'You always try and personalise any part'
City Island is a charming comedy — sort of — about a family and its secrets. The biggest of these "belongs" to Andy Garcia as the father, Vince, a hard-working prison officer who harbours dreams of an acting career. Oh, and then there's the small matter of his illegitimate son, of course... Neil Davey had a word with the man himself
You're sporting a fine moustache there, Mr Garcia ...
I need the facial hair for a movie called Cristiada, which is currently shooting in Mexico. It deals with the revolution of the 20s. It was a religious revolution, the Federal Government tried to take over the church and kick out the Vatican, they started hanging priests... It got ugly. And the people rose, it was a people's army that rose up against them, they were known as the Cristeros. I play the general of the Cristeros army, Enrique Gorostieta. Peter O'Toole – sorry, Sir Peter O'Toole – is in the film with us, but unfortunately I don't get a chance to work with him. He plays a priest from The Vatican who gets hung. Catalina Sandino Moreno, Santiago Cabrera, Oscar Issac, Ruben Blades, Eva Longoria... I hope I'm not leaving anybody out. It's directed by Dean Wright, who was the special effects director on Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.
What drew you to City Island and how did you get involved?
The script was sent to me by the director who was also the writer, Raymond De Felitta, with the caveat to play the part and to produce with him if I was so attracted, and I was very charmed by it. It was easy to fall in love with. First of all its's the kind of part that doesn't come my way that often, the type of character I recognised immediately. The humour in it, the emotion in it, also the surprises in the story-telling, the construction of the script, there were all these turns I wasn't expecting that were very clever. Then I had to decide if I also wanted to produce it as I know what that challenge is, having done it on half a dozen films or so independently. I know that it's not a vanity title. I mean, it can be if the movie comes to you already financed and they say “we'll give you a producer credit if you play the part” but in this case it was “you can only play the part if you raise the money!” It's a totally different thing. I knew with the climate we have in today's international distribution system, particularly in America, that people would recognise the value, the beauty of the script and would be able to cast the movie well with great actors, because actors want to play great parts, but it was going to be a long shot for it to be a studio comedy that would open in 2500 screens on a Friday night. Although I think this movie CAN open in 2500 screens, but then it needs a $20m advertising budget for the opening weekend. The decision, I knew with some experience, that we'd probably be out on the street going okay, everyone's turned us down, now what do we do? And that's the challenge as a producer, you have to go “okay, what are you guys going to do now? You've got no money, nobody's interested in your movie...” Do you abandon it or do you put it on your shoulders and say ok, come on, we've got to find a way? It took us two-and-a-half years so... I'm kind of careful when I say I'm going to be the producer. I could have just said “I love the part, I'd love to play it and you can use my name for whatever value that is to you and let me know when we start.” That would have been easier...
There's a great ensemble feel to the film. Do you think the way it got made helped that feeling?
Like I say, I knew it would attract great actors and both Juliana and Alan were friends of mine and people I've worked with before and they were the first people that came to mind for these parts. They obviously responded to it. In a way, the stars have to line up. Emily, when we first called her, was unavailable. Then when we finally got the money for it, the other actress that we had had a commitment she had to honour, so the part became available. It was the same for Juliana, she came in at the last, we had another actress and at the last minute she bowed out and I said to Ray, “Juliana”. He met with her and said “wow, incredible, I'd be honoured if she did it” and Jules really jumped in with no prep. So, you know, there was no rehearsal time, we shot it in 27 days, we had a table read on he Sunday and started shooting on the Monday. On Monday we sat around the dining room table and started eating pasta and arguing.
How easy did you find the accent?
I worked on it for a while. I've had parts where I've done accents in the New York region. Brooklyn is different to the Bronx but they're variations on a certain thematic, but I had some time and I broke down the script with a woman called Jessica Drake, and it's an ear that's familiar with me to some degree because I've been into that world before. I'm not from New York, I'm not an Italian-American... Although I'm an Italian-American by digestion! At some point I think I've completely inherited the Italian culture through the amount of pasta I've consumed over the years. But I've been blessed to play some great parts in that culture. I enjoy the accent a lot, I enjoyed the character so much, I thought he was so uniquely drawn. I had this image when I first met Raymond – I'd rather do these interviews because you can really talk about things, as opposed to these four minute things. The long-winded answer, you can edit, you can pick the spot. In those things you get one answer, they're looking at you going – pulls terrified face – I'm not going to be able to ask any more questions...
