And those are references I like to use. When I hung out in my neighborhood, at the donut shop and the luncheonette, I knew how the guys were, I knew how the customers were. It's not that I thought, I'm going to make it up, because that's not my process. My process is reality.
BSW: I remember the last time we talked, you said that you were walking down the street one day, and fate came across your path when a friend asked you to audition for Miami Vice. That friend was playwright Miguel Pinero. How did you know him?
Guzman: I knew Miguel Pinero from the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe on the Lower East Side, with people like Chino Garcia and Bimbo Rivas. We were community activists helping people as far as housing went, and having cultural events, and Miguel Pinero was someone who grew up with these guys, and so we were all like running in the same circles. I saw Short Eyes in Lincoln Center about 30 times because we had carte blanche because we knew Mikey.
BSW: Once you auditioned for Miami Vice and you got the role, did you decide to go into acting?
Guzman: Not really. I was just thinking of making a little extra money, buy me a used car so I can drive to the beach on weekends. I really wasn't convinced of making it a career 'til about six years later, because I had a full-time job, a 9-to-5. I was a youth counselor on the Lower East Side, and that was my passion, and that was my commitment. At that time acting was nothing more than a hobby to me. I didn't go to sleep thinking about it, dreaming about it. If something came up, that was OK; if it didn't come up, I was fully committed to my job of working with young people.
BSW: So what was it that made you decide to go into it full time?
Guzman: It was a number of things. I got burned out being a social worker, my first son passed away--and that took a lot of my spirit away--and I just needed a change. I asked my wife, Angelita, for her blessing, and she gave me her blessing, so I said, "OK, I'm going to pursue this."
BSW: Did you find that you could get work pretty regularly, or did you have to struggle?
Guzman: When I made that decision I was still auditioning, but things began to happen. A year after I left my job, I landed Carlito's Way, which was a wonderful experience. Then right after Carlito's Way, I ended up doing House of Buggin', and things kept hitting and hitting, and the ball got bigger and bigger, and I started getting phone calls from people like Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Soderberg.
BSW: So, in retrospect, do you think it was your fate to be an actor?
Guzman: I think it could have been fate. I think it also is a tribute to who I am and where I come from and my life and my experiences. I have always been a giving person. I think part of it had to do with love, part of it had to do with fate, and part of it had to do with where I came from, and just by combining all those things and saying, "Wow, I can do this."
BSW: On that note, what advice would you give to actors starting out or other actors in general?
Guzman: My advice is to be patient, is to listen and listen some more. And don't act. I always found that if you put yourself into a situation and [consider] how you would handle that situation, it's going to take you a whole lot further than trying to act like you're in a situation.
BSW: In other words, believe the reality?
Guzman: Believe the reality that you own a donut shop, you have an ex-wife, you have a daughter, she has a boyfriend you don't like, and use those things. But also use the references that you have in your life to be able to project that.
BSW: What do you hope to accomplish with this series?
Guzman: First of all, I just want to have fun. I want it to be very inviting to people. I want to have a show here that hasn't been done before: the centerpiece of this show is this Latin family. 'Cause it's not a Puerto Rican family, it's a Latino family. We have Malcolm [Barrett] who's Afro-American; we have Zing Zang [Reggie Lee] who is Asian but who speaks only in Spanish; we got this great Charlie Day who plays this Irish kid who's not all there, and so it shows some of the real flavors. This is what New York is like. There are all these different people; there's developers who walk in that door, there's police officers that walk in that door, there's my wife's friends who try flirting with me. I just want to give something back to people to laugh about, to have a family sitting down and saying, "See, I told you," or, "Oh, my God, you talk to me like that all the time." It's just something people find that they have in common. Of course not everybody is going to agree, not everybody is going to say, "I have this and that in common." I don't need to give people anything to think about. My goal is to give people something to have fun about and have a good time.
BSW: Is this your first time living in L.A.?
Guzman: Yeah.
BSW: Do you like it?
Guzman: It's OK because I have a job I can go to everyday. I love my space, and it's great because you have sunny weather. But, damn, you got to drive everywhere, everywhere. I mean, there's no, like, "Yo, I'm going to take a walk." You better drive the car to take a walk. But I enjoy it here because I get to work here. If I had to sit around day in and day out, I'd probably go stir crazy. There's only so much you can do at the pool.
BSW: Do you still want to do feature films, even during the run of the series?
Guzman: Absolutely, I will be doing features.
BSW: How would you like people to describe you?
Guzman: Ah, that guy is fun, he's funny, he's like my father, he's like my uncle, he's like my ex, he's like this guy I'm seeing right now, he's got a good heart, he's crazy, he's wackadoo--however you would describe someone in your own family or in your own life. More than anything, just somebody who's really positive.
BSW: What else would you like to do? Would you like to direct?
Guzman: Someday I would like to direct. But I guess what I think about a lot, too, is that I want to be able to travel, show the world to my children, spend some quality time with my wife. From time to time I would like to go into an elementary school around here and read to a bunch of second-graders or something like that, 'cause I feel I always want to be someone who's totally connected to the community and not, because of my status, not accessible or reachable. Again, that's where I come from, and I always want to maintain that because sometimes you could get lost in this business, sometimes it's for the right reasons but sometimes.... You can't forget your foundation. I always want to keep that a part of my life.
BSW: And that's what you do to prevent yourself from getting lost? You keep in touch with your community?
Guzman: Oh, absolutely. All the time.
BSW: What's your favorite film of all the films you've done?
Guzman: I can't really say there's one, I can't really say there's two, I can't really say there's three. I've been a real fortunate actor in this. I loved doing Q&A, I loved doing Carlito's Way, I loved doing Boogie Nights, I loved doing the Limey, I loved Punch Drunk Love, I loved Anger Management, I loved Traffic, I loved the Count of Monte Cristo, I loved doing Confidence. I've been really, really blessed as far as having good material and people who totally believe in me. BSW