Pablo Cruz Guerrero didn't grow up with ‘El Chavo,' but Chespirito became his purpose
Unlike generations of Mexican children before and after him, actor Pablo Cruz Guerrero didn't grow up watching the hugely popular sitcoms created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños, the late writer, producer and performer better known as 'Chespirito' or 'Little Shakespeare.'
It's a wonder, considering that at peak, Gómez Bolaños' family-friendly programs were watched by over 300 million people worldwide, and they remain pop culture pillars across Latin America — even in Portuguese-speaking Brazil — 50 years after they first aired.
The programs' influence also extends to the U.S. among diasporic communities, enduring through reruns that periodically introduce his characters to new viewers. The catchphrases Gómez Bolaños penned have also become ingrained in the vernacular of many countries.
His most popular creation, 'El Chavo del Ocho,' centers on an orphan boy (which he played) living in a courtyard apartment complex filled with peculiar neighbors. Then there's 'El Chapulín Colorado,' a satirical take on tights-wearing superheroes, where Gómez Bolaños plays an inept though goodhearted paladin (chapulín means grasshopper in Mexico).
That Cruz Guerrero, 41, wasn't familiar with these landmark shows or characters is all the more shocking because he's now embodied Gómez Bolaños in the new bioseries 'Chespirito: Not Really on Purpose' ('Chespirito: Sin querer queriendo'), streaming on Max starting Thursday with new episodes weekly.
The actor's lack of nostalgic attachment for the universe of physical comedy, wordplay and social commentary that Chespirito created gave him a leg up when auditioning, he believes.
'I want to convince myself that this was the one thing that allowed me to gain objectivity about the story,' he says in Spanish during a recent video call from Mexico City. 'Had I been a fan, I would have been ridden with nerves when approaching the character.'
It was casting director Isabel Cortázar who first saw Cruz Guerrero's potential, and in mid-2023, asked him to audition for the part. 'Before receiving her call, I would have never seen myself as Chespirito,' he says. 'No one had ever told me before that I looked like him.'
Cruz Guerrero has been consistently acting for over 20 years in films ('El Estudiante,' 'From Prada to Nada') and TV. More recently, he played a memorable antagonist in the second and third seasons of Netflix's 'Luis Miguel: The Series,' another bioseries about the famed Mexican singer played by Diego Boneta.
As to why he didn't watch Chespirito's work during his childhood, Cruz Guerrero hypothesizes that because his parents lived in Los Angeles for three years before he and his siblings were born, they were more interested in culture produced outside of Mexico. Instead, they took them to the cinema, to outdoor concerts and museum exhibits.
Ironically, Cruz Guerrero has appeared on several Televisa productions over the years, the same storied network that produced Chespirito's work.
'In middle school, I had a social and comedic disadvantage because many of my friends knew all of Chespirito's jokes and imitated the characters' voices, and I couldn't follow along,' Cruz Guerrero says.
When offered a chance to vie for the role, he consumed as much Chespirito content as he could find online, whether it was of Gómez Bolaños playing his characters or interviews he gave.
The arduous audition process required Cruz Guerrero to appear every Tuesday for about seven weeks for a variety of tests. Beyond doing scenes from the episodes of 'Chespirito,' each meeting would add more elements that got him closer to Gómez Bolaños: He tried on the costumes, interacted with the actors who would play his children, he shaved his beard and tried on the prosthetic nose, contact lenses and receding hairline required for the role.
And even then, as the weeks dragged on, Cruz Guerrero wasn't certain he'd be picked, especially after sharing with the family of Gómez Bolaños, who are involved in the production, his neophyte status on everything Chespirito.
'I could read on their faces they were thinking, 'Are we making the right decision with someone who doesn't genuinely love our father's legacy already?'' the actor recalls.
