Randy Vasquez: A Raw Look Into the Life of a Working Actor

Randy Vasquez: I was born in Escondido down near San Diego. My father came to Escondido via Mexico. My mother is a coal miner's daughter from West Virginia.

RV: My parents met in college here in L.A. in the 50’s at Woodbury University and after they married, moved to Escondido. They divorced when I was five and our mom moved my brother and I to North Carolina, where her family was, mainly in High Point but also in the mountains, Appalachia. I wasn’t happy living in North Carolina and eventually I was able to convince my mother to let me stay with my dad in California. I returned to Escondido and finished high school and then got accepted at UCLA. That was my ticket to L.A.

RV: It was. My brother, Perry, identifies as an Appalachicano. That’s one way of putting it!

RV:  Yes. Or a baseball player. Or a veterinarian.

AM:  You look like a baseball player.

RV:  I’m a center fielder and my father was a baseball player so he instilled that in me. I used to watch a lot of TV growing up, Gilligan’s Island, Sanford and Son.

There were two movie theaters in my neighborhood and I would walk to them to see movies all the time, whatever was playing. I realized that’s a kind of fun that I wanted to be a part of and I knew I had to be in L.A. to pursue it.

RV: No. I felt trapped there. I longed for California and getting to L.A. somehow, someday.

RV: Probably. I came here [Los Angeles] in 1979, and dropped out of UCLA. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to write ten page term papers so I dropped out and set out on my own without knowing anyone.

RV: I got a job at a Westwood ice cream parlor. The owner was an actor from New York and knew I was starting out. He told me to study with a guy named Tony Ponzini. So I contacted him through Dramalogue, the main acting newspaper at the time. Tony introduced me to Robert Marcucci, who was a talent manager who’d made his name in music.

RV: Yeah. He discovered Frankie Avalon and Fabian in south Philly in the late ‘50’s during that vacuum created by Elvis when he went in the Army. Bob came to see me one night in Tony’s acting class when I was doing a scene from “Middle of the Night.” During the break he said, ‘Hey kid, do you want to be a star?’ I said yes. Then he said, ‘Let’s get to know each other for a year and then well see what happens after that.’ A year later, he hooked me up with an audition for an agent, who took me on. Then came Highway To Heaven, Beverly Hills Cop, Hill St. Blues and some others. I worked but not steadily so I still had to have extra jobs; waiter, carpenter, ticket scalper.

RV:  I forced myself to do a lot of stage work. I had a good foundation with Tony, who was a graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse and also a member of the Actor’s Studio from that 60’s —so he combined those two acting methods like a lot of teachers did. He preferred Meisner over Strasberg. Any way, we really connected. He was like a father figure who encouraged and pushed me in class.

AM: Then you kind of walked away from acting at some point, didn’t you?






RV: Well the first time I did that, I didn’t really walk away. I left L.A. to move to New York when I was cast in an off-Broadway show at Circle Rep. I ended up staying for a year and a half, studying, doing shows.

RV: When I first came out to L.A., I didn’t know anyone here, so I figured that the only way I could make it was to become really good. My father was a high school teacher and an accountant. He was a serious guy, a hard worker and that was a trait I got from him and applied it. I think I disappointed my family when I dropped out of college so I decided to study acting extra hard to make up for that. As much as I hated being on stage, I forced myself to do it.

RV: It wasn’t in my nature to act up in front of people but I realized there was no shortcut to being successful at it so that’s what I did. I did stuff I didn’t really like doing. I’ve never liked inviting people to my plays.

RV: I’ve done four plays in the past year and I’m starting on another one as we speak. Small theater. I’ve lost count of all the plays I’ve ever done. It helps with auditions to be in a show. It’s so damn hard to get an acting job, but the process has gotten a lot easier as I’ve gotten older.

RV: I wouldn’t call it fearlessness. I don’t get in my own way as much as before. A good director helps, too.

RV: In the mid 1990’s I was questioning my life, what else I could do. I’d been an actor for about 15 years and I was burnt out and felt I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was refinishing furniture, an 8 to 4 job. ‘What is it that I’m going to do now. Maybe this acting thing isn’t it?’ I was sick of thinking of myself all the time so I started concerning myself with other people’s struggles. I started to volunteer, reading for kids at school and helping them with their homework. ‘What’s it all about, this life… this world… my life…’ you know I’d been so about me for so long and now it was about what I can do something to help others.

RV: Anyway, how the shift to film making came about. I had this idea to travel to Mexico after the Zapatista revolt in Chiapas Mexico on New Year’s Day of 1994. I wanted to check it out. So I went to Chiapas and was able to acquire some great photos from an AP [Associated Press] photographer in Mexico City. With the help of my friend Paul Freedman, a film editor, I put together my first film—a pictorial essay or a musical documentary that contrasted the original Zapata 1910 movement with the Chiapas revolt in 1994. I used this beautiful symphony by Manuel Ponce, a Mexican composer, called Concert of the South with Andre Segovia on guitar.

RV: It was a great first film experience. After that I met Maria Guardado a woman from El Salvador, who had escaped the death squads and relocated to the U.S. She was part of the Salvadoran diaspora here in the 80’s. She was a political activist who inspired me.  She reminded me of my grandmother. I made a documentary about her, Testimony: The Maria Guardado Story, and it took about four years to complete. It kind of filled a cinematic vacuum of experiences from that country’s civil war. We finished it in 2001. It was very well received in many film festivals including the Havana Film Festival, which I attended.

RV:  It was a blessing for me too. She became a special friend. I miss her a lot.

RV: About the American Indian boarding school experience of Walter Littlemoon from Wounded Knee, South Dakota, which became The Thick Dark Fog, and aired on PBS in 2012. I visited Walter and his wife, Jane, several times over the seven years it took me to make that film. In the middle of it is when I went back to UCLA and got my degree in American Indian Studies. Walter and Maria were similar to me. They had a lot of pride in their ethnic identity, which was an issue for me growing up. They were leaders in their communities. Both films have found a lot of distribution with universities, colleges and community groups throughout the U.S. and abroad. My latest documentary, Badger Creek, is available on PBS. Check your local listings as they say.

RV:  Badger Creek is a portrait of Native resilience as seen through a year in the life of three generations of a Blackfeet family living on the rez in Montana. The Mombergs are a loving, sober family who run a successful ranch, live a traditional worldview and are re-learning their language—a great family that I wanted to introduce to the American public.

RV: I have faith in my experience, and that helps with auditions. I’m grateful.

RV: Yeah, it’s kind of an ongoing battle – but I think it’s just a matter of time. There’s no replacement for experience.

Randy laughs. His girlfriend, actress Marilyn Sanabria, agrees.

RV: I feel great and ready to work… I need to fix this place up, take Marilyn to Paris…(laughs)