But I met Raymond, I read the script, we met in my office and I said “I loved it.” And I said “I had a dream last night after reading the script, there were two images. One at the end of the script, I was living the end of the script, where this Feydeau farce, where all the stories intertwine into one another, and I saw the character, when he finally reveals his secret to his son and his family about who this boy is, he's so emotionally exhausted, so spent, that I saw an image of him sitting down in the street, just sitting there completely physically exhausted with all his family just staring at him.” And he said “oh wow, that would be great,” and I actually went - we were sitting outside my office in the yard – and sat down like that. And he said “that would be great” and I said “yes, but we have to earn the right to sit down.” We have to get there organically, we can't just have him sit down. The movie has to earn the right to get to that, the character... the audience has to have that catharsis with me, to feel the pain, for that moment to work. And he said “That's the challenge.” And I had another image of him, dressed in the prison outfit, the boots, the cuffs, all the crap, and he was in a lake. He didn't know how to swim, yet he jumped in, struggling, barely keeping his nose above water. To me that was the essence of who this guy was. He was the guy who'd jump in boots and all but had no idea of how to survive, be it as an actor, a father, or as anything. For me that was very keen, metaphoric imagery. He feels inadequate. In terms of his own desires, his abilities as a father – he's abandoned a son – he's inadequate as an actor, yet he's trying to do it all.
And you get to act with your own daughter. How do you find that?
She was great. She's a terrific actress. She was completely prepared and professional, she's been acting all her life, and obviously in this case, you personalise... You always try and personalise any part but the fact that she was there, we tried to exist in our own dynamics that fit this particular movie, to draw upon those to infuse it, but it was very easy. She's a great actress, and very easy going with it.
The auditions scene is great. Can you remember your first audition?
I try not to... But it's a gift from the son. The son is the catalyst for this family to finally get their act together, he 's the one that brings everybody together, and he gives to me the best acting tip. Not even Alan Arkin's character could have given the right acting tip. It was the son who shows me the way. That was the only thing, other than the improvisations you naturally do with the script when you're exploring it, that I can remember that we worked on once I got the script. Originally my character had an obsession with all things New York in terms of movies. Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino, Brando, Coppola, The Godfather, Taxi Driver... and he had all these posters in his prison office and I said to Ray “you know, this guy's too embarrassed to have anything up anywhere, and I'd like to change that and just make it one person.” And he said “all those guys are like gods but there's only one Zeus, and Zeus is Brando.” Brando is like the top of the pyramid, he changed the way acting is approached. So it was better that it was just one guy, and it should be private, he should have stuff in his drawers, the son should discover all the Brando movies on VHS, and that would lead to this allergic reaction in the audition, that without even noticing he channels, he imitates Brando, because he doesn't really know how to act. So, he falls into the fact that this is what acting is. So I did it for Ray, this pretty bad imitation of Brando, and he was laughing and said it could be very funny, but again, we have to get there, so when it happens it's a very natural thing, so we have to build the beats into the story. What's funny is when people see the film, and he gets nervous and Brando starts to creep out, you can physically see the people in the audience go – mimes cringing – and go “oh no.” People are actually saying “oh no” to the screen. I've seen the movie a lot of times. They're literally going, “oh no, oh no, he's not going to do that, oh no, oh my god!” They feel so bad for him but they're really rooting for him, they want him to get this part, they want him to fix his life. They just really want him to do well.
Was there anything that didn't make it to the final cut that you hated to lose?
There was only one thing. The secret speech in the acting class, you know, at the beginning, where they say you're all going to reveal your secrets, there's an actual monologue that I do, which is teased at in the film, when I sit down and I'm about to begin. And basically I recount the whole movie in the monologue, and we struggled with it. It was a very cathartic, emotional monologue – and it will be in the special features! - but basically the movie was over, the catharsis had happened and it would have really asking something of the audience to say “okay, now we're going to tell you the whole story again!” Even though it would be interesting from the point of view of a character to see him have to do that in front of the class, we determined that the audience already knows what he's going to say, and the wife is there, and you see as he's beginning it that the emotion is there and you feel like he did it, and he did it honestly. But it was difficult because I put a lot of hard work into it, and I felt that as a piece of his life it was interesting, but ultimately it's a director's choice and after thinking about it very carefully we decided to let the movie roll out and be done with it.