Review Fix Exclusive: Andy Garcia Q & A

Garcia on his daughter and co-star in the movie “City Island” Dominik Garcia-Lorido

“Yes it was great. For us it’s like baking bread together she’s a natural. Of course I’m proud of her when I look at her, but you know it’s like you want to kind of also not make it like a big deal. Where I’m watching what she’s doing kind of thing. She doesn’t need my help. I need her help as much as she needs mine because actors all need each other. It’s as simple as that. So you just want to be relaxed and have fun. If there’s an idea that I feel I can articulate to her or to a fellow actor or that a fellow actor can tell to me. I want people to be comfortable, to express ideas.”

Garcia on working alongside Jeff Bridges in the film “8 Million Ways To Die”

“I’m not one of those actors who you go, ‘oh mind your own business don’t tell me.’ Jeff Bridges taught me that the first time we worked many many years ago. I didn’t know the man and the first thing I played was the antagonist role. My job was to make it miserable for him as much as I could. The first thing he said to me, he said, “hey man if you have any ideas for something I can do that’ll make it better please let me know.” He’s the most generous individual and generous actor I’ve ever worked with. He set a great example for me. How to behave as a protagonist, he always says, I remember him saying “I consider him really the most important supporting actor” because I’m here every day and you got guys coming into a new set. It’s my job to make them feel like, “hey man come in her e and let’s play, don’t worry about it. Whatever you want to do, let’s just do it and he (Bridges) is so supportive that way.” It was a great lesson for me as one of my first movies. It’s been a philosophy that I adhere to and I follow.”

Garcia on working with Raymond De Fellita the Writer and Director of “City Island”

“Ray sent me the script. We share the same agency and my agent said, “You know there’s a script I read, I wanted to talk to you about it and you can produce it if you want. So I said, “send it.” I read it and I had the same feeling that you guys have with the movie (City Island) I said “you mean this thing is having trouble getting off the ground? What kind of world are we living in?” it’s a beautiful script and I knew that it would attract great actors because of the quality of the writing. So we met (De Fellita and I) and we hit it off. We had a lot of similar interests in the music and piano and all these things. I watched his movie “Two Family House” it was terrific and then I signed on.”

Garcia’s take on being a producer:

“It’s easy to say romantically, ”yeah I’m a producer in the movie” but you know I’ve done six of these different things and when you sign up to produce a movie it’s a commitment you’re making to the director and to the peace and to yourself to challenge yourself to get this thing made. I want to fulfill that challenge. It’s like “there it is, can you climb that?” When you challenge yourself you wanna be successful. I’m not talking about in monetary terms, I’m talking about just the achievement because the fact that the movie exists is success enough already. The fact you’re going in and saying, “ok we’re going to do this and you want to fulfill that.” So it’s not like anything that comes along I say, “yeah I’ll produce it, I’ll produce it” because it takes a lot of work.”

Garcia speaks about pre-stardom as a struggling actor:

“The first I did to make a living I’m talking about as an actor I used to do what they call wala which is the background voices for all the shows that you hear in the background like if you were in a restaurant scene all of the voices or a guy walking across the street. You would go in there as a group and do all those voices. I used to do that with Cagney and Lacey and all these television shows. That kept me afloat. It fed my family and got my daughter’s pampers. Otherwise I was waiting to find a niche you know.”

Garcia talks about his former chances of being a professional athlete:

“I was active in competitive sports all the way up to my senior year in high school, baseball and basketball mainly. In high school I concentrated more on basketball because the seasons overlap and they wouldn’t let you play both sports. Of course I would have wanted to play professional basketball but the likelihood of that is… well I was a little guy, I was 150 pounds. I’m about the hairiest I’ve ever been in my life right now and I’m not that hairy. I’m not that tall either. I was very good at point guard but I had physical limitations. I could’ve played college ball at a small college or something.”