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Q&A Interview: Diego Miró of ‘Bless Me, Ultima’

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Actor and Austin native Diego Miró plays Florence in the upcoming film 'Bless Me, Ultima.' (courtesy photo)

Austin native Diego Miró has made it to the big screen playing the complex character Florence in the film Bless Me, Ultima. He will also be seen in the upcoming film Now You See Me, directed by Louis Leterrier. Miró is an interesting character himself, possessing qualities that surpass other 13-year-olds. He is bilingual,  a “Star Rank” Boy Scout, and loves traveling to exotic places such as Madrid, Puerto Rico, India and Thailand (to name a few).

Based on Rudolfo Anaya’s classic novel of the same name, Bless Me, Ultima is a story about a young boy, Antonio, who is seeking self-discovery through faith with the help of a spiritual healer named Ultima. Miró’s character, Florence, in the film is vital for Antonio’s quest to understanding what differentiates good from evil. For a young boy, Florence has encountered several unfortunate experiences that make him question the Catholic religion. He doesn’t believe in God but continues to go to Catechism to be a part of his friend circle. Through Florence’s misfortunes, Antonio questions why good things happen to bad people and why bad things happen to good people.

We recently spoke with Miró about his role in the anticipated film, what it was like working on the film and being a young actor.


Bless Me, Ultima official trailer

When did you start acting?

Miró: Probably around two years ago. I never really considered it til then. I’ve always like liked performing and stuff, but I really like took it seriously two years ago.

How did you find out about the movie Bless Me, Ultima?

Miró: Well it was pretty much one of my first auditions and I got a local agent here in Austin and she got me that audition.

How did that feel when you got notified you got the part?

Miró: I really hadn’t been acting for that long so I didn’t really know what to expect, but I got a call to go to L.A., and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be Antonio or Florence yet and they told me on the spot when I was with Carl Franklin.

What was it like working with director Carl Franklin?

Miró: He is such an amazing guy. He’s always very loving and very patient too. He’s a really talented man. It was an honor working with him.

So, can you tell me about your character Florence?

Miró: He was a really interesting character to play because he wasn’t what you get in normal movies when you see a 12-year-old. He was an orphan and he was pretty much abandoned his whole life, but he was still really good and very innocent and he is kind of the character that makes Antonio sort of question the Catholic religion. He’s a pretty important character for Antonio.

How do you think your character helped Antonio’s character with his question of faith in the film?

Miró: The whole movie is how Antonio is growing up and how he’s trying different things. So even if Florence had been living that life his whole life I think it made Antonio realize that the world isn’t just a big happy place. There are more unfortunate people. And that kind of made Antonio think a little bit more.

What was it like play such a complex character?

Miró: I kind of think about it and put myself in his shoes. I mean how would you feel if like both of your parents were gone and there was no orphanage to go to and you were pretty much living on your own? That kind of helped.

So, is that how you were able to tap into your character?

Miró: Yes, and also that they dyed my hair blonde for the role. So I automatically felt like Florence.

What inspiration or methods did you use to relate to your character?

Miró: I just thought of all the hard times in my life. Florence is pretty much living a life that was all hard times. He never really had anything good going on and he was picked on a lot for not being Catholic and stuff. So I just thought of how bad he would feel but either way Florence is a very brave and pretty strong character. What Carl (Franklin) told me, which was one of the best advice that he could give me was “when your telling the story of Florence, like how bad his life is, don’t be sorry for yourself. Let the audience be sorry for you. And that was probably one of the best advice Carl gave me. That was very important for me to do [for] the role of Florence.

What type of research did you do for the role? Did you read the book “Bless Me, Ultima?”

Miró: Not really, I kind of looked back to the time era where the movie took place and just kind of saw the kids and what they looked like. This was in the audition, so I could kind of imagine what it would be like living where he was. And the set made it all realistic so that helped too. My mom and my grandma did. I unfortunately didn’t have time to. I read the script but I heard that it’s really good Rudolfo Anaya did a great job with it and I think I’m going to have to read it in high school as one of the things that are the assigned books. I’m looking forward to reading it though.

So, What was your experience like working with the cast?

Miró: It was awesome really. There were so many kids in the movie that we’d always be having fun. Antonio [Luke Ganalon] I’m really close to him. Every time I go to L.A. I hang out with him. We’ve all become very good friends. Not only the kids in the cast but also the adults. A lot of the actors. Like we’d go and sight see. I think we became pretty close as a cast.

Can we expect to see you in any other films? What other projects are you working on?

Miró: I just recently did a small part in Now You See Me. It’s coming out this summer. It’s with Morgan Freeman, Isla Fisher, Mark Ruffalo, and Jesse Eisenberg. I can’t wait to show it to all my friends.

How do you do it? What is it like managing your time with acting, school, and being a 13 year-old?

Miró: School is always a priority. Even though I’m doing acting as a hobby, which not a lot of kids do. Although, I’m taking this pretty seriously, school is always my priority. If I’m not getting all A’s I can’t do acting or I’ll lose my privilege of being able to do acting. I’m doing acting along with sports and all advanced classes. So far it’s been going pretty good.

