Talking With The #McFarlandUsaEvent Actors

Last week, I posted about talking with Kevin Costner. However, this week I will be talking with the humble gentlemen who played the McFarland team.

McFarland USA is the awesome movie you need to go see if you haven’t yet! McFarland, USA is inspired by a 1987 true story, in which an unlikely band of inexperienced, under-equipped, young Latino runners with exceptional determination rise to become cross-country state champions under the leadership of their coach, Jim White. Over the years since then, the McFarland High School cross-country teams have won nine state championships and the small school is considered a powerhouse in the sport. Three out of the seven young actors on the team in the movie are from the McFarland area—Sergio Avelar and Michael Aguero are actual runners and Ramiro Rodriguez was a champion soccer player. Amazing, right?

These boys (actually, men) were beyond professional. It was absolutely amazing to talk to them about their experience on the movie set, with Kevin Costner, and just life itself. They definitely haven’t let fame go to their heads yet! They were so nice to talk to. Here a few things we learned from them!

Carlos Pratts (who plays Thomas Valles) told us:

Doing a movie’s so different than TV. TV’s very fast and you have 60 pages when you shoot a pilot, so you don’t know where your character’s going to go. When you do a movie, you have a beginning, middle and end, so within these 120 pages, I create my arc. You have a lot of trust in the script and you get to explore. I think you have a little more confidence in whatever you’re doing in the film, as opposed to TV.

He also told us a great story about how great Kevin Costner really is:

So my little brother comes on set and Kevin takes a real liking to him, you know. A 9-year old, as we all know, there’s no flood gate, you know. It’s November, like right after Thanksgiving, so everyone’s really excited about the holidays, and he’s got this DVD of Christmas at Kevin’s. There’s camel; there’s presents; they make snow for the kids. Well, my little brother looks at it, and he said Kevin, how much money do you have? And Kevin responds “it’s not how much money I have, it’s about the fact that I just share with everyone else.” The only reason I’m telling that story is because that person is the person that we spent 4 months with.

I can tell you that is the Kevin Costner we saw when we interviewed him too. I am also a Carlos fan, and can’t wait to see what he does next!

Hector Duran (who plays Johnny Sameniego) told us this about the film:

One of the biggest things I’ve learned throughout this film is the idea of equality and not judging a book by its cover. As you see in the film, Kevin Costner comes into this small town, and kind of judges the book by its cover. Once you get deeper into what’s really happening and all the values that are there, you see that everybody’s equal. Everybody had their own opinions. The only thing that separates us is the color of our skin, so we should try to treat each other equally.

Hector also told us (and everyone agreed) that the chemistry you see on screen is for real.  They all still talk and text one another.  

Sergio Avelar (who plays Victor Puentes) is actually from McFarland. We asked him how life has changed for his town:

Now people are actually kind of proud saying that they’re from McFarland. Back then it was, ‘Where are you from?’ I’m from McFarland. ‘Where’s that at?’ Oh, you know, between Bakersfield and Visalia. ‘Oh, that town that smells likes cows as you pass?’ [LAUGHS] But now, it’s like people are so proud. Now they say that if someone asks you where are you from and they say McFarland, they’re not going to believe you now. It’s a movie. It’s so crazy. It’s truly a blessing.

How often can you say you were in a movie about the town you grew up in? I just think that’s beyond cool.

Rafael Martinez (who play David Diaz) told us he didn’t know what the future held for him.

Johnny Ortiz (who plays Jose Cardenas) told us about growing up and a cause that is near and dear to his heart:

I want to share something. I remember being 5 years old and I called 4-1-1, and asked how do I become an actor? My dad looked at me and was like ah, my adorable son. I can’t help him out because he didn’t know how the industry worked. But I wanted to say dreams are possible. Goals are possible. Because I got in McFarland, it’s a blessing to land on my own TV show called American Crime with Oscar-winner John Ridley.  That’s coming on March 5th. I’m blessed, you know. I’ve got other roles coming up, and you just want to tell people that dreams are possible because I came from gangbanging world.  Most of my whole family are gangbangers, and I broke the chain. I decided, you know what, I don’t want to go through that path. I don’t want to live that life. If I want to do that, I got to put my mind and my heart. I’ve been in and out of jail in my past. There’s struggle out there, and we got to help these kids out, show them that there’s a lot of kids out there that have talent, that have a lot of heart. They just don’t have the opportunities. That’s why this place is like Casa 0101, which is a non-profit organization. Josefina Lopez, who wrote Real Women Have Curves, is the founder of this place, and she brought me into this theatre and showed me that I can do it in life. This is what we need. We need places like this. We need resources.

I totally wanted to give him a hug. I love that he wants to give back to the community now that’s he’s on his way up and give a chance to another young man with a hand up. He knows how blessed he truly is. I know we will see great things from him in the future.

Michael Aguero (who plays Damacio Diaz) had actually never been to the ocean until this movie!  He had a few observations for us all (the water was super cold the day they were there):

It was a fun beach trip until he said, ‘everyone go run in the water. ‘ We’re sitting here in tank tops and booty shorts. So we’re like are we going to get wet? Okay, everybody jump in the water. It’s like pins and needles all through your legs, all through your body. With every other take, they usually say you’ll get more used to it.  No, you don’t. 

He also told us that Kevin Costner had more stories than a library! We all got a good laugh from that!

Ramiro Rodriguez (who plays Danny Diaz) talked to us about his weight and what McFarland USA taught him:

For me personally, throughout my high school and pretty much my whole life, I’ve been the chubby one, and in this movie, I see it a lot. They picked on me, but despite all this, it was a joke.  Me and him get along, all of us get along. Yeah, they could tell me that I’m fat, but to be honest, in real life, it really did hurt me, and to see him triumph the way he did, it’s really a triumph for me also, because it proved everybody wrong. A big man could do it, but it showed me also that I could do it too.

On McFarland now:

It’s amazing. The town has changed for the better. There used to be a lot of crime back then, like gangsters and stuff, but now it’s really holding down its spot, for the national spotlight. It’s really coming together and being a community, like how it should be.

Meeting these young men was amazing. They had so many great stories and even though fame is just hitting them now, they are all still very grounded. We laughed with them, and enjoyed the stories they told us about being on set. I still think it’s amazing that 3 of them actually are from McFarland and get to portray the story of their town and of people they actually know! I wish them all well in their future!

Which one of these actors would you like to meet? Did you learn anything new that you didn’t know about them? Have you seen McFarland USA yet?