- Hi. - They're excited.
I'm excited.
They're excitable.
Hey, Diane, do people believe you
when you tell them that you do the voice for Encanto?
Because when I tell kids--
Yeah.
--nobody believes me.
I have to sing the entire song.
- The whole song? - The whole song.
- But then they believe you. - Then they believe me, yeah.
The kids start.
And I have to like do like a few lines to like, flowers,
and then I've been stuck!
- And then they get it. - Being perfect!
- Oh, yeah. - And then they get it.
And now I believe you.
Yeah.
I wasn't sure if you were Encanto, but now I got it.
Yeah, no, they don't get it.
Even when I do the voice, you know,
like, I don't know who I am, I, and all that,
they don't get it. - Right.
Because this face scares them.
- Yeah, no, no. - Yeah.
You got, you got to sing, you got to do
the rap part that you do.
Oh, yeah, forget that. That's not happening.
Yeah, that's a hard one.
I barely got in the pocket, yeah.
That's a hard one.
Now let me switch it over to something else.
You're a child of immigrants.
That's right.
And every immigrant, yes.
[cheering]
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Colombian [bleep].
[bleep].
[non-english] OK, what do you want people to know about
your experience growing up?
Yeah, well, when I was 14, my parents
were separated from me.
I'm a child of a separated family due to deportation.
And it, I mean, it ruined a lot, a lot of, it ruined me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you were 14 years old!
You were--
I was 14 years old, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
The police, the immigration INS, ICE came
and took away your parents.
That's right.
And I had to grow up on my own, and I
had to make very, very difficult decisions on my own
throughout my entire life.
Can you imagine, a kid just left
alone at 14 to raise himself?
So crazy. - Not right.
Not OK.
And I mean, I've gone through a lot of therapy
and I'm still going through therapy, and I'm, you know--
Beautiful.
I-- thank you.
Yeah.
I've-- I've relied on my community
to support me in this, and I have been very candid.
I wrote a book in 2016--
Good for you.
--about my experience, In the Country We Love.
Yes, thank you.
[applause]
My family and I were separated like for 20 years.
I mean, I've been able to go back,
but they haven't been able to come here.
And so pandemic happened, and I was like,
what am I going to do here?
Like, die in LA by myself?
So I bought a farm in the mountains of Colombia
and I'm now I'm living there.
My dad, sadly, passed away a year ago, but--
- I'm sorry to hear that. - Thank you so much.
But my mom is there.
I'm close to my family, and no one's ever going
to separate us ever again.
Oh, good for you, good for you.
Thanks.
[applause]
Now, I also hear that you're the leading actor who recently
joined, no, you joined a whole bunch of leading actors
in the Visionary Alliance for the National
Hispanic Media Coalition.
I had to read that, because that's a long title.
I'm not the leading actor.
You're not the leading actor.
No, I'm not the leading actor, I'm one of the actors.
Oh, one of them, OK.
Yes.
And then what is the mission statement of the coalition?
Look, I'll give you numbers.
I'm not, I'm not a math girlie, but I'll
give you some numbers.
In 2022, only three women of color
directed a top 100 film--
What?
--in the span of 16 years, OK?
21 female directors, women of color directors,
directed 21 films out of 1,600 films.
That's crazy.
I'm not a math girlie, like I said.
And people of color are at least 40% of the population,
if not a lot more, because white people are only 59%
of the population. - Right, right.
So then--
I mean, that's getting into more numbers than I rehearsed.
Oh, yeah.
But--
I'm a math boy.
You were a math boy.
Well, all I know is that that's cultural apartheid.
- Yes. - Right?
For real, for real.
And I know that a term that you use a lot,
and I follow you and I follow your work.
Thank you so much, Johnny Legs, for doing--
Oh, yeah, yeah.
--doing the good work for us.
Yeah.
And inspiring me to do the work
that I'm doing alongside you.
What we--
I need allies, and we need people like you.
We need soldiers out there.
Thank you.
We want representation.
We want, we want, we want the right kind of representation.
We're tired of the only things getting
made about us, drug lords--
Negative.
--criminals, cops.
Right, right. Maids.
- Maids. - Hookers.
- Right. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right, right.
We want to be represented as we are, real, beautiful,
curious, you know, existential crises heaven.
Preach, preach, mama, preach!
And yes, maybe, and yes, maybe even mediocre.
Right, right, some day.
Sometimes, right? And if someone wants--
Because white people get to be mediocre all the time.
- All the time! - Oh, my God!
I mean, I'm jealous, because white people
get to fail upwards.
Just peruse, just peruse--
I can barely succeed upwards.
Agreed, likewise.
Just peruse through the canon of like mediocre films of--
Oh, my God, Waterworld.
--dysfunctional white families.
Jack, Jack and Jill, that's on the list.
The canon is rich, OK?
Yes it is.
We deserve to be--
Allowed to fail on camera-- Exactly.
--people.
I want to fail in big movies.
Can we make crap?
Yes!
I want to make crap on television, on streaming.
I want to be like white people.
I want to make mammoth, woolly
mammoth meatball crafts.
And get paid for it!
And get paid for it.
Ain't nobody paying for us to do that.
Exactly.
They work really well in sushi kitchens, pizzerias.
We got to cook all the food for this goddamn country.
Just like we deserve to be excellent,
we deserve to make crap as well--
- Yeah, yeah. - --and everything in between.