We've enjoyed watching the screeners for Hotel Cocaine which is currently streaming on MGM+! We are transported to the late 70s and early 80s when Miami is in the midst of a shift from vacation and retirement destination to the epicenter of sex, drugs, crime, and a battle between those who are on opposing sides of the law while embracing disco, wealth, and more! The events that unfold are based on accounts by those who lived it that took place at The Mutiny Hotel which still exists today, but without the activities that made it famous during that time.
We had the pleasure of connecting with Creator, Showrunner, Executive Producer, and writer Chris Brancato (Narcos, Narcos: Mexico, The Godfather of Harlem) and Director, Guillermo Navarro (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 1 and 2, Night at the Museum franchise, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey) who know how to bring these stories to life so that we can see the complexities, conflict, and humanity of the characters in their stories. We talk about their love for storytelling, working together, and framing this show in all of its nuances.
ATHLEISURE MAG: We are so excited to be able to talk with you! Chris, I know you created Narcos as well as Godfather of Harlem which I have been a huge fan of and Guillermo as the Director of Godfather of Harlem – once again, it is a fantastic show and you also directed Narcos, so it’s nice to see you guys working together on this show!
What do you guys love about storytelling in general?
GUILLERMO NAVARRO: Well, it’s a tremendous opportunity to actually reflect on life and to put our own ideas into it and to tell those stories. There is nothing better than that!
CHRIS BRANCATO: I love the process and the friendships that you make from the writing room where we create the scripts to the production people who put everything together, and then editorial where we make a “finished product,” so to speak! The goal is always to entertain.
AM: You guys came together for Hotel Cocaine which I have watched all 7 of the screeners and can’t wait to find out what happens in E8! The story is amazing. Why did you want to tell it and specifically Guillermo, what attracted you to this series and why did you want to be part of it?
GN: Well I have been partnering with this one for awhile and finally we reached and found a Latin story and so I completely just went for it. It was an opportunity to talk about the relationships of the Latin world with America and it focused on the drama of 2 brothers and the delivery of this and the story about what had to be happening in Miami to receive all of that input and to become what it is!
AM: In terms of creating the show Chris, what was your thinking? I love the characters, the complexities and the depth of them, and they keep unveiling themselves in different ways and it is shot so beautifully. How did all that come together?
CB: Well, it’s interesting. Guillermo and I did Narcos together. We first met on the show Hannibal and I realized he was a directorial genius – [Guillermo motions teasingly that Chris is going on and on buttering him up until Chris notices]
AM: Wait, you are and I have enjoyed seeing your direction in a number of programs so these are facts!
CB: Right? So effectively when I did Narcos, one of the actors that was a friend of mine came up to me and said, “you know, my father was the General Manager ager of the Mutiny Hotel. He said it was the Studio 54 of its day in Miami and it was the home to DEA Agents, drug dealers, movie stars, rock stars, and so the subject matter fascinated me and I knew that to do it right and to give it the proper Latin perspective, I was going to need to find a partner. I searched far and wide in the Latin world and I couldn’t find anybody other than him [Chris teases Guillermo by shaking his arm] so that is how we got stuck together!
AM: I love that story! Obviously, this story takes place in Miami but you shot it in the DR?
CB: Yes, because the Domincan Republic, we scouted Puerto Rico, Colombia, and the DR, but ultimately, we decided that the Dominican Republic had the best look of a 70s Miami because Miami is so overbuilt now, we could never replicate Miami in the 70s!
AM: Well I love the DR and I always love whenever I spend time down there regardless of the city!
What do you want viewers to take away from this show. I can’t say enough about how much I love how it was put together, the characters, the way it was shot etc. I can’t wait to see the finale to see how S1 ends.
GN: Well, that the impact of the drug world on society is real and it’s very profound. And that, I come from Mexico and the social tissue is destroyed by the drug world. For me, it was very important thing to talk about that every time someone consumes it, people die. So it’s about accountability and responsibility of something that is consuming entire societies.
CB: We like to deliver themes like that in a very shiny wrapping.
AM: Right!
CB: So the sex, drugs, disco, Latin music pel collars, bell bottom pants, and the Mutiny girls. So again, the goal is to entertain and put the nutritional value in a hidden way so that the kids don’t notice the broccoli!
