On the maiden voyage of this year’s INTERVUE, I caught up with comedian George Lopez and actor Carlos PenaVega of their upcoming movie “Spare Parts”. The movie focuses on four Hispanic high school students and a dedicated teacher who form a robotics club. With no experience, 800 bucks, used car parts and a dream, this rag tag team goes up against the reigning champs from MIT.
What brought you to this project?
George: I was very fortunate. I have a producing partner and around the time I was doing my talk show, this thing kind of came onto her radar. And we bought it and had it. And the script had gone through a couple of different incarnations. We wanted it more based on real stuff. The story is so compelling, that you don’t want to make things up that aren’t true. So we had to go back and take some of the things that the guys weren’t happy about. They were like, “that didn’t happen.” [laughs]
So, to honor them and so they could see it and be proud of the movie. Wanting that as a producer and being in the movie, we didn’t want these kids to see the movie and say, “that’s not our story.” For a movie that kept it very close to the truth and to have so much heart and humor and show that anything is possible, for this thing that only cost $800 and looked like it wasn’t even going to float, forget about functioning [laughs]. It plays very well. We’ve been running around promoting the movie, so we haven’t gotten a chance to see what people really think of it that have seen it, but it feels like the word is good.
This movie falls along the line of students and teachers, and teachers inspiring students. I’d like to know, was there a teacher growing up that inspired the both of you to be where you are now.
George: I had a few of them actually. I had a teacher that was my baseball coach, that would tell me when things got tough, I’d quit. He and I had a huge altercation in front of the whole team and when I got out of school, I actually quit baseball, which I’d played all my life. And I quit in my senior year. When I was out of school for a couple of years and I started to play golf. And golf was something that frustrated me so much that when it got tough, I quit. And then one time when I quit and I was driving home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the coach and thought, “man, this guy was right.” And I gave him such a hard time. When it was baseball season, I drove over there and waited until after practice and I walked up and apologized to him for giving him such a hard time and not appreciating what he was trying to teach me while I was at school, and I had to learn it the harder way.
Carlos: Wow. You know for me, my drama teacher, Michelle Perkins. She was so pivotal to what I’m doing now. She was so supportive. My school was so small that she was also my English teacher. So I thank her for not failing me because I passed and got to go on to college. But she was so supportive of me and everything I did. He [George] had his baseball coach and I had my drama teacher. One person. All it takes is one person to believe in somebody and truly lift them up. Check on them, see how they’re doing. It takes one person. That just goes to show you that we have to help each other out and lift each other up. You could be the person that could take another to their next level, and why would you miss out on that?
Check out Spare Parts as it hits theaters this Friday January 16th
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