He’s one of the most successful Spanish-speaking movie stars of all time, has shared the screen with everyone from Al Pacino to Eva Mendes, and even has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Despite these accomplishments, Eugenio Derbez has yet to crossover to audiences in the U.S. His new film, How To Be A Latin Lover — which opens in theaters this weekend — could change all that.
An accomplished actor, producer, and director, Derbez set out to make his first mainstream crossover hit with both English and Spanish-speaking audiences. It was directed by comedian Ken Marino, and co-stars Salma Hayek, Rob Lowe, and Kristen Bell, among many others. We got the chance to sit down and talk to Derbez about how he brought the project together, as well as the challenges in bridging a cultural divide with a good-natured romantic comedy.
What got you involved in this production?
I’ve been an actor my entire life, and I realized when I started my career in Mexico that begging for roles, knocking at the door of the producers, it didn’t work. The only way to succeed is to create your own opportunities, and I did that in Mexico. After many many years knocking at the door, asking for jobs, and nothing happened. I decided to create my own stuff, my own material.
Then when I came here, it was exactly the same. First I started with an agent, a manager, and it was exactly the same. I did the same thing I did in Mexcio. I need to create my own company. I need to create my own scripts. I hired a partner – I knew a guy that was my producer once, and he became my partner. He’s Anglo, [because] I needed someone who knows the culture, the business.
[So] we developed this amazing script. I hired two writers, and I give my input, so I can blend my sense of humor with a typical, classic American humor. So I think we got a very balanced comedy between my kind of humor and the general market humor.
Are there a lot of differences culturally between the styles of humor?
Yes, yes. It’s so different. It’s really hard. Especially because, everything is a trend. You watch a comedy show, from Latin America in general. It’s too broad, too broad — everything is so farcical and big. And here in the U.S. everything is grounded, contained. And you know, comedy is an issue. It depends on where you were born, your age, your economic status, and you laugh at different things.
So it’s really hard to comically appeal to both cultures. It was an issue. But finally, I think we got a great balance between these two worlds. We tested the movie with both audiences and it works pretty well.
Considering your involvement throughout, did you find your character changing from what was on the page to what you ended up putting on screen?
Yes. Even though you have everything clear in the script. In my case, I have an accent. So, when you’re reading you can’t imagine how it would sound in an accent — if it’s going to be funny or not. So it was a challenge to make it work, to bring my own acting style. It works in Spanish, but I didn’t know it was going to work in English.
Thank god it works, but it was tricky. It’s different when you are writing a character in a script, and when you portray that character, especially in another language, because you feel different. I don’t know if you speak another language, but when you start speaking another language you don’t feel as comfortable as you do in your own language, so you feel like another person. And that’s a great challenge.
Did you notice that with some of the supporting characters, was there a similar thing, not with the language, obviously, but having to adapt their personal comic styles to bridge this cultural humor divide?
Well, yeah, there’s always a difference and a challenge for everyone. But, thank god, we got an amazing cast. Even though, when we’re developing a script, you think it’s going to be this way, or it’s going to sound like this, when the actor comes on set, they bring their own personallty.
In this case, it was for good. Sometimes it is for bad, and I’m like ‘Eerrg!’ It’s not what I thought, but in this case, all these guys killed it. It was amazing.
On that same note, was there any improv that happened, or kind of letting things run wild a little bit?
Yes! Our director, Ken Marino, he’s a comedian, and this was his first movie directing, so he wanted us to improvise a lot. Especially in scenes between Salma and I.
Those were pretty fantastic.
They were great, right? It feels so natural. And it’s because probably in some part of the scenes we were speaking Spanish. So it feels so natural, so organic. And we felt a lot of freedom when we were speaking Spanish here and there.
And Ken was crazy, he was asking “What did you say?: He wouldn’t trust me that it was funny. “It Feels funny, but what did you say?” So we improvised a lot. The scene with a tortilla, it was improvised. She just thought about hitting me with a tortilla, and it was really funny. And with Kristen Bell, same thing, she is hilarious. She was doing something different each take.
Speaking of Ken Marino, with it being his first film, and you having such a wealth of experience both in front of and behind the camera, would he look to you for guidance in terms of directing or did you let him make mistakes on his own?
No, he’s very stubborn, in a good way. [Laughs]
So he had his vision, then?
Actually it was me trying to tell him “Ken, let’s try this,” and he says “No no no, trust me.” But sometimes he allowed me to make some things that worked for my audience or for my style, he was very nice, but most of the time it was him. I trust him because if in my case, [being] an actor/director, if you don’t trust someone when you’re hiring a director, it’s a mess.
You need to trust, you need to let him drive. Because if not, it’s going to be a weird mix of what you want and what he wants. So I was always asking him, “Can I say this? Can I do this?” and if he says “yes,” I do it. If not, I have to be disciplined and not do what I want.
Like you said, that’s what you hire a director for. When you talk about bridging the humor between the two cultures, did you find a similar problem in balancing the sentiment and the humor. There’s a lot of both, was that a struggle at any point?
[Laughs] It was a huge struggle. Let me tell you. I don’t know if you watched my last film. It’s called Instructions Not Included. That movie became the highest grossing Spanish language film EVER world-wide. And it’s because of the ending. And the ending is really really strong.
So I was asking Ken and the writers, also my partner, all of them are Anglos. You know I as a Latino, I need more at the ending. I need something else, so I came with an idea to make it stronger, and they said “Eh, it’s too dramatic.” So we got in a big big fight. And right now, a lot of Latinos are telling me, “We wanted an ending like the other movie, something stronger.” And I was like “Please record that to me because I want to play it in front of Ken an all the writers.”
The difference between these two cultures, we like more the drama, we like more like Telenovela style, and here everything is more light. So there was an issue of putting more drama, or not, into the comedy. And I like the mix of having it comedy with a lot of heart and a lot of drama. And in the specific case, in this specific movie, it’s a lighter drama, and the drama is not so strong.
There’s definitely heart throughout.But like you said, American audiences like our drama portioned out in the third act, but not necessarily all the way to the end.
Exactly. Exactly. We like different things. It’s good. It feels like a good mix. It feels fresh, but for both cultures.
To wrap it up, how often did you catch yourself doing the sexy walk afterwards? I have to admit I was trying it out a little bit myself during the credits.
Right!? I know. That happens! That’s why we put that clip at the end, because a lot of people were like ‘I want to try the sexy walk.’ Every single man has a Latin lover inside of him, you just need to bring it out. In real life, I am very shy, and after this movie, I feel more confident because I learned how to bring out my Latin lover.
So yes, I discover myself doing all the things that I am doing in the movie because it works. If you feel confident, it really works. Women like a man who’s confident, and who walks sexy. So keep practicing at it.
Oh, I will. I’m just not very coordinated, so I’ll have to keep working on it.
Or if not, you can just wear a yellow speedo. [Laughs]
How To Be A Latin Lover opens in theaters everywhere April 28th.
