Miguel Rodarte discusses HBO's 'Sierra Madre' & 'Las Azules'

[00:00:00] Miguel, thank you for joining me today on Pop Culture Unplugged. Thank you Elias, happy to be here. You got two projects that have recently, well you have one that's coming out end of July I think, is that what it is? That's correct, yes, yes end of July.

[00:00:24] And then you just finished a recent one, Sierra Madre, you've been busy, I've been doing some research on you, you've been busy. It's been a busy couple of years lately and yeah I got many shows coming out.

[00:00:37] We started off this year with Sierra Madre on HBO, which is now on the Max platform, all of HBO is on Max. So we just uploaded the whole season into the platform. It's been an amazing ride with Sierra Madre because it's been quite a phenomenon here in

[00:00:57] Mexico, talking about, you know, it's sort of like a succession politicians and some sort of elite society. It's all a mix, like succession narcos and gossip girls, you may say, something like that, but in Mexican style.

[00:01:20] So it's the way that our society in Mexico has been rooted in many ways and so it goes deep into the family problematic, but as well as a social problematic that goes on in many places in Latin America and many places around the world.

[00:01:42] So how as a leader you have to lead with everyone that you're leading. So including the organized crime as well. So it's been quite a ride. It's been a phenomenon. People have liked it a lot and it's been number one since it came out on the platform.

[00:02:04] And I think the word spreading and now it's getting more attention outside Latin America as well. And a lot of viewers from the US has been contacting me, telling me that they've been watching the series, that they really, really enjoying it. And so we're very happy with it.

[00:02:20] Very, very happy with it. And then I have a new series coming out as well, which is this one's due to July 31st. So it's been and I have a movie coming out and then I have another series and another

[00:02:37] film coming out and I have more work coming. So it's been a good it's been quite a good year, a couple of years for me. And now all the fruits are coming out. So it's ripping time, I may say.

[00:02:50] So we'll jump into the shows in a few minutes, too. But let's get to know a little bit more about you. And what inspired you to get into the acting world? Was that always like the goal, the thought or was it something else that you somehow

[00:03:01] slipped into it? I kind of slipped into it. I always felt fascinated by films. Of course, I used to watch a lot of films when I with my family, when I was a kid going to the cinemas.

[00:03:15] And we also as a kid, my father used to follow us with this Super 8 film camera all over. So my favorite moment in family is getting the show ready for the family to watch our own films.

[00:03:31] So I think I have that nostalgic, very deep rooted inside of me. And then when I was going through college, I have like this vocational crisis, you may say, because I didn't know what to do with myself.

[00:03:43] Although I knew that I, you know, I have potential for many different things. And and I and then I got invited to do my first short film while I was in college as an actor. And then I discover filmmaking.

[00:03:58] And then I discovered that I really, really wanted to make my life, get my life involved in films because it was the most wonderful thing I've done so far. And so I committed myself to to get ready as an actor after I finished college and and

[00:04:16] get into films. And here I am. So it worked out pretty well. I was I'm very happy that it worked out for me because coming up from college and starting a career, it was it was a coin in the air.

[00:04:29] You never knew, you know, never knew what was going to happen. But luckily enough, I got into films. Somehow I feel like films picked me to be inside them in a way. And and it's been it's been it's been 20 some years since then, a little more.

[00:04:50] Well, since I debuted professionally and that was like 30 years ago, I would say. So that's how that's how it all started. What was the backup goal if you didn't make it into the entertainment industry? Well, I was I was I did my major in marketing.

[00:05:06] OK. And I was actually during my my call, my when I when I was going through drama school part time, I would work in a research qualitative agency. So I did a lot of focus groups. I did a lot of analysis and a lot of also presentations

[00:05:26] because I had the qualifications for it. So pretty much we we I worked in an agency that it was quite successful. We even had a presentation in one of those, you know, international this research organizations all over the world, the European Society of Marketing Research.

