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   <p>Lou Diamond Phillips and Danielle von Zerneck in a car on the set of 'La Bamba.'</p> 
   
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</figure><p>“It was this slow awakening,” recalled Lou Diamond Phillips. “You try to manage expectations. You don’t come out of the gate thinking, ‘This is going to be an international hit, and it’s going to give me a career for the rest of my life.’ All of that ended up coming true now, but even getting the audition was beyond my wildest dreams.”</p><div></div><p><em>La Bamba</em>, the 1987 biopic about rock and roll singer Ritchie Valens’ life and career, featured the actor in the lead role and turned him into a star. The movie, written and directed by Luis Valdez, is returning to theaters as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics. </p><p>“As we were getting the film in the camera, as scenes were happening, as the chemistry was happening, we were hearing that things were going well, and that’s when we got the sense that it was bigger than we thought.” </p><div></div><p>Phillips continued, “Luis always had a very grand vision, but for those of us who were neophytes, we didn’t know. I didn’t know until I saw the whole film. I remember the first time I saw it on the big screen. It was at Columbia Pictures, we were in the screening room, and I was awestruck. There and then, I thought, ‘Holy s**t, this could be something. This movie is going to become evergreen.’ <em>La Bamba</em> stands the test of time, much more so than many other films from the 80s. The American Dream, rock and roll, young love, racism, it has it all. <em>La Bamba</em> is still relevant, given what’s still happening in the world in 2021. I certainly could not have predicted that when we filmed it in 1986.”</p><p>Released in movie theaters in the summer of 1987, the road to the big screen started almost a decade earlier, in New York.</p><p>“It was my play, <em>Zoot Suit</em>, that led to <em>La Bamba</em>,” enthused Valdez. “The story begins in my brother’s dressing room on opening night on Broadway. We explored the 1940s through the music of <em>Zoot Suit</em>, and we said to each other that we should look at the 1950s, but what could we do? At that moment, we heard music coming from the street.” </p><div><div id="recirc-unit"><div>MORE FOR YOU</div><div><div>Kim Kardashian West Is Officially A Billionaire</div><div>Taylor Swift’s Re-Recordings Could Make Her One Of The Most Successful Artists In Hot 100 History</div><div>Emma Corrin, KSI, Girl In Red Star In Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2021 Entertainment List</div></div></div></div><p>“We were up on the second floor at the Winter Garden Theatre. We looked down, and there was a Mariachi band playing. It turned out that the President of Mexico had sent them to serenade people at the opening, and the song they were playing was <em>La Bamba</em>. It answered the question my brother, and I had just posed to ourselves. So, for the next five years, my brother took it upon himself to pursue the research and locate the family, and the movie was pretty much based on four key interviews with family and friends.”</p><p>Another critical part of the process for the movie coming to fruition was finding the right guy to play Ritchie Valens.  </p><p>“We found Lou at the end of a very long, national search. We saw about 600 young men for the role. We were looking for something very, very special. Richie was only 17 years old when he died, and yet he had this fierce rock and roll spirit. It was evident in his music, so we needed someone who could be a tiger but also a pussy cat at the same time,” Valdez explained. “We didn’t find that person in Los Angeles, and we saw over 300 people. We went to New York and saw another couple of hundred people. The journey continued until the only option left was Dallas, Texas. We sent a crew to see people, and that’s how we found Lou. I was back in Los Angeles by that time, but I saw the video, and the moment I said, ‘We’ve got to bring this guy out to LA, I want to meet him.’ He came, and we put him through other tests because we were looking for very particular qualities. Lou passed them all with flying colors. He was just what we were looking for to embody the qualities of Richie Valens.”</p><p>Phillips added, “I wanted it so badly, especially at that point in my career. Starting in the industry, you’re hitting the bricks, trying to build a resume, and get good roles. La Bamba was light years beyond what I expected to do at the age I was. Jumping into the lead role of a feature film from a major studio in California when I hadn’t even moved to Hollywood was incredible. I was still in Dallas, acting in the film industry there and doing theater. Luis was so kind, but he was challenging. It was a process.” </p><p>“It was there for a long time, reading with them, reading with other people playing various parts, and Luis was slowly coming to the decision that he would ultimately make. My mentor at the time, Adam Roarke, was an old-school contract player. He’d done movies with John Wayne, he did many movies with Jack Nicholson and was a realist from New York. I remember before I went out for the screen test, he said, ‘There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell you’re going to get this role. You’ll go out there, you’ll kick its ass, and they’re going to give you a nice role. Maybe you’ll play the drummer.’ It helped me keep perspective.”</p><figure> 
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   <p>Lou Diamond Phillips, director Luis Valdez and actor Esai Morales at a special screening of 'La <span class="plus">... [+]</span><span class="expanded-caption"> Bamba' during the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival at Union Station in Los Angeles, California.</span></p> 
   