Ultimately, Cruz Guerrero won them over because he was able to closely replicate the mannerisms and voice of the real Chespirito. Gómez Bolaños' physicality called to mind silent film era icons such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
'I felt like if I tried to play around with my feet and knees when I walked, not only did I lose a little bit of height to get closer to Roberto's height, but it also put me in a position to feel a little more playful with my body,' says Cruz Guerrero while wiggling his arms.
Roberto Gómez Fernandez, Chespirito's son, admits he initially had doubts about Cruz Guerrero. The show had been in the works for about four years at that point, two of which had been spent searching for the right actors to recreate Gómez Bolaños' world.
Slowly, as Cruz Guerrero refined his performance and the makeup got him closer to Chespirito's image, Gómez Fernandez became convinced they had found their man.
'I saw my father in him,' says Gómez Fernandez on a recent Zoom chat, 'during complex situations in a scene and in a little wink or a glance that Pablo did.'
The family's approval fueled him. 'They would say to me, 'I just heard my dad through you. I just had a conversation with my dad. I just shook his hand and gave him a hug,' says Cruz Guerrero, who recalls being deeply moved. 'That empowered me to feel more in his skin and not feel self-doubt because of my previous distance.'
Once he officially landed the role, Cruz Guerrero immersed himself in Gómez Bolaños' personal and professional life via his autobiography, 'Sin querer queriendo,' which lends the series its title. It functioned as a link between the actor and the creator, who died in 2014.
'I was trying to establish a metaphysical dialogue through the words he had written and edited himself in the book,' Cruz Guerrero says. 'I asked him questions, and I feel like we had very beautiful conversations thanks to the book.'
Many of the pointed questions that Cruz Guerrero sought answers to in the text revolved around fatherhood, namely the elusive notion of work-life balance.
'In our careers, there are moments of beautiful enlightenment where you're creating and having a great time,' he says. 'However, you're also aware that you're fulfilling a contract, and chasing financial compensation. This means that you're investing time and energy and you often prioritize the professional instead of being at home and you miss your family.'
That struggle became rather personal for the actor during this process.
'I found out I was going to be a father for the first time the same week I found out I was going to play Roberto,' recalls Cruz Guerrero. 'I wanted to absorb knowledge from him about his experience as a father and the experiences I was about to embark on playing him.'
While the series features moments where Cruz Guerrero dons the emblematic attire of Chavo del Ocho and Chapulín Colorado, the focus is on the real man behind them.
The book also served as the foundation for Gómez Fernandez and his sister Paulina to write the episodes' screenplays. The two are also producers and were involved in every decision about the project.
For Roberto Gómez Fernandez, the challenge was for the series not to become a solemn, saintly tribute to the larger-than-life figure their father was.
'I had to remember that I wasn't thinking about my dad, but about the character of Roberto Gómez Bolaños,' he says. 'They weren't real-life people because you have to transform them into characters, and sometimes you have to pull some strings to make the dramatic dynamics more effective.'
And yet, despite having fictionalized aspects, Gómez Fernandez believes that the series offers truthfulness about his father's essence as a person.
'I think we achieved it, but along the way, we had to undress the character's successes and failures, many of which had consequences in his life,' Gómez Fernandez says. 'Some things turned out alright for him, but others went wrong, and he also hurt people.'
It's not lost on Cruz Guerrero that someone like him, who didn't previously revere Chespirito's genius, wound up taking on the task of bringing his story to the screen.
'In moments of fear, insecurity and doubt, I would ask myself, 'Oh, man, how did I end up here?' And then it was all resolved with laughter because in front of me I would read the title of the show, 'Not Really on Purpose,'' he says with a knowing smile.
After more than two decades mostly appearing in supporting roles, Cruz Guerrero is basking in what's undoubtedly the most important credit of his career so far.
'I'm especially grateful to the family, who chose me to play this beloved character, who is obviously part of their personal story,' Cruz Guerrero says. 'I live this moment with great gratitude, so thank you to Roberto Gómez Bolaños.'
