Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Movies | Tagged: Angel Garcia, Emily Tosta, exclusive, george lopez, How the Gringo Stole Christmas, interview, Jack Kilmer, lionsgate, Mariana Treviño

How the Gringo Stole Christmas: Dir. on Culture Clash Holiday Comedy

Director Angel Garcia (From Prada to Nada) talks to Bleeding Cool about his latest Lionsgate holiday comedy "How the Gringo Stole Christmas".

Director Angel Garcia has embraced the challenge of infusing the Latin American family into timeless classic storytelling since his feature debut in 1011's From Prada to Nada with his twist on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. His latest is the family holiday comedy How the Gringo Stole Christmas, a Latino spin of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and a title inspired by Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The film follows Benni (George Lopez), a Mexican father whose Christmas celebration goes from merry to messy when his daughter (Emily Tosta) shows up with her new boyfriend (Jack Kilmer) — an uninvited gringo — in this hilarious holiday comedy. Garcia spoke to Bleeding Cool about the holiday comedy Ezequiel Martinez Jr's script, how the cast's personal experiences brought authenticity, how much Christmas influenced the story, and his biggest surprise during production.

The Holiday Journey of' How the Gringo Stole Christmas'

Bleeding Cool: Why intrigued you about 'How the Gringo Stole Christmas?'
Garcia: It's a funny script. That's number one. Second, as a Latino immigrant in this country, I can identify with a lot of the experiences, banter, and confusion that goes along. The opportunity to bring someone like George Lopez on board to represent that and the rest of the cast was hard to resist.

How did Ezequiel's script stand out for you?
The script resonates with me because of the "foreigner in me" experience, mixing cultures, and living in different parts of the world and this country. I found the humor inherent in the cultural confusion that we are a melting pot was a fun thing to explore. It made me laugh, but it also put a magnifying glass at the absurdity of making our differences a reason for arguments or battles. It has a comedic side and social relevance that our cultures can identify with, especially as immigrants in this country.

Given the ensemble nature of the cast, did any of them, like George Lopez, infuse any of their experiences into the script?
No, definitely. I encourage everybody to bring their own experience, and that's why those actors are there: I like to mix and match to start with a good script and then be able to chisel around it. Depending on the personalities and the experiences of the actors portraying the roles themselves. In a way, it has a five- or ten-percent documentary built into the characters.

Was there anything from your previous work that you put into 'How the Gringo Stole Christmas' that helped build on that authenticity?
The thing about it is when you have this story and certain jokes to tell, but you want the spontaneous combustion of each character to come on board from the actors themselves, you want to open it up. It's a balance between what they bring and how to adapt it to them. That also affects each scene and story, so you're constantly adapting it to the input and molding it to your situations to maximize the story, humor, and social messages.

Can you cite an example of this taking place in the story?
Born in East L.A., George Lopez has a certain way of talking, bantering, joking, and mixing English with Spanish. He will say one thing and then react differently in English and Spanish. It's almost like a tag after the line he would bring on. That's a humorous Mexican-American style. I'll say one thing: turn around and come back. It's almost like you're having an internal monologue with yourself about what you just said, second-guessing yourself or another person or contradicting what you said. There's something about that, for some reason, is common in this culture, and that became a part of the characters, and that is brought in by George, Mariano Treviño, the aunt, and all those bilingual comic characters had a lot of that came in little phrases, little words, add-ons and taglines at the end of the lines. That was a lot of what George was doing.

When developing the story, there's always the debate on whether it can stand on its merit rather than be defined as a Christmas story. Did the holiday spirit factor into the story, or was it more of a coincidence like 'Die Hard?'
For all these characters and I, Christmas outside of the true meaning of Christmas is the greatest cue to bring families together. Some of them that you might not have seen all year and then come together in one place, one time to celebrate something that is supposed to embrace family, look forward to the future, and get a bunch of gifts for the kids. On the back of that, there's a lot of comedy because some people don't quite fit in. You can have that conversation about it.

Christmas is an excuse to bring them together and flip the story on its axis because what comes home for Christmas is not exactly what George Lopez's character suspected, so it ruins Christmas in his mind. He must go through the whole process. Christmas is a catalyst. It could have been a birthday moment or a New Year's celebration, but Christmas has that spiritual meaning in his mind, and he doesn't like it to be changed in any way. He's not adapting to modern times; his daughter is growing up having a boyfriend, let alone having a boyfriend like Leif.

Did you have any surprises you didn't expect during production?
Most were pleasant surprises because they took it to the next level. They always brought something interesting and made me laugh about their characters. I expected that from Marianna and George, but the "vatos" living in the car are content creators and Influencers, not actors per se. This is their first acting role [in a feature film], although they have been acting for quite some time, doing their social media vignettes and gags that they do all the time. It was a great surprise to see them become proper actors as they learned their lines, hit their marks, repeated, and acted with others for a limited amount of time, which is different from what they're used to doing. They were able to bring their personalities and ideas to those characters. That was always a pleasant surprise, above and beyond what was scripted.

Lionsgate's How the Gringo Stole Christmas is available in theaters, digital, and on-demand.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!