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Now that we have a framework for this series thanks to Chris and Guillermo we wanted to continue to frame this show as well as the lens that we should view as. We talked with Danny Pino (Scandal, Law & Order: SVU, Mayans MC) and Yul Vazquez (Magic City, The Outsider, The Godfather of Harlem) who play brothers Ramon Compte and Nestor Cabal in this era in Miami as they navigate the DEA, drugs, the Mutiny Hotel, past and present family dynamics and so much more!
AM: As a fan of both of your works in other shows as well as obviously in Hotel Cocaine, why were you attracted to this series and why did you want to be part of it?
DANNY PINO: Thank you for this question! Yul Vazquez! That is the short answer. I’m not saying that because he is here. But he is, he’s right here! The reality is that the first phone call that I got about Hotel Cocaine came from Yul. Yul and I, there are not a lot of Cuban Americans in Hollywood right? So whenever I would go to an event and I would meet other Cuban Americans, we would eventually land on, “have you met Yul Vazquez?” I’d say, “no I have not met him, I know of him and we have mutual friends. He’s a fantastic actor, but I have not yet met him.” Or I would go to a set and someone in the crew or in the cast would say, “well, you’re Cuban American, have you met Yul?” We’d have the same conversation! “I love his work and I haven’t met him.” Then, we happened to meet on Law & Order: SVU! And we became fast friends. It’s like when you meet somebody that you feel that you have known your entire life! I’m not talking about like your entire acting life, I’m talking about – were you at my 15s? Were you at my baptism? Because I feel like you must have been in the Catholic church with us!
The phone call where Yul calls me and says - look, I have been working on this show, The Godfather of Harlem with Forest Whitaker - the fantastic Forest Whitaker with Chris Brancato, the creator of Narcos and there is this show set in Miami, 1978, called Hotel Cocaine, based on The Mutiny and we’d be playing brothers. I said, I’m in! He was like, maybe you should read the script. And I was like, wait, maybe I should read the script! That’s the short answer to your question! Once Yul kind of set that up, I was already – the momentum and the inertia towards doing it was already in motion.
YUL VAZQUEZ: I mean, it was pretty much the same for me. Danny really was the only choice really for this. It was too perfect but you know sometimes when something is so perfect it doesn’t wind up happening?
AM: Right!
YV: This is a no brainer and then suddenly it doesn’t happen! But this was one of those times when the no brainer happened the way it was supposed to happen. I absolutely love working with Danny and he knows that that is the truth! I know that I can stand there with him and we can get through any scene no matter what the journey of the scene is and we can work around it and figure it out and we get to the end of the scene and I know that when he opens his mouth, I am going to believe everything that he says! That sounds like simple obvious things, but not always the case. Not always the case. I always knew with Danny, I am going to have a guy that was there today. Not a guy who decided that he was going to do this 3 weeks ago. You know, rehearsed it in the mirror because that is one thing that makes me insane. When I get somebody and I’m like no matter what you do, this person is going to do the same thing because they have locked themselves into this thing. We figured out this flow with this whole thing and we improvised a lot of things and we had the freedom from Chris Brancato, Michael Panes (Godfather of Harlem, Bull, Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and Guillermo Navarro which is a huge part of the design, the brains, and the engine of the show. He encouraged us by saying that we knew this world better than any of us are going to know. We know what it’s like to be a Cuban from Miami and so that’s what we did! It’s really what we did and I think that we brought a lot of ourselves into the thing more so then I think that I have ever done!
DP: You’re talking to a musician/artist. Yul would come at this scene with the same words, but in a totally different way! So to be present and to be able to play jazz with him all the time and you know, a lot of the script is written in English. We know as many Cuban Americans know, and many Latinos know, that we don’t speak in English all the time.
YV: Correct.
DP: Our probably chosen language or first language is Spenglish and so we would manipulate some of the script to have the same intention, the same wording, but to be able to go back and forward fluidly in Spanish to give the authenticity of what you would hear not only in that time period, but in modern day Miami!
PRESS POOL: As you reflect back to all the roles you have played throughout your career, what lessons have you taken from them that have helped you in your role in Hotel Cocaine today? How has it shaped you to be the actor that you are today in those roles?
YV: I think that every stitch is a stitch in the fabric of an actor’s career. You try to vary it as much as you can and then you try to decide the parts as much as who is involved and who’s hands it’s in. So I think that everything feeds everything. I also paint, I’m a photographer, and I am also a musician so everything feeds everything and I don’t think one thing takes away from another. I see everything as one orb. So, I think that everything in life feeds everything. Meet ing you and it’s the succession of events for me. That’s how I think that we arrive to where we are today.
