George Lopez, Welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
-Yeah. Thank you, brother. -Oh, man.
Uh, let's start with the most important part
of this interview, this conversation,
and I guess, life right know.
Happy birthday.
You just turned 60.
You know, Trev, I did, man, and, um,
if anybody thinks
that getting older is somehow attractive,
or if someone says "You know, well,
"things are just so different now,
because you've had all these years..."
So all of a sudden now, you can't be seen with anybody
that's not my daughter-- my daughter is 25...
I can't be seen with any woman who is in her 20s or 30s,
or now, mid-40s.
-(laughing) -And you know, it's just...
We're going to talk about your new project in a second.
Um, before that, I want to talk
about one of your more recent projects
that, not only got a lot of people talking,
but got you into so much trouble
that the Secret Service became a part of your life.
And it's 'cause of a joke you told on Instagram.
You know, I was out to lunch
with my dear friend Cedric and his family.
Turned the phone on, and it says on Hollywood Unlocked
that this country Iran
allegedly had offered an $80 million bounty,
alleged, over our leader.
And as a Latino, I just typed in, and I said,
"Hey, we'll do it for half."
And the right side is always trying to get me put in prison.
And you know, you get the whole "Go back to Mexico."
-Right, right, right. -But-but they did show up,
and they were in my house, and they didn't use the bathroom.
They did not drink anything.
They sat on the same side of the couch.
And then they slid a paper, allegedly saying,
"You know, would you be willing to sign this paper?"
And I said, "What's that?"
I had my attorney with me, and he goes,
"We're not gonna sign that."
And, uh, they put it back in there, and they go, "That's a...
"If you sign that letter, you're giving them the right
"to look up your medical history
and your criminal history and all of your history."
And I said "No, no, we're not signing that."
And then, just, like, you know, dainty,
-they put it back if the briefcase. Okay. -Wow.
And I said, "Does anybody ever sign that letter?"
They go, "No. Well, sometimes. No, no."
But if you don't think they're listening, they came
with, like, a dossier that thick of all of my posts,
all of my Facebook comments, all of my Twitter comments.
-Man. -So if you think that they're not out there watching,
they're watching. So he...
He said what I said. He said, "You... your comment, the reason
"why you're here, and I think you know why we're here,
because you said, you know, that you would do this for half."
And I said, "Listen, man."
And he said, "Do you think that's funny?"
And I said, "You know,
when you say it, I don't think it is funny." But...
-(laughing) -I said... I said... I-I said,
"I looked at it more as an estimate than actual threat."
Comedians-- we're always just thinking of the joke.
You know what I mean? It's how we process the world.
It's how we process everything we do.
It's funny you say that, but, um...
But this new project that you're in now might be a departure
for a lot of George Lopez fans and admirers.
This movie, Walking with Herb, is an interesting one
because this is more dramatic.
You know, this is a different movie that... where-where
you're playing the story of somebody who's lost their faith,
and essentially, you're God's messenger
trying to get them on the right path.
Tell me a little bit about this new project
and why George Lopez decided, "You know what?
I'm gonna bring out my acting chops for this one."
Well, you know, first of all, everybody thinks
that comedians can't act. That's number one.
And you know, there are some comedians that have had sitcoms
and deals made in a sitcom.
And they've been fired from their own sitcom
that was named after them
and replaced by somebody using the same name.
So as you go... as you come up, and you think,
okay, if you're a fighter,
and you can only throw a right... a right jab,
you can't throw a left, try to make yourself the best,
-well-rounded fighter. -Right.
You can move, you got a strong right, you can duck.
And when I realized I couldn't act,
when I already had my deal for my sitcom,
I hired a coach, and she was with me for all of those years.
-And I stayed with her all those years. -Man, that's amazing.
But know... but knowing the fact that people don't give us credit
as comedians and think that we can't act,
and especially dramatic,
that our eyes are always moving around...
Is that I started to take these little parts, Trevor,
that just had a little serious thing--
River Runs Red, El Chicano, took No Man's Land here.
And then, Walking with Herb.
Mark Medoff won the Tony Award, wrote Children of a Lesser God.
You get to work
with Academy Award nominee Edward James Olmos,
Academy Award nominee Kathleen Quinlan.
The fact that I was going into a movie
with those type of actors, and there's nowhere to hide,
was the thing that was appealing to me.
But I wouldn't have been able to do it, I don't think,
if I was already not laying down the tracks
for more serious and dramatic parts.
Yeah, man, it's a really interesting premise
and a fantastic story.
Like, I remember watching it, and I was going,
I was going like, I was like, "Wait." I was like,
"George are you religious, like,
or are you spiritual as a person?"
Yeah, you know, I was not very religious growing up.
In knowing that Mark Medoff,
who-who wrote the script, was passing...
He was very sick, he had cancer, and he was an agnostic,
-and really wrote it as a "what lies ahead"... -Right.
...Was appealing to me to look at it from a guy,
who even when he came to see us work,
looked really bad, and he was hanging in there.
And that we got to finish it
-and he got to see it before he left. -That's beautiful.
But, um, spiritually, I think,
I lean more towards the Buddhist side than the Catholic side.
You just go with... Do you just Zen with everything?
You try and work, you know?
You just try and keep that peace.
Is that what George Lopez is trying to do?
I try not to... I try not to wish anybody any harm.
I wish everybody well, and I try not to take anything
that anybody would tell me personally.
That's me now at 60.
50, 40, 55, not so much.
But you know, I can still throw a mean right
when I have to, man.
I love that, man. The Buddhist Who Can Throw a Punch.
That's your next movie.
George Lopez, thank you so much for joining me on the show.
Stay safe out there, my friend,
and, uh, I hope to see you again in the future.
-Absolutely. Thanks, Trevor. -Take care.