Jesse Garcia on his Joyous Reunion with Eva Longoria in “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip”
Over his career, actor Jesse Garcia has rubbed elbows with superheroes in The Avengers, battled vampires in From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, and sold fake IDs to Sarah and John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. He portrayed an activist high school student in Walkout, a gay Mexican-American coming to terms with his sexuality in Quinceañera, and a janitor who invents Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in Flamin’ Hot. And now, Garcia has added a new character to his repertoire — Disney dad.
“I’ve been wanting to do a family film forever. I’m finally at the age where I can play the dad,” Garcia said in a recent Zoom conversation about his new Disney+ feature Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip. “I grew up watching Disney and comedies that reach such a wide audience. It was quite an honor to play the dad in a family film by Disney.”
Garcia plays Frank Garcia, the patriarch of a Mexican-American family whose hectic lifestyle is causing them to drift apart. An aspiring chef, Frank has recently learned his new restaurant is closing. Wife Val (Eva Longoria) is a travel writer whose job takes her away from home far too often. Teenage daughter Mia (Paulina Chávez) is focused on getting a promposal. Her accident-prone younger brother, Alexander (Thom Nemer), obsesses that he is bringing the family bad luck. Frank’s mother Lidia (Rose Portillo) complains the family is too Americanized and has lost touch with its Mexican roots.
So when Val receives an assignment to test out a state-of-the-art RV, she sees it as an opportunity to bring the family closer together with a road trip to rediscover their Mexican heritage. The plot thickens when Alexander retrieves the suitcases from the attic and discovers an ancient statue. According to Val’s dad, Gil (Cheech Marin), the idol was stolen by his father from their Mexican hometown. The theft puts a curse on whoever possesses it. Much to Alexander’s dismay, havoc soon ensues. A soda spill causes the RV’s computer to go haywire, resulting in Val crashing the vehicle into a giant alien statue at a tourist stop. A less-than-stellar replacement RV comes with a live-in skunk that sprays the entire family. After getting lost, the family tries to cross a river and sinks the RV. Alexander learns the only way to end the curse is to return the statue to its rightful owner. Their quest to do so, much to everyone’s surprise, brings them closer together.
Garcia says he had a ball filming Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip. As importantly, he related to its theme about connecting to one’s roots. Garcia’s father was born in Mexico and immigrated to Wyoming where he met Garcia’s mother. Mexican culture was not a big part of Garcia’s childhood. It wasn’t until he moved to Los Angeles in 2003 that he took an interest in his heritage, sparked by his role in Walkout, directed by Edward James Olmos and based on a true story about the 1968 East Los Angeles high school protests.
“It was like a crash course in learning that side of my Mexican-American culture. Then little by little…I traveled to Mexico for jobs, met different people, read books, and explored the Internet,” Garcia explains. “I was a lot like Frank. He is in touch, but not super in touch. And then he goes to Mexico and discovers all that’s inherently there. All he had to do was be surrounded by it to really see it.
An added bonus for Garcia was having Longoria play his wife. Acquaintances for years, the two bonded when she directed him in Flamin’ Hot. “We are cosmic soulmates,” says Garcia. “We got to know each other during Flamin’ Hot and discovered we share the same sense of humor and have so much in common.”
Garcia felt there was extra pressure on Longoria for Flamin’ Hot because it was her directorial debut. This time around, Marvin Lemus (Gentefied) handled directing duties. The two friends could let their silliness run wild.
“Marvin would say individually we were great, but when the two of us were together, we were trouble,” jokes Garcia. “We’re like children. We’re always goofing. When Eva and I did the chemistry read for Marvin, we hadn’t seen each other in a few months. We were hugging, goofing with each other, and laughing. I told Marvin that if he decides to go with me, the ADs are gonna be asking where Jesse and Eva are because we’ll be out looking for rocks.”
And that’s exactly what happened. To prove his point, Garcia holds up a smooth, jet black rock he found while he and Longoria were scouring the desert.
Garcia believes their camaraderie was contagious and helped build a family vibe, especially with the two actors playing their children. “She’s a star,” he says when asked about Chávez. “Eva and I kind of adopted her right away. We started bringing her to the gym for our four and five a.m. workouts. Thom (Nemer) was so enthused to be on set and learn new things. His energy was infectious.”
Having started out in improv, Garcia loves physical comedy. Alexander provided plenty of opportunity for that. “The skunk bit was super fun,” he adds. “It’s Eva and I improvising a bunch of different stuff to see what would work. I told her to sing to the skunk, and she started singing Como la Flor. I didn’t know she was going to do that. You’ll see by the bloopers at the end, I couldn’t hold it together.”
Lured by attractive tax credit incentives, Alexander was filmed in New Mexico. Its sweeping desert landscapes proved to be the perfect backdrop for a road trip. “I shoot there a lot,” adds Garcia. “We shot Flamin’ Hot there…The Avengers years ago. Albuquerque is a great city. Everyone’s super nice. Everyone loves working on film.”
Other locations were considered, but what may have sealed the deal was the sequence where Frank drives the RV into the river. “You can’t float an RV down the river in Atlanta,” explains Garcia. “It was a man-made river right behind the studio. They did this whole underwater rig. It pushed the RV downstream and sank it. That was all done with practical effects. It was really cool to see how they made that happen.”
Equally cool was the reaction Alexander received during the LA premiere at The El Capitan Theatre in March. Generally, Garcia doesn’t watch his movies, but he really got a kick out of seeing this one.
“There were a ton of kids. It was so much fun to listen to them laugh and repeat the lines they thought were funny. Like, we’re in the middle of a crisis, and Alex is saying he wants to go to the bathroom, and Frank tells him to pinch it. People really loved that. When we’re at the gas station, Val is running in for snacks, and Frank tells her to grab some Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. That got a great laugh.”
Garcia is hoping there’ll be more Alexander entries. As much as he likes action and drama, there’s just something about doing comedy. “There’s no agenda. It’s just a feel-good movie with lots of laughs, which is what we need right now,” he says. “I have ideas to keep the franchise going. I wanna direct one.”
But first, there’s another role to finish. And again, it’s unlike any Garcia has done before. The actor is in the middle of shooting The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s ambitious take on the epic poem by Homer. Keeping with Nolan’s modus operandi, details are tight-lipped. “I wish I could give you something,” Garcia says. “There are leaks out there. You might be able to find me if you know where to look. I’ve done period stuff, but nothing like this. Greek mythology…it’s a whole new experience for me. It’s a bear of a movie. People are going to see things that have never been on camera before.”
Featured image: (L-R) Jesse Garcia as Frank Garcia, Thom Nemer as Alexander Garcia, Eva Longoria as Val Garcia, Paulina Chavez as Mia Garcia and Rose Portillo as Lidia in Disney’s ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD ROAD TRIP. Photo by Anna Kooris. © 2024 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