[00:05:49] So we we had our own we show our own study in Berlin was and stuff. But I but my my acting, I had my acting going on, my acting career going on. I I put a producing company with another friend, director friend of mine as well.

[00:06:08] So he was working all sidelines. So I said, whatever works, I'm just going to go for it. If this doesn't work, I have this going on. So I have to protect myself a little bit. But happily enough, acting absorbed me completely and my time was devoted for it.

[00:06:26] And of course, I started making a living out of it. And I'm you know, I'm still here. What's been like what's been like, you know, like you've done this now for so many years, your family's reaction now, like seeing you on TV and film.

[00:06:41] Well, I'm not really sure they really like the idea of the beginning. My family is more like business oriented family. We're in the agricultural business and in this beautiful state of Sinaloa up in the

[00:06:54] Pacific North. And so they would normally expect me to, you know, keep going with the family business as a as a farmer and business in the agricultural business. But but then I went through so much crisis when I was like a teenager and they knew

[00:07:14] that I had to pick something that would make me happy, you know. So I have to stand up for the family. Luckily enough, they realized that that was my path and they decided to support me if that was what was going to make me happy.

[00:07:30] Of course, they were, you know, a little cautious about it as well as I was. So they the fact that I had like this side business, sideline business in case things didn't work out, gave them a little piece.

[00:07:44] But then they saw me how things started working out from the very beginning since I finished drama school. I started I got picked up for my first feature film as a protagonist and it was a film called El Tigre de Santa Julia, which is the Tiger of St.

[00:07:59] Julia. It's a Mexican Robin Hood legend. And so we did that film. Nobody knew who I who I was. And part of the reason why they picked me for the leading role was because they they wanted the audience to look at me and say, oh, that's a Tigre.

[00:08:16] That's not someone whatever name is doing in Tigre. So he's a Tigre. And it worked out pretty well for for a couple of years. People call me Tigre, Tiger all the time. They wouldn't even know my name was Miguel or Miguel Rodarte.

[00:08:32] And that that was like the first the first two years of my of my management, working with my management career was for people to get to know my name because they would strongly were strongly driven to call me Tigre because of the of the role I played as

[00:08:49] a in my first film. So so but it worked out pretty well. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, yes, let's let's jump down to a Sierra Madre to like we see you as Marcos. Like how are now how are you approach for this for this series?

[00:09:03] Did you work on past projects with the creators, producers and they they knew they wanted you? How did how did all that happen? No, it was the first time I worked with this showrunner. Actually, the creators, I knew him before because one of them is a very prestigious

[00:09:20] researcher and journalist in Mexico who has a very clear view. How's the how's the tissue form within, you know, politics and society and organized crime in Mexico? So he has been doing that his whole life.

[00:09:36] And then this is the first time Gabriel Nuncio makes his his his show running a show. So he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's he's so so he was he was a first shot for him.

[00:09:53] He did an amazing job by picking me, you know, an amazing job by doing everything that he did. And but I also have I have a very my reference, everything, everything in Sierra Madre happens in one of the districts in Mexico, one of the municipalities

[00:10:14] in Mexico that is the richest income per per per people, per per capital. How do you say per per people in Latin America is where the land is most expensive in all Latin America. So it's the richest little district in the whole Latin American

[00:10:31] region. You must imagine all the fortunes that are accumulated there through industry. And my character was is coming. It comes from one of those families who were founders of the city, city where I went to

[00:10:46] college at. So it's kind of like so so spending five years in college in Monterrey where it all happens, especially in this little district called San Pedro. He gave me a nice since then when I was living in Monterrey, I could hear the accent and

[00:11:02] I would always imitate them, you know, like the locals while I was in college. So I would have like a little I already had like a nice perspective of that whole region and how it worked and how it's cultural. You know, he's got a little particularities to it.

[00:11:21] And so I have a very good chance to live it. As we said, almost 30 years ago. But going back nowadays and just put everything into like real perspective and into the story, he was he was a he was a natural beginning for me.

