CRC: You have worked as a director, writer, producer, and cinematographer. What was your very first job before all that?
GARCIA: My two first jobs were around the same time. One was translating American game shows for Columbian TV because they were looking for a format to adapt to Columbia. And another one was taking pictures of summer school camp children and then selling them to the parents.
CRC: In the film industry, am I correct in saying you started out in the camera department?GARCIA: Yes, I started out as an intern.
CRC: How did you get that first job?
GARCIA: I knew some people that had a commercial production company in Mexico City. They were producing a movie that a friend of my parents was directing, so that's how I met them. But it wasn't really a job, I was working for free. I was a camera department intern... an unpaid PA.
CRC: Sometimes it can be difficult for people to imagine someone like yourself, a successful writer and director, as having overcome major obstacles on their journey. We just kind of think that you guys/gals were always awesome and you were always successful. Have you ever been through difficult times where you thought about giving up or becoming a doctor because it would be easier?
GARCIA: First let me say a few things. I did have the obstacle of a long and winding road. Mine was not a nightmare, as I was always working in some capacity in the camera department so I was never broke. I never had that kind of pressure. I can not compete with people who want to be in movies that need to work at night, that have a day job, that's very exhausting. I never had that kind of pressure. But you know, I had other obstacles. I came to the US, I didn't have a working visa, [etc.]. When I started writing a script I was already a working camera man, established at some point, I had to overcome some of my own insecurities about writing to actually write. Everyone has difficulties. You always want to hear the success story, the young director who made a splash with her first film like Quentin Tarantino or Reitman, the guy from Juno, but those are the exceptions. Most people find their way or do what ever they can. The bottom line is everyone has those limitation and the obstacles, either exterior or self imposed, and you're going to be the person who keeps going and trying or you're not. Now luck plays a big role. Luck does play a role, preparation plays a role, contacts play a role. Obviously if you're single it's easier to pursue it than if you have to maintain a family. For most people there's been sweat involved. Sweat and luck.
CRC: Your father, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is a Nobel prize winner in Literature. I read an interview where you stated that you did not want to live in your father's shadow by becoming a mediocre writer. What impact did your family ultimately have on you becoming a writer? Has it always been simply your destiny you couldn't escape?
GARCIA: Not really. My brother and I grew up in a world where everyone my parents knew were artists, writers, painters, directors, so stories and story telling was part of how we grew up so I don't think particularly I was predestined to be a writer in any particular way, but I did grow up in a world where telling a story was highly regarded. So ultimately I didn't become a writer, I'm not a novelist, I'm not someone who writes scripts for hire, I hardly ever work for other directors, so for me I'm not a writer. I write the stuff I want to direct, the things that interest me. So no, I don't think I was predestined to become a writer in any way, but I did grow up in an environment where I was infected with the story telling virus. I suppose at some point it flared up.
CRC: I recently read that in 2007, there were 10 Mexican Oscar-nominees. (They were Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo Arriaga, Adriana Barraza, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo Navarro, Emmanuel Lubezki, Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta and Fernando Cámara.) How is the culture of story telling different in Latin American and the US?
GARCIA: Good storytelling is good storytelling, and I think that as far as certain quality movies and books and writing goes, good storytelling travels. I think where the distinction has to be made is what the studio considers good storytelling. The Studios are in the business of mass entertainment. It can be commercially successful, it's easier for them to target younger audiences. To make their audiences broader the movies have to be lighter, less complicated, less contradictory, the end has to have a happy [ending]. There is a series of parameters that can define what you call a studio formula movie, and that... that's the Hollywood way of thinking. Good European movies find an audience here, non commercial American movies, non studio movies by [people like] Gus Van Sant find audiences around the world. I think good stories will find their way. The truth is look, if you've ever been to Europe movies are made that are crappy, you just never see them over here. But yeah, there is a Hollywood conventional wisdom about what it is stories should be and what journey the characters travel and how much learning and hope and faith and growth and goodness there needs to be at the end. That's what creates the formula. That's why most movies suck.
CRC: [Laughs]. As I was preparing for this interview, I realized I've only ever heard people say nice things about you.
GARCIA: Oh, f*ck them!
CRC: Yes, it gets obnoxious I'm sure. But you are a man of the people! Do you have any networking tips as a man of the people?
GARCIA: [Laughs] Obviously I don't think of myself as a man of the people as far as networking. Look, I enjoy people, I enjoy people of all [walks of life], people of all success and prominence. I can have a great relationship with anyone on a crew whether they are the producer or whether they are a security person or an intern with script. It doesn't matter, as long as I can connect with them. Networking, yes, it's useful. But you have to get out there and try and do your own work. When I was growing up it was very expensive to make a movie. You needed a camera, you needed film, you needed a lab, you needed a Moviola. Right now you can make a movie with a high definition video camera that costs hundreds of dollars, and cut it on your computer. Sometimes I go to film schools and people say "how can I get a manager?" And I'm like "don't ask me about getting a manager when you haven't even finished the f*cking first draft of your screen play." So time and time again I say to young film makers, networking helps, connections help, you have to get lucky, everyone should get help and should need help. I try to help as many up and coming people as I can, but do your own pushing. Help your own cause. Don't they say that God helps those who help themselves? Don't be lazy.
CRC: Let's say there's a young kid, he/she has just graduated college and decided to come out to Los Angeles to become a famous writer/director just like their childhood hero Rodrigo Garcia. What are some of the first steps they need to take? I hear you saying push yourself...
GARCIA: Develop material. You're not just going to find a good script laying around. It's very unlikely someone is going to give you something to direct right off the bat. It really should cost no more than hundreds, or at the most a thousand dollars to write and direct a short movie in a town full of actors who want to work for free because they're young. I think it is very possible with very little money to make a movie or to write a script. I think it's very rare to find someone who wrote an exceptional script that doesn't have work, that doesn't have representation. Things find their way but you have to do it. You're not here fishing, you're here working.
CRC: That's all for my questions, do you have anything else you would like to add?
GARCIA: Not a word! Not another word!
Garcia's latest film, Mother and Child, is due for release in select cities May 7th. Check out the trailer below!
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