So, I know that you’re from Austin. What is your favorite thing to do?

Miró: BBQ. I like to take advantage of that and the live music too. I mean they don’t call it the “Live Music Capital” for nothing. We also go to Town Lake a lot and run. I go camping a lot. I’m a Boy Scout.

[9/25] Preview: Pulitzer Prize winning author Junot Díaz at BookPeople

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Junot Díaz (promo photo by Nina Subin)

Dominican-born author and M.I.T. professor Junot Díaz released his third book, This Is How You Lose Her, on Sept. 11. The follow up to the successful and critically praised modern classic The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz’s latest looks just as promising. On Tuesday, Sept. 25, Díaz will be at BookPeople in Austin to read from his latest and sign copies of the book for attendees. The event will begin at 7 p.m.

This Is How You Lose Her synopsis:

On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover’s washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing for love is equaled only by his recklessness—and by the extraordinary women he loves and loses: artistic Alma; the aging Miss Lora; Magdalena, who thinks all Dominican men are cheaters; and the love of his life, whose heartbreak ultimately becomes his own.

BookPeople is located at 603 N. Lamar Blvd. The speaking portion of this event is free and open to the public. Wristbands are required for the signing portion are available only with the purchase of a copy of This is How You Lose Her from BookPeople. BookPeople will begin distributing wristbands at 9 a.m. on Sept. 25.

[4/3] Preview: Claudia Kolker, ‘The Immigrant Advantage’ signing at BookPeople

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The Immigrant Advantage
The Immigrant Advantage by Claudia Kolker

Make plans to be at BookPeople on Tuesday evening. Award-winning journalist Claudia Kolker will be speaking about her book The Immigrant Advantage.

The Immigrant Advantage shines a light on successful yet little-known traditions from outside cultures and how they can be applied to life in the U.S., and Kolker tries some of these customs herself in this well-crafted and engaging narrative.

Among the customs explored are the Mexican cuarentena—the 40 days of rest and recuperation after a mother gives birth. Other customs include Korean after-school tutoring centers and Vietnamese money clubs that help members to build up savings.

As a journalist, Kolker has reported from Mexico, El Salvador, the Caribbean and beyond. She’s a former Los Angeles Times bureau chief and a former member of The Houston Chronicle editorial board. She lives in Houston with her family.

The event begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 3. BookPeople is located at 603 N. Lamar Blvd.

[3/30] Preview: Rene S. Perez book signing at BookPeople

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An Evening with Rene S Perez II
An Evening with Rene S Perez II

On Friday, fiction author Rene S. Perez II will be speaking about his new collection of short stories, Along These Highways, as well as signing copies of the book. The signing will take place at BookPeople on Lamar Boulevard.

Perez was born in Kingsville, Texas, and raised in Corpus Christi. He has a BA in English from the University of Texas, and a MFA in creative writing from Texas State. He teaches here in Austin.

Along These Highways is a collection of poignant short stories about the tragic and the hopeful lives of ordinary people in small town Texas. The characters are mostly Latino, but the themes of grief and of loss and of finding happiness are universal.

Acclaimed novelist and poet Sandra Cisneros said of the collection, “Perez shines a high beam on lives never in the spotlight. His stories abduct you, sweep you across an America you never knew existed, and in the end change you. Good stories do that. A wonderful debut.”

Booklist summarized Along These Highways by saying, “Surprise endings, irony, and dark humor ensure the success of this collection among short-fiction fans as well as readers in the Southwest.”

This event starts at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public. BookPeople is located at 603 N. Lamar Blvd.

‘Viva Vegan!’ author Terry Hope Romero to speak at Texas VegFest

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Terry Hope Romero / courtesy photo

Cookbook author Terry Hope Romero will be one of the featured speakers at this year’s Texas VegFest in Austin.

The festival, which will take place March 31 at Fiesta Gardens, aims to expose Texans to sustainable, healthy, plant-based diets. VegFest will include cooking demonstrations, free food samples, live music and children’s activities, all for a suggested $5 donation.

Romero will be showing festivalgoers how to cook vegan tamales, a specialty of hers that can be found in her cookbook Viva Vegan!: Authentic Vegan Latina American Recipes.

In addition to blogging at VeganLatina.com, Romero is the author of several cookbooks, including Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. She’s known for hosting lively cooking demonstrations in her hometown of New York City and at festivals around the world, as well as formerly co-hosting the Post Punk Kitchen cooking show.

For more information about VegFest, visit the festival’s official website here.

Books: ‘Gringo’ by Chesa Boudin

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By all accounts, Chesa Boudin’s family life provided a great deal of experience. Well, technically, it was his family’s experience, but nonetheless, his life was shaped because of it.

His parents, Katherine Boudin and David Gilbert are involved parents, as involved as parents can be as inmates in the New York State prison system. As members of the 1970s radical group The Weathermen, they’ve been there since Chesa was 14 months old, having been incarcerated for for roles played in the 1981 Brink’s robbery in Rockland County.