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Los Angeles Times
41 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
‘Somebody hug me!' 7 Emmy hopefuls on staying calm, hitting their marks and more
The Emmys' limited series/TV movie acting categories have come to represent some of the best and most-talked-about shows on television, and this year's crop of contenders is no exception. 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I don't want to do that, and I certainly don't want to do that now. So it was really nice to meet her again in this place of what she's experiencing in the moment, which is bereavement and the loss of her great love, and being a mom, and trying to be responsible, and reevaluating what she values, and how she comports herself, and what's important and all of that, because, of course, I relate to that in this moment. Stephen, 'Adolescence' follows a family dealing with the fallout of their 13-year-old son being accused of a brutal murder. You direct and star in the series. What was it like being immersed in such heavy subject matter? Did it come home with you? Graham: We did that first episode, the end of it was quite heavy and quite emotional. When we said, 'Cut,' all of us older actors and the crew were very emotional. There were hugs and a bit of applause. And then everyone would be like, 'Where's Owen?' [Cooper, the teenage actor who plays Graham's character's son]. 'Is Owen OK? Is he with his child psychologist?' No, Owen's upstairs playing swing ball with his tutor. It was like OK, that's the way to do this — not to take myself too seriously when we say, 'Cut,' but when I am there, immerse myself in it. Let's be honest, we can all be slightly self-obsessed. My missus, she's the best for me because I'd phone her and say, 'I had a really tough day. I had to cry all day. My wife's died of cancer, and it was a really tough one.' She goes, 'The dog s— all over the living room. I had to go shopping and the f— bag split when I got to Tesco. There was a flat tire. They've let the kids out of school early because there's been a flood. And you've had a hard day pretending to be sad?' Bardem: I totally agree with what Stephen says. You have a life with your family and your children that you have to really pay attention to. This is a job, and you just do the job as good as you can with your own limitations. 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Banks: I play a drunk who's lost her child and her husband, basically, to her little sister, played by Jessica Biel. She is grappling with trauma from her childhood, which she's trying not to bring forward. She's been working [with] Alcoholics Anonymous, an incredible program, to get through her stuff. But she's also a fish out of water when she visits her sister, who [lives in a] very rarefied New York, literary, fancy rich world. My character basically lives in a trailer park in Ohio. There's a lot going on. And there's a murder mystery. I loved the complication … but it brought up all of those things for me. I do think you absolutely leave most of that [heaviness] on set. You are mining it all for the character work, so you've got to find it, but I don't need to then infect my own children with it. Sacha, you have played and created these really gregarious characters like Ali G or Borat. Your character in 'Disclaimer,' he's not a character you created, but he is very understated. 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Slate: Michelle Williams, who does a brilliant job in this show, her energy is extending outward and [her character] is trying to experiment before she does the greatest experiment of all, which is to cross over into the other side. My character is really out there, not out there willy-nilly, but she will yell at people if they are being rude, wasteful or if she feels it's unjust. [And she's] going from blasting to taking all that energy and making it this tight laser, and pointing it right into care, and knowing more about herself at the end. I am a peppy person, and I felt so excited to have the job that a lot of my day started with calming myself down. I'm at work with Michelle Williams and Sissy Spacek and Liz Meriwether and Shannon Murphy and being, like, 'Siri, set a meditation timer for 10 minutes,' and making myself do alternate nostril breathing [exercises]. Brian, many people came to know you from your role as Paper Boi in 'Atlanta.' The series was groundbreaking and like nothing else on television. What was it like moving out of that world and onto other projects? Henry: People really thought that I was this rapper that they pulled off the street from Atlanta. To me, that's the greatest compliment … When I did 'Bullet Train,' I was shocked at how many people thought I was British. I was like, 'Oh, right. Now I've twisted your mind this way.' I was [the voice of] Megatron at one point, and now I've twisted your mind that way. My path in is always going to be stretching people's imaginations, because they get so attached to characters that I've played that they really believe that I'm that person. People feel like they have an ownership of who you are. I love the challenge of having to force the imaginations of