DP: I mean, Yul is a renaissance man. He does everything incredibly well and for me, talking about different characters and how it now leads to Ramon Compte, the General Manager of the Mutiny Club and Hotel, I’ve played characters who were on the right side of the law – in fact they were the law. In 2 successive shows whether it’s Mayans MC or Hotel Cocaine, playing characters that you can potentially consider an outlaw – right? I think that what I find which goes to the heart of your question, the throughline for the characters is with great writing whether it’s Meredith Stiehm (Homeland, ER, NYPD Blue) on Cold Case; whether it’s Warren Leight (In Treatment, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent) on Law & Order: SVU; whether it’s Elgin James (The Outlaws, Lowriders, Little Birds) on Mayans MC; or Chris Brancato for Hotel Cocaine, all of those showrunners are fantastic at developping a character who rides the line between on the right side of the law and a potential on criminality.
All of those characters, whether it was Scotty Valens on Cold Case where he had some anger issues and would go back and forth on being able to control that or Nick Amaro who was also going back and forth on being able to control his anger and his frustrations and what not with his job and within his family, you can say similar things about Miguel Galindo and now we have arrived at Ramon Compte who also has to ride that line. It’s just like what Yul said, there’s a building and a learning from each experience especially when the writing is so dialed in and so challenging for an actor which is the best thing that we can have to be able to have that range which we can sort of carve through a performance and to go back in forth between scenes where you say, “I really love this guy, I could absolutely see myself doing the same thing – exactly what he is doing,” and then the very next scene saying, “how could you choose to do that? I hate this person!”
DP: Right? So that’s the currency that actors love to deal in.
PP: When we see the scenes that you guys have together at The Mutiny Hotel and this is a testament to who you are as actors, but when you have the club scenes there is so much going on with the dancers, the lights, and all of these things are happening all around you – as actors, how do you not get distracted by all of the things that are taking place in the background? What is your secret?
YV: It’s hard! It really is hard and sometimes let’s say that your patience it tested – yeah it is! It’s a great question and it is very very hard, for me.
DP: I think it’s one of those things where – and it is a fantastic question because a lot of people don’t realize exactly what happens. They play the music and cue us into the song so that the background artist can get the rhythm of the song that is going to be played and then they kill the song. So the background artist can continue with the rhythm so that we can say our lines in silence so that we don’t have to record the line over and over again for clarity. And that gets a little strange because you can still hear the heels and the platforms stomping on the dancefloor so it is a little distracting in that way. What helps is to have an actor like Yul. When you have an actor like Yul and you have words by Chris Brancato and Michael Panes, where you are engaging in a scene that matters and has life and death circumstances and ramifications, that tends to crystalize everything and you start to get that much more focused.
YV: Yeah, so Danny’s right. All we really have is each other and that helps! Having him helps anchor things for me! He’s right, exactly what he said. It becomes a very interesting challenge you know because it is all of the things that the audience never sees. You know the old saying, “you don’t want to see how the sausage is made.” That’s really true!
PP: For people who live in Miami, The Mutiny is such a staple and an icon of an era that created the backbone of what Miami is as a city from the glitz and glamour, to the element of crime and other things. Danny you’re a Miamian and went to FIU and you grew up there and you know the city. What does it mean to you to portray this era that shaped what Miami is nowadays?
DP: That’s a fantastic question and as we’re both from Miami, we talk about it all the time! We talk about not only the impact of The Mutiny, but the impact of the 70s, it was such a transformative period of our city! It really changed Miami from being sort of a sleepy retirement/vacation spot to a cosmopolitan hot spot. Then it changed when The Mutiny upped the ante on that and it became a hedonistic pleasure palace! Right? People were flying in all over the world to have an adult experience at The Mutiny. I have actually stayed at The Mutiny, it’s not what it was before, it is now much more lowkey. It’s like a hotel residential sort of establishment now, but the structure is still the same, the pool is still the same, and you still feel that if the walls could talk, you’d be hearing some fantastic stories and I think that that’s what our show does. The walls talk in our story.
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PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS | Hotel Cocaine
Read the JUN ISSUE #102 of Athleisure Mag and see IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK | Hotel Cocaine in mag.