[00:11:40] It was it was it was a nice, a nice culture that I like to step into because I already I was already familiar to it. But then then the story has a lot of particularities and that percentage of the elite

[00:11:54] that we you know, the person that we show in the show was very is very is a very small percentage. And if you look at it in terms of world population, these people that have all this kind of fortune is almost just one percent of the population.

[00:12:10] So go deep into how they behave, how do they relate to each other, how they have like this, this other things like this, this internal codes that they they they, you know, they relate to each other and they can read it very clearly.

[00:12:26] And so getting to know what were their motivations and what would make them vulnerable, it's it was pretty much what what I would I was focused on for the character and just

[00:12:40] give him like a solid nucleus being a form of being so that you can react to everything around him. So so that's pretty much how I approach the character and how it all happened.

[00:12:55] And the whole series was filmed in Monterrey, the city that I went to college at. And so so that was also plus to come and get out of Mexico City and tell stories from this different perspective as well.

[00:13:11] Now, has there has there been talks now for like another season? Have you heard anything? Because you said you said you guys have had good feedback on the show. Very good feedback.

[00:13:19] And we I'm getting all these answers from the fans who are actually not not asking for a second, demanding a second like a second season, like on Capitol letters. We want second season now.

[00:13:32] You know, there I think I think the series was such it created such an impact in the in the audience that now they're all like looking at it and saying, hey, we want more.

[00:13:42] You know, it's like it felt short, you know, it felt short because it's like this is we want more. We want more. This is not enough. Although although I think is a very rounded season and the ending is just majestic.

[00:13:57] I don't want to talk about it too much because you don't want to spoil that. But it's so beautiful the way that it just in terms of storytelling and how we you know,

[00:14:07] that the whole story comes out and how it kind of like pauses or finishes in a second season. You know, things serious is always like that. You always have a continuation after after you finish watching a whole season.

[00:14:22] And we're hoping that to get Discovery Warner Bros telling us that we are going to start a new season soon. Hopefully. Hopefully. Now, what can you tell us about your next project in Apple TV? Oh, well, that's called Woman in Blue, I think is going English, right?

[00:14:43] Woman in blue. How would you know? I'm telling you in Mexico, we call them las azules. Azul is is the is the Spanish word for blue. And it was actually the color of the uniforms that the first elite, the first woman. How do you say it in English?

[00:15:04] I saw the trailer. Yeah, the uniform. The uniform is blue. So they used to call them las azules, the blue, the woman in blue. That's what they used to call them when they first the first woman police corporation came out in Mexico.

[00:15:19] This is the first division of that of women police in Mexico in 1971. And it's this is a story about this whole corporation, especially these four women who are pioneers in their time, you know, coming out of their houses or whatever lives they

[00:15:40] have and starting a new job that typically was for men to be for men. So you can imagine how much struggle they went through while doing this and and fighting for a place within the corporation and the police organization as well, because of the

[00:15:59] beginning, they just wanted to have them as ornaments, you know, like miniskirts and nice, you know, go go boots. And so so that's that's that's the shows coming out on July 31st. I'm doing Capitan Romandia, Captain Romandia, which is actually the person who forms

[00:16:18] them as police in the academy and who will always who will also be in charge of them throughout the whole story. So we're very excited. It's a film about, you know, it happened in 1971.

[00:16:34] Just the fact that you watching and that different era, it kind of like just, you know, transports you there and takes you there as an audience. It's a beautiful feeling to have, like he has a universe of his own in terms of

[00:16:47] aesthetics and and in terms of of the times. And so that makes it very, very attractive as well. And of course, the story and of course, the actors and the actresses there as well. They are just fantastic.

[00:17:01] So we'll get to see another solid, good show on Apple TV and we'll hope you like it. I love Apple TV. I don't know about you. It seems like they push out less content, but their content is good. Oh, definitely. Yes, they're there.