the viewers and myself to see me in a departure [from] what they saw me [as] previously. Because I realize that when I walk in a room, before I even open my mouth, there's 90 different things that are put on me or taken away from me because of how I look and how I carry myself. Javier, since doing the series are you now frequently asked about your own opinions on the Menendez case? The brothers claim their father molested them, and that is in part what led to them murdering their parents. Bardem: I don't think anybody knows. That's the point. That was the great thing about playing that character, is you have to play it in a way that it's not obvious that he did those things that he was accused of, because nobody knows, but at the same time you have to make people believe that he was capable. I did say to Ryan [Murphy] that I can't do a scene with a kid. Because in the beginning, they do drafts, and there were certain moments where I said, 'I can't. It's not needed.' The only moment that I had a hard time was when [Jose] has to face [his] young kid. It was only a moment where Jose was mean to him. That's not in my nature. Henry: I discovered, while doing my series, 'My body doesn't know this isn't real.' There's an episode where I'm shot in the leg, and I'm bleeding out and I'm on all this different morphine and drugs and all this stuff, and I'm literally lying on this ground, take after take, having to mime this. To go through the delusion of this pain ... in the middle of the takes, it was just so crazy. I would literally look at the crew and say, 'Somebody hug me! Somebody!' Stephen, that scene where you confront the boys in the parking lot with the bike, I was just like, 'Oh, my God, how many times did he have to do that?' This kid gets in your face, and I was like, 'Punch the kid!' My heart went out to you, man, not just as the character but as you being in there. Graham: Because we did it all in one take, we had that unique quality. You're using the best of two mediums. 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I think everybody experiences it where you're bringing something from home and it doesn't belong on the set. It's impossible to leave it behind when you walk in because it's bigger than you are in that moment. Banks: I would say that the thing that I worked on the most for 'The Better Sister' was [understanding] sobriety. I'm not sober. I love a bubbly rosé. So it really did bring up how much I think about drinking and how social it is and what that ritual is for me, and how this character is thinking about it every day and deciding every day to stay sober or not. I am also a huge fan of AA and sobriety programs. I think they're incredible tools for everybody who works those programs. I was grateful for the access to all of that as I was making the series. But that's what you get to do in TV. You get to explore episode by episode. You get to play out a lot more than just three acts. Stephen, about the continuous single shot. It seems like it's an incredibly difficult and complex way to shoot a series. Why do it? Graham: It's exceptionally difficult, I'm not going to lie. It's like a swan glides across the water beautifully, but the legs are going rapidly underneath. A lot of it is done in preparation. We spend a whole week learning the script, and then the second week is just with the camera crew and the rest of the crew. It's a choreography that you work out, getting an idea of where they want the camera to go, and the opportunity to embody the space ourselves. Cohen: That reminds me of a bit of doing the undercover movies that I do because you have one take. ... I did a scene where I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. There were a lot of the people in the audience who'd gone to this rally, a lot of them had machine guns. We knew they were going to get angry, but you've got to do the scene. You've got one time to get the scene right. But you also go, 'OK, those guys have got guns. They're trying to storm the stage. I haven't quite finished the scene. When do I leave?' But you've got to get the scene. I could get shot, but that's not important. Henry: There's a certain level of sociopathy. Slate: I feel like I'm never on my mark, and it was always a very kind camera operator being like, 'Hey, Jenny, you weren't in the shot shoulder-wise.' I feel like such an idiot. Part of it is working through lifelong, longstanding feelings of 'I'm a fool and my foolishness is going to make people incredibly angry with me.' And then really still wanting to participate and having no real certainty that I'm going to be able to do anything but just make all of my fears real. Part of the thing that I love about performance is I just want to experience the version of myself that does not collapse into useless fragments when I face the thing that scares me the most. I do that, and then I feel the appetite for performance again. 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41 minutes ago
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Yahoo
3 hours ago
