Armando Riesco is “National Treasure" -- Latin Heat Online
An up-and-coming red-headed Latino turns Irish and joins the FBI for Bruckheimer’s newest action/adventure
Armando Riesco (Spike Lee’s The 25th Hour, Zach Braff’s Garden State) joins Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel and Christopher Plummer in Jerry Bruckheimer’s latest action-adventure, National Treasure, premiering this weekend. And once again, he finds himself cast as a non-Latino – in this case, an Irish FBI agent working for Harvey Keitel.
Treasure has been compared to a modern-day Indiana Jones -- but this time the treasure isn’t in some distant land. Instead, our heroes, led by the redoubtable Ben Franklin Gates (Cage) are looking for the legendary lost treasure of the Templar Knights right here in the U.S., using a map encoded on the back of the Declaration of Independence. The film is directed by Jon Turteltaub (Disney's The Kid, Instinct, Cool Runnings, Phenomenon, While You Were Sleeping) and written by a whole parade of successful screenwriters, including Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2, Shrek, Mask of Zorro), Jim Kouf (Rush Hour, Snow Dogs, TV’s Angel and The Handler) and Cormac & Marianne Wibberly (I Spy, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Bad Boys II and the upcoming I Dream of Jeannie).
Latin Heat Entertainment recently had the pleasure of speaking with Riesco about his role in National Treasure and his career in general:
LH: Where are you originally from?
Riesco: I grew up in Puerto Rico and came to the U. S. when I was 17 and moved to Chicago. But I call myself a “Cubarican” because I am half Cuban and half Puerto Rican.
LH: How did you decide on acting?
Riesco: I knew by then that I wanted to be an actor, so I began training. I was fortunate to be cast in the Four, a play by Christopher Chin, and that was a big success: it ran Off-Broadway for six months in two different spaces to great reviews. I played a half-white, half-Puerto Rican basketball player who did a little drug dealing on the side.
LH: Tell us about your role in National Treasure.
Riesco: I auditioned only once for Jon Turteltaub and got the role. Avy Kaufman, the casting director, knew me because she also cast me in Garden State, Zach Braff’s (Scrubs) directorial debut. I play an FBI agent and work closely with Harvey Keitel’s character. I am part of a multi-cultural FBI team, but it’s funny: I don’t play a Latino; I play Irish. I guess my red hair helps.
LH: Have you played many Latino roles?
Riesco: No. However, in Law & Order: Criminal Intent I played Scott Calderon. I remember I didn’t want to go in because I figured there would be other “real-looking” Latinos. The episode was directed by a green-eyed black woman Darnell Martin (I Like It Like That, starring Lauren Velez and Jon Seda). Later on the set she told me that she totally understood where I was coming from because it happened to her all the time.
LH: But mostly you don’t fit society’s idea of what a Latino is.
Riesco: But I am. When I speak Spanish I get weird looks. I’ve even tried dying my hair every once in a while so I can go out for Latino roles. Luckily I do a lot of voice-over work, and it does not matter there. I get my red hair from my grandma. I guess I am the “white sheep” of the family.
LH: What’s next for you?
Riesco: I am currently shooting Fever Pitch, a love story with stars Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. It’s a Farrelly brothers comedy. I also shot Waltzing Anna for director Doug Bollinger (Mail Order Bride).
LH: Good luck to you. We’ll see you on the big screen!
National Treasure opens in 2,500 theaters nationwide on Friday, November 19. Given the abundance of cartoons, horror shows and chick flicks, Treasure is opening to a relatively clear field, with nearly as many theaters as last week’s Salma Hayek/Pierce Brosnan caper After the Sunset (generating a very light $12M in its first weekend). Still, Bridget Jones is going wide and Spongebob Squarepants is landing -- forces to be reckoned with on any Friday. Disney’s Buena Vista is distributing.