Chesa went on to have a stable, middle-class life being raised by two other Weathermen leaders, Bill Ayers and Bernandine Dorhn in Chicago’s Hyde Park area. So needless to say, he had a different point of view when it came to life.

But they weren’t fully his experiences, not his lesson’s learned, but he’s telling them now in his book, “Gringo, A Coming of Age in Latin America.”

After graduating high school in 1999, Boudin’s first experience with Latin America was a short visit to Guatemala to study Spanish. This would be the start of an eight year journey that would take him throughout Latin America.

You could say that the life experience he took with him to Latin America was his ability to be comfortable moving through different worlds.

As he puts it, “Brought up with the privileges and opportunities the United States offers some, and a political line that condemned the very existence of an elite, I lived a contradiction.”

It’s a contradiction he knew how to articulate very well within the confines of English among familiar American landscapes, but on that first visit to Guatemala, the language barrier was too great to  explain to his San Andres host family.

“Their tight faces suggested fear, confusion, concern, maybe even fear,” Boudin explains. “I wanted them to see me as a friend, to articulate a self-portrait of a good gringo, an ally, but I wasn’t so sure who I was myself.”

This is a lot for a 19-year-old to explain, and under ‘normal’ circumstances, his family life is something Boudin says he’s never shied away from telling.

Now,  he’s a 28-year-old Rhodes Scholar with degrees from Oxford and Yale Universities his book tells his story and some history of Latin America as well. But it’s ultimately his experiences, and told in a surer voice than what his 19-year-old self would have said.

Gringo, Coming of Age in Latin America comes out in April and is published by Simon and Schuster.

Books: ‘Edgar Hernandez: An American Hero’ by Jose Martinez and Megan Rellahan

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It’s an experience a growing number of men and women enlisted today share. The deployment to Iraq.

But not all share the experience Edgar Hernandez had. Hernandez enlisted into the U.S. Army in 2003 and one month later found himself held captive for 21 days at one of Saddam Hussein’s  secret prisons.

His personal account is told in vivid detail in the book, Edgar Hernandez: POW-An American Hero, written by journalists Jose Martinez and Megan Rellahan.

Hernandez is a 21-year-old Army Specialist when his convoy was ambush. During the attack, Hernandez was shot and hit by grenade shrapnel in the face.

“I panicked when saw blood coming down my face,” Hernandez recalled. “I was bleeding all over. I thought I was never going to make it back home.”

Hernandez and the other soldiers, including Jessica Lynch were taken by Hussein’s Special Guard and paraded as war trophies in front of an angry mob.

The McAllen, Texas native said that while he when he was captured, he got a closer look at the enemy.

“I remember there were a lot of Iraqi soldiers looking at us through the windows,” Hernandez said. “I saw one guy’s face and noted he was my age. I remember thinking, ‘that’s my enemy. I’m fighting people that are my age. I’m supposed to kill them and they are supposed to kill us. What a waste of life.”

Hernandez survived the attack and came home a national hero. After a whirlwind period of award ceremonies, parades and press conferences, Hernandez was honorably discharged but not quite ready to stop serving his country.

So in July of 2003, he re-enlisted in the Army for four more years. This time around he chose to become a dental assistant stationed at the Sam Houston base in San Antonio. During those four years, Hernandez attended college and won multiple soldiering awards.

Today, Hernandez has transitioned from his decorated military career to serving the Pharr, Texas police department.

Settling into this new chapter of his life, Hernandez can’t help but look back on his life as a POW.

“What happend to me wasn’t like the movies because it is real,” Hernandez says. “You lose friends, and engage in real firefights. I know war is not a good thing but I feel patriotic and part of the team that protects America. Joining our military is big commitment so I feel everyone who serves is a hero.”

POW: Edgar Hernandez–American Hero is distributed by Atlas Books/Ingram and published by Ocean Breeze Books

Books: ‘Mexican WhiteBoy’ by Matt de la Peña

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It could be said that we spend most of our lives running away from the memories of our awkward teen years only to wake up one day and realize we’ve completely forgotten how it is to live life as a teen.

Throw in life in a poor neighborhood in San Diego, divorced parents and a multi-racial background and you’ve got Danny’s life, the main character of Mexican WhiteBoy, author Matt de la Pena’s second novel.

Danny has trouble fitting in at his private school, a non-Spanish speaking light brown boy among white faces. He lives with his White mom who wants him to move to San Francisco with her and the White man she’s dating. He has trouble fitting in with his culture, convinced that his whiteness drove his father back to Mexico.

Danny’s also got a secret talent. Despite his tall and skinny stature, he throw a 95 mile an hour fastball, but gets so nervous on the baseball mound, he can’t convince his school mates of his talent.

As summer approaches, he plans on spending the vacation in Mexico with his father in hopes facing a couple of these issues.

The book is aimed for young readers, and the language is not squeaky clean kid friendly. But it’s real, and probably more true to how teens really speak.

Of course, not everyone can relate to a gangly teen boy straddling two cultures, but young readers may find, despite his differences, he’s just a teen the same as they are. And that lesson of tolerance and understanding is something they can remember long after they’ve forgotten their teen years.

Mexican WhiteBoy is published by Random House.