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Yet as Quinto tells Gold Derby, "there's a really unique aspect of this experience," which is that while this is inspired by a real person, "we're also creating a character who is fictional, and exists in a different time and in a different environment than the one in which the real life Oliver Sacks lived and worked. So it was kind of the best of both worlds for me as an actor, because I certainly was able to dive into copious amounts of his writing," as well as "endless interviews with him," while still making it his own. More from GoldDerby Ryan Gosling's 'Star Wars: Starfighter': Everything to know as Mia Goth takes on the Mikey Madison role Olivia Williams was more than happy to be 'the wise old bird' on the 'Dune: Prophecy' set 'Forever' star Lovie Simone on traveling back to a 'nostalgic' time for Netflix's teenage romance show Dr. Oliver Wolf is, as Quinto describes him, "an often misunderstood but incredibly well-meaning person. I don't think he always has the capacity to articulate or communicate as smoothly as maybe he would like to. There's something really special about embodying that. I really found that endearing and appealing about the character. At his core, he is an incredibly brilliant, dedicated, empathetic, and driven doctor, and his main thrust and motivation is really caring for his patients as fully and as generously as he can. There was something about the blending of those two qualities that was deliciously at odds. Those aren't two qualities that necessarily go hand-in-hand, and I love that about him. He's clumsy sometimes. He doesn't suffer fools. He's not interested in listening to differing perspectives. He believes what he believes," which is "every patient he treats deserves respect and dignity, and to be seen." Brendan Meadows/NBC Part of Quinto's job is making sense of the medical lingo his character rattles off as if it's second nature. Unlike other medical dramas, "You're not dramatizing gunshot wounds or heart attacks. It's all neurological cases, so it really is about delving into the mind." So, the question is, "How do I make this dialogue accessible and interesting, and humanize it and invite audiences into it?" It helps that the scripts by creator Michael Grassi and his team feature the input of on-staff medical consultants. "We all have to portray characters for whom this language is everyday jargon, and it's something that we have to be able to pass off as believable, even if the audience isn't meant to know exactly what it means because we're in the process of explaining it to them. We have to come from a place where the characters know exactly what these words mean, and that is always an interesting challenge, but it's a challenge that I really relish." Added into that are the various medical ailments that Dr. Wolf and his team of interns have to deal with week-to-week. "I can't tell you how many times I thought, 'Well, this can't be real,'" says Quinto of the scripts he received. "But then we get directed to the chapter of An Anthropologist on Mars or The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," both books written by Sacks which served as inspiration for the series, "where he chronicled the real life parallel case." All of the cases and conditions dramatized in the show were taken from real life, some of which were treated by Dr. Sacks, and some of which "are adjacent to, or inspired by, those cases. I often felt really challenged in the many, many ways in which our brains and our minds can go astray, and the impacts of that which these patients experience." Among the most surprising patient arcs portrayed in the first season is that of a comatose John Doe who is given the ability to communicate thanks to a revolutionary brain computer. In the show's seventh episode, "The Man From Grozny," we learn that he came to American from Chechnya to flee oppression for being gay, and having told his story, he makes a surprising request for the remainder of his care. "To me, that storyline and the way that it resolved, which was not at all how I expected it to resolve when it was introduced to me as a multi-episode arc, was, I think, the most impactful personally for me," Quinto reveals, as well as "the most impactful in a lot of ways for the audience as the season unfolded." Quinto earned an Emmy nomination in 2013 for American Horror Story: Asylum, and since then has worked mostly in film and theater with occasional stints on television. As Brilliant Minds heads into its second season, he's found a renewed appreciation for "that kind of serialized storytelling that I've been away from for a long time, and I'm actually really grateful to be back to" for the first time since Heroes. "To now be involved in an ongoing series playing the same character who's going through a number of different circumstances and situations is something that I really welcome, and it's been really fulfilling for me creatively." SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby 'Say Nothing' star Anthony Boyle on playing IRA activist Brendan Hughes: We 'get to the humanity as opposed to the mythology' The Making of 'The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day': PBS variety special 'comes from the heart' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Click here to read the full article.