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</figure><p><em>La Bamba</em> was a big hit. At the domestic box office alone, it grossed $54.2 million against a relatively modest $6.5 million budget.</p><p>“I think that the evidence that it was going to click was that first weekend. On the Sunday or the Monday, the producer, Taylor Hackford, called me and told me we’d ‘opened,’ which was is a Hollywood term and meant we were one of the top five films in the country. That was amazing, actually, for our budget. No one was expecting that kind of success,” enthused Valdez. “We made the rounds as filmmakers do that first weekend. You go to the movie theater, sneak in and see what the reaction is going to be. I had already had the experience of screening in Kansas City, where the audience loved it. </p><p>“They say that if you can play Kansas City or Buffalo or some other place similar, that that you can make it. Kansas City told us, and the executives at Columbia Pictures, that this had tremendous potential. It had legs. I think it’s the heart really in the character of Richie Valens and his family that is a big part of <em>La Bamba</em>’s success. People love a good story based on honest human relationships. The relationship between the brothers, the love of a mother trying to help her son, single mothers, are all fundamental elements, specific themes, but they hit the heart. That creates a hit.”</p><p>Audiences around the world got on board with <em>La Bamba</em> doing very well in Europe.</p><p>“The night before we opened, Luis’ brother, Danny, said to me, ‘We’re giving you the keys to the candy store. Don’t rot your teeth.’ I have remembered that advice forever. I mean, I’m still here, I listened,” Phillips mused. “People talk about somebody being an overnight success because on the Thursday, they don’t know who you are, but on the Friday, a few million people have seen it.” If you look back at the person’s resume and all the training, how they got there is often years of work. Luck is opportunity meets preparation. I think that the one thing that set me on the road to where I am today was that they put me on the poster. It’s me there with a guitar.” </p><p>“I remember when that shot was taken, it was between takes when, in the movie, I was in the Mexican brothel, which we actually shot on Sunset Boulevard. I was leaning against the bar and listening to Luis give direction, and that’s why you see that sort of intense look as I’m looking off to the side. That became the image for the film, and it was bigger than me. I knew that it was bigger than me. What really drove it home is that we got to go to London to promote the movie and I remember I was walking with Luis through Piccadilly Circus and there used to be a big Tower Records there. I think the film’s publicist did this on purpose, but we turned a corner, and there is a life-size cutout of me in the window of Tower Records. I remember thinking, ‘Wait. My cardboard cutout got to London before I did?’ It was so funny.”</p><p>Valdez added, “I had a memorable moment in Paris. I had been going there with my theatre company since 1969, we’d slept on floors, we had performed at the university, and in the streets, so I had a very different image of the city. This time we had a hit movie coming from the States into Europe, so we had carte blanche. Columbia Pictures went out all out, and they put us up in places like The Ritz and so on. The real moment that got to me was we’re on our way to the screening, and we’re driving up the Champs-Élysées and on both sides, in all the kiosks, is our poster. There’s Lou, staring back at us, on both sides of the street in the middle of glorious Paris. It was a high point. It has to be a proud moment for anyone, any artist, but it’s my film, and we put this guy up there. I think that was exhilarating. <em>La Bamba</em> did very well in France. It ran for a long time.”</p><p><em>La Bamba</em>’s success led to a decades-long career for Phillips that includes a plethora of hit movies, including two <em>Young Guns</em> movies as Chavez y Chavez. They grossed $56 million and  $59 million, respectively. According to his co-star Emilio Estevez, a third film in the series is currently in the works. Could that mean a return for Phillips’ Chavez?    </p><p>“I got that phone call a year ago,” he confirmed. “I know that Emilio has been working on it, and what’s even more encouraging is that John Fusco, the creator of the first two movies, is working on it with him. There’s just enough ambiguity about Chavez’s death that means he might have survived just like Billy the Kid did.” </p><p>“I will say that there are a couple of other characters where we’re not sure what happened. It’ll maybe be one of those ‘get the band back together’ kind of situation. If they can make it happen, I’ll be there.”</p><p><strong><em>La Bamba</em> returns to theaters on Sunday, April 18, 2021, Wednesday, April 21, 2021, and Thursday, April 22, 2021, as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics series.</strong></p><div id="lightbox-inline-form-5dae6d25-67c3-4a1f-8e80-1a98d8e25e87"></div><div></div>

<p>The movie, written and directed by Luis Valdez, is returning to theaters as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics ... La Bamba’s success led to a decades-long career for Phillips that includes a plethora of hit movies, including two Young Guns movies as Chavez y Chavez ... La Bamba returns to theaters on Sunday, April 18, 2021, Wednesday, April 21, 2021, and Thursday, April 22, 2021, as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics series.</p>

As ‘La Bamba’ Returns To Theaters, Lou Diamond Phillips And Luis Valdez Revisit The 80s Classic