Lou Diamond Phillips looks back on the making of 'La Bamba'

Lou Diamond Phillips looks back on the making of La Bamba, about the life and career of Chicano rock 'n' roll star, Ritchie Valens.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING - RITCHIE VALENS - "LA BAMBA"]

- [SINGING IN SPANISH]

KEVIN POLOWY: Congrats on "La Bamba" being the latest film to return to theaters as part of TCM's big screen classics. Let's start at the beginning of your "La Bamba" journey. Where were you in your life, in your career, when this opportunity to portray Ritchie Valens came your way?

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: It came out of the blue, man, 100% out of the blue.

I was living in Arlington, Texas. I graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a theater degree. So I got this phone call from my agent's assistant that there was an audition for a musical. And they said, yeah, it's about the life of Frankie Valli. And I was like, oh, OK.

You know, I wasn't really a singer. I'd done some musical theater in college. So I go to the audition and lo and behold, it is not a stage musical about Frankie Valli, which is to come later with "Jersey Boys," yes. It is actually this Hollywood biopic "La Bamba." And I could not fathom why they were in Dallas, Texas. And so there's a dozen guys who look like me of varying ethnicities in Texas, a lot of whom I knew. A couple of weeks later, I got the call to to get flown to Los Angeles and do the screen test. The rest is history.

KEVIN POLOWY: So that literally marked your arrival in Hollywood.

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: 100%.

KEVIN POLOWY: How much more confident did you become when you realized it was Ritchie Valens biopic and not a Frankie Valli musical?

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: When I read the script, I went, oh, I'm right for this. I'm right for this. And I actually thought I had a better shot at Bob, to be quite honest. And then when they decided to screen test me, they were basically testing me for Ritchie.

- (SINGING) --rock, rock, rock when you na, na, na, na, honey. We're going to ride all night.

KEVIN POLOWY: What were the trickiest aspects to nailing down Richie?

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: Oh, the musical performance, man, Yeah, bar none. I had his family there. I felt like I-- you know, the night that I switched from Bob to Richie, I remember walking on People Boulevard and going, oh God, I got to play Richie. Now I got to play Richie. And I thought, oh, I am Richie, an unknown kid from the sticks, you know, with a big dream to become an actor in film and television. I said this is me translated through the lens of the 50s and rock and roll, as opposed to movies.

- You OK?

- Yeah. You know what, Bob? I always believed I was going to die in a plane crash.

KEVIN POLOWY: We often talk about the 27 Club or rappers like B.I.G. and Tupac who died 24, 25. Valenzuela he was 17. I mean, it's just still so mind bogglingly tragic. What was that aspect like for you, just on an emotional level to play someone whose life ended way too soon you know, the day the music died, as they call it?

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: That was what was so heartbreaking and touching for audiences. Because in my research, I didn't know Ritchie was 17. I knew the song "La Bamba". I knew the song "Oh, Donna." But then when I started doing research, he was 17 years old? His career was eight months long, basically, and he had three top 40 hits. This was the day the music died, the end of the age of innocence. And Ritchie embodied that.

It was the American dream. He was a kid who was not just from the wrong side of the tracks. The tracks never even went close to his neighborhood. So being the child of immigrants, being a farm worker, all of this and and dealing with the attitudes of the 1950s, he embodied all of that.

- Hey, Richie, relax, man. Everything's cool. Besides, the sky belongs to the stars, right?

KEVIN POLOWY: How tough was it to film scenes like the one where he's about to board that plane?

LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS: That was one of the most surreal, twilight zone, life imitates arts moments of the entire film. But that night, Taylor Hackford and Luis Valdez had asked the family not to come. And we filmed, movie magic wise, we filmed at Clear Lake Iowa out in Burbank with massive river fans blowing baked snow. They put down ice beside the runway the whole nine yards. It was just beautiful.

And then out of the darkness, by the runway, comes Connie Jr., Richie's sister, who was 12 when he passed. So she had memories. She was truly affected by this. She was old enough to feel that lost. And she came up to me and I knew something was wrong immediately. Because, I mean, first of all, she looked a little timid, which, at this point in the filming, I would have expected her to be. But she called me Lou.

For the first time in, like, five weeks, she called me Lou. And I thought, wow, something's wrong. And she says, Lou, can I ask you something? And I stood up, I said, of course, Connie. What is it? It was like floodgates opened. She literally collapsed into my arm. She started pounding on my chest saying, why did you go? Why did you have to go? And I just realized that being there on that set that night, that was 30 years of pain that had a catharsis.

And in the alternate universe of the movies, she could stand on that runway and maybe stop it from happening. I mean it was really amazing. Taylor had to come over and he took her by the shoulder and he said, Connie, Connie, we said we're going to do this. And she goes, I know. I just had to. I had to, I had to, and then he lead her away. But she had that moment to kind of finally let it all out.

Funny thing is, I remember Danny Valdez, on that Thursday night before the premiere, literally said to me, we were having a beer together. He goes, we're about to hand you the keys to the candy store. And I remember that to this day.

And the moment that I really remember was Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles had declared a Ritchie Valens day. And he was announcing it at the million dollar theater in downtown LA. And it was the last time I saw Connie Sr., Ritchie's mom, alive. We were all on the stage together, the family, a lot of cast members. And as Tom Bradley was making his speech, I felt a little tug on my sleeve. And I looked down and it was Connie Sr. And she looked up at me and she said, you gave me my son back.

In that moment, I realized the sort of epic nature of what had happened and what this film meant. And in the years since, what that film meant not only to the Valenzuela family but to an entire community, which is why it's still resonant today.

- (SINGING) Oh Donna, Oh Donna.

- That's beautiful, Ritchie. That's the one.