[00:17:17] They're a little more into the curating, if you say, of what they they show in their platforms. There are also every show they come out, come out with is also show internationally, which is like like every show we take. It's good enough to be seen worldwide. Right.

[00:17:39] So he's got the signature. He's got the the kind of legitimized the product because he's Apple TV. Apple TV is betting for for good stories, good productions and and something that you really, really want to watch. And I think this is one of those.

[00:17:57] And Apple TV is super happy with it as well as we understand. And now we hope that the audience is also very happy with it. So in terms of and then we'll see what there's a second season. I hope there is.

[00:18:11] But this first season, I'm sure you're going to love it. It's very intriguing. It's got a lot. It's got a different like, you know, this this this. How do you say like investigation kind of like serious where there is this crime and

[00:18:29] then you go after the crime and then so so and then a lot of family issues also happen, romantic situations that happen. So it's very, very attractive. Now, the big question is you've done all these projects. Have you seen any of the other shows?

[00:18:44] You've done all these projects. Have you taken a break? Have you gone on vacation or have you relaxed? Yes, I have. Not for long, though, but I did. I did last year. I finished it was it was it was three projects in a row.

[00:19:00] I finished in in August. I think it was September. And then I went to South America for 40 days. I went to Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, which is it was it was amazing. And then I came back and started working now on the promotion of this shows.

[00:19:20] And so and I'm just about to leave in a couple of weeks as well to go work on a new series, which I can't talk about it. A new film as well. I can't talk about it. But but we got enough coming out.

[00:19:33] So we'll get we'll get to those later. But so it's going to it's going to start getting busy again, which is OK. You know, it's all I love working, creating characters which are very different and

[00:19:47] diverse ones from each other on projects that I really resonate with and that I believe in. The stories are strong enough and they're there. They have like something that you can relate to, but as well get that makes you reflect on something.

[00:20:05] Right. So it gives you a sense of of of introspection in in in many ways, I think. And that's that's how I start choosing the kind of projects that I like to work on.

[00:20:19] So very, very lucky and very, very fortunate to be able to work on this, at least on these two projects are, you know, that the ones that just came out, Sierra Madre and the Las Azules, Women in Blue, that are coming out now on July 41st.

[00:20:34] That's awesome. But, you know, like let's end this by like how now how can the viewers and listeners keep up with you on social media so they can see your future projects and the projects you can't announce? But sooner you'll announce them.

[00:20:44] How can I do? I've been very active in social media lately because because of all the promotion and stuff. And also, well, you I'm basically I'm on Instagram. You know, my last name is Rodarte, Rodarte, just like the like the like the fashion brand

[00:21:01] design, like the designers Rodarte. So you can find me as Rodarte Pop, which is R-O-D-A-R-T-E Pop. And that's on Instagram. Of course, you can also find me on Facebook. That's a little like aged sort of social media. But there are a lot of it's linked through there.

[00:21:21] It's Miguel Rodarte slash actor and also both Twitter and stuff like that. But yeah, Instagram is the best place where you can find where I'm at and what's the new things that are coming out.

[00:21:33] And well, just in general, just just let your audience know that all this all these shows that are coming out from Mexico are in Spanish. But you also have the chance to watch them in English or you can also read the little

[00:21:53] subtitles. But but I as I mentioned, I received many messages from friends in the US that have been watching the show and I have been enjoying it a lot. So they get hooked up.

[00:22:07] So just invite your your audience as well to check it out on HBO Sierra Madre and just be aware that it's Woman in Blue is also coming out. If you when you see it after July 31st, well, check it out as well.

[00:22:23] This is good, Miguel. I want to thank you for giving me five minutes today. And when you get the new projects come back on, we'll finish this conversation. We'll talk about the new stuff.

[00:22:30] Oh, yes, yes. This is going to this conversation is going to go on and go on. And thank you so much for having me on your show. Nice talking to you. And I hope to talk to you soon.