Our chat with actor Pepe Serna on his documentary film “Pepe Serna: Life Is Art” as we go down his evolution from Actor to Speaker to Painter
The life of legendary Hollywood actor and internationally renowned artist Pepe Serna is revealed in Pepe Serna: Life Is Art, a one-hour documentary film directed by Luis Reyes premiering on digital platforms February 21, 2024. Told by Serna himself, the documentary follows his lengthy acting career and artistic life and provides viewers with a rare opportunity to discover previously unseen and unknown sides of the actor’s journey.
With over 100 film and television credits, Serna is most recognized for his iconic role opposite Al Pacino in the classic film Scarface as Ángel Fernández, whose grisly demise is one of the most memorable in cinema history. Born in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1944, Serna built a career from the ground up and appeared in films such as Car Wash with Richard Pryor, Postcards from the Edge with Meryl Streep, The Jerk with Steve Martin, and Academy Award-winning director Alexander Payne’s Downsizing with Matt Damon.
Eva Longoria and Edward James Olmos, both longtime friends of Serna, provide personal insight and perspective on his versatility and longevity as an actor and artist alongside Cheech Marin, Gloria Calderón Kellett, Luis Valdez and many others.
Throughout his journey, he has inspired countless Latino artists to follow in his footsteps by delivering powerful performances for filmmakers such as Brian De Palma, Clint Eastwood, John Schlesinger, Dalton Trumbo, Roger Corman, Henry Hathaway, William Friedkin and Dick Donner.
Serna’s career is a testament to how far Latinos have come in Hollywood. He has indisputably claimed a reputable place in one of the world’s most competitive industries for his story-telling abilities and unique drive to empower not just Latinos but also other underserved communities.
Pepe Serna: Life Is Art will be available for streaming on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, and Vudu on February 21, 2024.
Criticólogos:
It’s a movie about your life and your work, but you took the platform and used it to share the spotlight on how Hollywood still sees Hispanics and Latinos. And I wonder, how important was that for you to make sure you have that we take some time apart from the documentary to shed a spotlight on that topic?
Pepe Serna:
Well, on that topic, because you just said it how Hollywood sees us, ad I’d like to turn things around. It says how Hollywood doesn’t see us. The reality is that here we have I don’t care what Latin country you come from, and mostly because Mexico is the biggest and we’ve had the most, uh, but every country is just as important, like every person is just as important as everybody else. And the stories that come. And we go back to the ancient.
You know, there’s. Why is there nothing from us from the Americas? I mean, this is America. America to South America, to North America, to Canada. It’s like why you have every story from the Italians or the English. But there’s nothing about this continent, about where the indigenous people. You know, what they created, even here in America, all we know is cowboys and Indians and kill them because they’re savages and not the art.
It’s the art that is so important that what we had, what we have in us as Latinos, even though you probably have a lot of Spanish and French and bloodline. But for us, if you’re Latino, then you, you, you hold on to that 1% of indigenous blood that you have, you know. And even if you don’t have it, you claim it because we love it, that it’s the earth, Mother Earth.
Criticólogos:
I love the scene when you were speaking with the schools about the movie Scarface. And I think it’s a movie that still resonates with the times, with this generation. What is it about that movie that still resonates with the times and with this young generation so well?
Pepe Serna:
I think it probably is rags to riches, but when it first came out, it didn’t it wasn’t as popular as it became. And what made it popular was the rappers, the rappers that started using gangster and the Scarface and the lyrics and so suddenly it spread, you know, and that’s what I need for my documentary is for people to see it and say, oh, uh, I didn’t know that guy’s name.
I know his face. I recognize his face. I don’t know his name, you know, and that’s like, it’s kind of an analogy for us, the Hollywood doesn’t know our story. You know, they know that our faces are there because we’re the gardeners, the cooks, the maids, the way they see us, but know there are doctors and lawyers and businesspeople and like yourself, you know, uh, influencers who are out there. And that’s what we need is for as many influencers as possible.
I need them to come to my rescue to show it’s not only about me. I mean, I did it for me. It’s my story, but I want to show everybody else. Hey, my story is your story. We all have a story. And so, I have been doing it. I was the first one here. I’ve done more famous movies than any other actor. But do you know other actors’ names? It didn’t do anywhere near Car Wash, The Jerk, Silverado, Dy of the Locust, I mean Red Dawn. It just went on and on and looking at the documentary and saying, wow, I had an incredible career and more than I wasn’t in, in, in, uh, like really disappointed that I wasn’t getting the starring parts As much as you want to have something with language.
Criticólogos:
I love the title. Life is Art. How did that come about?
Pepe Serna:
I think it was pretty much there from the beginning because that’s just my philosophy that life is art. How do you how at everything that you’re looking at and, your own life is art? And especially because I met my wife next month, it’s going to be 55 years ago that I got here. And I met her the second day, and six months later she came to a performance and invited me over. I was homeless, I had cleaned up at the theaters where I was, uh, doing theater, but she invited me. And then she’s such an incredible artist. Uh, visual. As you can see, my house is every color. Uh, and she created me as a visual artist. And so, it’s that it’s celebrating that and the joy of color.
Criticólogos:
I want to ask about the evolution of Pepe Serna from the actor to the speaker, to the painter. How did that process come about? What happened through the life that told you, hey! I need to do this. I need to do that.
Pepe Serna:
I was a terrible student, but as a three-year-old performing and then I was great at the park, playing football and baseball with friends one day you were on my team, and the next day you were on the other team. And so, I knew early on that if you’re on my team one day, but if you’re on another team and you score, you make a great catch. You’re still my friend who made the.
That son was on my team yesterday. So, you are. Our relationship is still the same. So, I’ve always had that is I want to I want everybody, you know I want to throw I want to throw a touchdown to the fat kid that nobody pays attention to just centers the ball. And I would do that. I concentrate, I see what’s going on, I want it equal. And I had an extrovert personality, and I was always on the move.
I mean, I’ll be 80 this year, but look at me. I mean, you know, you can tell that I still got, you know, I still work out, I work out my weights every day and most, you know, five days out of the week and I love working with people and giving them little hints on how to create something that, that they don’t know that they can because their personality is different. I say, man, I just got to give you this color to use, and your personality will change by itself. And it’ll just make it.
Trailer:
