Playboy Interview: Edward James Olmos

Last July, when Time magazine ran the cover story "Hispanic Culture Breaks Out of the Barrio," about the rise of the fastest-growing population in America, the face gracing the cover was that of Edward James Olmos. At that time, the craggy, intense face was familiar primarily to aficionados of "Miami Vice," on which he plays the darkly enigmatic Lieutenant Martin Castillo. But Time pinpointed what others in the entertainment industry had believed for years: "He is not only possibly the best Hispanic-American actor of his generation but one of the best performers working today." Olmos' 1988 portrayal of the heroic inner-city math teacher Jaime Escalante in "Stand and Deliver" served to confirm that status and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Several of Olmos' earlier performances have become cult classics. In 1982's "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez," he played a Mexican farmer in Texas; and in the role of El Pachuco, which he created for the Luis Valdez musical drama "Zoot Suit"--for the theater and then a film--his depiction of the strutting street dude won both the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award and a Tony nomination. Currently, he is shooting a film in Poland about Auschwitz survivors, "Triumph of the Spirit."

As committed as Olmos is to acting, he is perhaps even more committed to his volunteer activity for literally dozens of causes. Not only has he become America's most visible spokesman for the burgeoning Hispanic community and culture, with its myriad special needs and problems--he helped form the Mexican Earthquake Relief Fund in 1985--but his devotion to youth and education has proved his most time-consuming, gratifying pursuit. He speaks to kids in tough, troubled environments--schools, juvenile halls and Native American reservations--on the average of 150 times a year; he works with disabled and sexually abused children; he makes antidrug public-service announcements; he brings together warring Los Angeles barrio gangs. His credo is "If they call and I'm available, I'll go." He has been known, many times, to make a backbreaking one-day round-trip flight from Miami (his main current home) to Los Angeles to speak for 45 minutes to a group in behalf of a cause.

Eddie Olmos was born 42 years ago in Boyle Heights, the inner city of L.A., just a few miles from the Garfield High School of "Stand and Deliver." His maternal grandparents were Mexican revolutionaries, owners of a radical newspaper. His father, Pedro, was born in Mexico City and educated only to the sixth grade; after he immigrated to the United States at the age of 21, he went back to school and eventually graduated from high school. Olmos' mother, a Chicana (an American of Mexican descent), left school after the eighth grade but insisted that her own kids--three girls and four boys--be well educated; she herself returned to school and will graduate from junior college next year. Education, to Olmos, has been a lifetime passion, more tempting than the lure of the drug, street and gang life swirling around him through his early years.

His parents' divorce when he was eight shaped his life in several fundamental ways: He is dedicated to personal discipline (he saw that he could avoid loneliness by focusing on one project he loved); he is determinedly ambitious (people didn't bother him when he worked hard and succeeded); and, mostly, he has abiding ties and devotion to the barrio, which for him was a place of intense extended-family-like relationships with Koreans, Chinese, Mexicans, Russians and Native Americans, all together on one block.

A self-taught piano player, Olmos formed a band called Eddie and the Pacific Ocean and was lead vocalist while still a hair-down-to-the-waist teenager. Rock and roll was his passion--Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino. By the mid-Sixties, he was attending Cal State University by day and playing seven nights a week at the popular Gazzarri's night club on the Sunset Strip.

By 1967, Olmos had discovered acting. He had also met, lived with and married Kaija Keel, the daughter of actor/singer Howard Keel, and they had two sons, Mico and Bodie, now high school students in Miami. Olmos and Keel have been married for 18 years.

Like scores of struggling actors, Olmos spent years scraping together a living, doing tiny parts on "Kojak" and "Hawaii Five-O" and delivering antique furniture--the real financial ballast of his family's life for a decade. Then came the proverbial lucky break: landing the role of El Pachuco in "Zoot Suit," a play that awakened the city of Los Angeles to its Hispanic population, to its racial tensions and to the chicano community's fight for identity. Olmos poured his entire life into the part--his Medican heritage, his street savvy, his anger, his ability to do perfect splits. The show opened for a ten-day run but ran for a year and a half until it moved to Broadway, where it closed after seven weeks but earned its star a Tony nomination.

After that, Olmos landed feature parts in "Wolfen," "Blade Runner" and "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez." "Ballad," made originally for American Playhouse on public television, would have died quickly had it not been for Olmos' characteristic perseverance. When no studio chose to distribute the film, he started showing it free every Saturday morning at a Hollywood theater, waiting for word of mouth to spread. He spent two years promoting this low-budget film on the filmsociety circuit, turning down more than $500,000 worth of standard acting work in order to have it seen.

Then, in 1984, along came "Miami Vice." The part of Castillo was meant to be secondary to Crockett and Tubbs, but created by Olmos, it became the moral center of a show that, in its first few years, transformed the economy of a city, the look and style of television drama and the world of men's fashion. And it earned a ferociously determined Edward James Olmos Emmy and Golden Globe awards and substantially altered his life.

Playboy sent L.A.-based journalist Marcia Seligson to Miami to talk with Olmos about the wide spectrum of his commitments and passions. She reports: "I was expecting Olmos to open the door like Castillo--mysterious, coiled, aloof, intimidating. Instead, I found a gentle, soft-spoken man who loves to talk. There's not much chitchat in his repertoire but a lot of heartfelt conversation about his concerns and dedications. And I quickly discovered there is almost nothing about which Eddie Olmos feels neutral.

"We spent five days hanging out, me tagging along on what he assured me was a typical week, only one long day of which was spent on the set of 'Miami Vice.' In that hotbed of male bonding, Don Johnson acts the somewhat temperamental, fairly inaccessible megastar, while Eddie is just one of the folks. The crew frequently enters his trailer to swap jokes or talk about rock music. He wears no make-up, he's not patted and puffed, signs dozens of autographs and is consciously pleasant to everybody. We watched sunsets from the deck of his beautiful and spacious home while he spoke of his unflagging gratitude for his expensive new toys--which include a Porsche, a BMW and a twenty-six-foot speedboat. But, clearly, the real treasures were in his living room--dozens of awards and plaques, mostly stacked in piles on the bookshelves. I was stunned by the sheer quantity of community work the man does.

"In his jazzy red Porsche, he tooled me around his beloved Miami, a city in which he is a major celebrity--toll takers and waitresses and doormen give him that 'look' reserved for the occasional stratospheric star.

"But the most powerful time I spent was accompanying him on two of the regular journeys he makes to speak to disadvantaged kids. The first was to a high school about thirty miles southwest of Miami, to the children of migrant field workers--about two hundred of them, equal proportions of blacks, Hispanics and whites. This school has overwhelming problems with gangs, drugs and dropouts, and when they gathered in the assembly to listen to this celebrity, they struck self-conscious 'attitude' poses. But then, slowly, as he spoke, funny, not lecturing, talking about his own life, answering with candor questions about Don Johnson and money--always the students' most overt concern--they woke up and listened. They became enraptured with his soft-sell message of 'I was just like you; I had no natural gifts, no advantages, but I worked damned hard and here I am in my red Carrera signing autographs.' He entertained them as only an actor can, and I believed that he was getting through to them about the possibility of their creating a future for themselves unfettered by the past. Later in the week, when we visited a juvenile hall and he spoke to the toughest hard-core kids, I had the same feeling. Something was seeping into them from his words, from his own personal story, from his style and from his humanity. We both left those events high and hopeful. I think the kids did, too."

[Q] Playboy: Let's begin with Miami Vice. How do you feel about its ending in May?

[A] Olmos: Mixed. In some ways, I'm very excited about the future and, in other ways, very saddened that we have to get off the air. But one of the reasons I'm not terribly sad is that I have had a big problem with the stories recently. They have gotten to be so repetitive. I know people are really trying their hardest to get them out, but as soon as the executive producer, Michael Mann, took his hands off the direction, after the first year, the show changed.

[Q] Playboy: It seemed to have had one or two seasons of enormous success, when everything was fresh and innovative--the famed Miami Vice style--but then it didn't grow. Do you share that opinion?

[A] Olmos: Yes, it seemed to deteriorate; actually, it began after the first year. Nothing was really able to top the excitement of that first season. Later, it became a parody of itself. It was sad, too, because once it was great, great entertainment.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your character Lieutenant Castillo, Miami Vice's enigmatic mystery man. Who is he?

[A] Olmos: He's mysterious because you don't know very much about his life. Actually, he's a fairly normal guy who has been beaten back by life. In one early episode, it was revealed that he had lost his family and all his friends, he was betrayed by his own country, by the CIA. So what he learned about life made him very bitter.

[Q] Playboy: But viewers have never learned much else about Castillo in all the years of the show.

[A] Olmos: Yeah, the concept of the show was never to develop any of the other characters besides Crockett and Tubbs. Miami Vice is more in the vein of I Spy than in the vein of Hill Street Blues. It's a buddy piece rather than an ensemble piece. In Hill Street Blues, you learned about a lot of characters; In I Spy, you learned about the two main characters. That's what our show is, too.

[Q] Playboy: But many critics think Castillo turned out to be the most interesting character on the show. Was the character given to you fully formed or did you invent Castillo as you went along?

[A] Olmos: I don't think that the producers were expecting him to turn out this way. All anybody knew about Castillo at the start was that he was the lieutenant. Period. There was no bible on Castillo.

[Q] Playboy: Bible?

[A] Olmos: A bible is the background and history of the character you're playing. It tells you where he comes from, what his feelings are. The writers are given the bible so they will know what the character's about. Not having one for Castillo gave me the freedom to create him. The only thing Michael Mann said in the beginning was that he could see Castillo as one of those ruthless Jesuit priests. You know, Jesuits are very strict with themselves, very disciplined, and so is Castillo. I would like to think of myself and my own values that way. He embodies concepts that I think are essential to getting to the highest level of understanding of oneself--discipline, determination, perseverance and patience.

[Q] Playboy: When you got the part of Castillo, you had never done a series before. How did it happen?

[A] Olmos: On a Wednesday afternoon in 1984, Michael Mann called to offer me the part. I turned it down. I said, "I can't do it, Mike. I can't sign an exclusive contract." I had turned down a part in Hill Street Blues for the same reason. So I said, "Thank you very, very much for asking" and hung up the telephone. My wife, Kaija, said, "Look, man, the odds are that the network isn't going to pick up the show--how many shows do they do for thirteen weeks and you never hear of them again?" I said, "With my luck, the show will run for five years and I'll be boxed in; then we'll be stuck in Miami. And when something I want to do comes up--one of the movies that I've been trying hard to make for ten years--I won't be able to make it because I'm on a TV show. I can't do it." She said, "I think you better go talk to your son, because he doesn't understand why his father doesn't want to work." See, we didn't have any money.

[Q] Playboy: You were broke?

[A] Olmos: Well, we weren't starving on the streets; we just didn't have any money. We owned our own house, and the payment was two hundred and seventy-seven dollars a month. We did not live above our means. I had worked very hard to support my family, delivering furniture and doing odd jobs and working on my acting. But we still had the same old 1968 Volkswagen that had three hundred thousand miles on it, and we were very conservative in our expenditures.

[Q] Playboy: What happened next?

[A] Olmos: So I went in and talked to my eleven-year-old son for twenty minutes. I explained to him how I was patterning my life and how I had always said no to money and yes to good stories. If the story was good and the values were good, and if I could understand the passion and the commitment, then I could do it. Because I wasn't a great actor. I told him, "I'm not ever going to know the mastery of this craft; it's too intricate. I just hope I can choose material to use in a positive way." When I finished talking to my son, he said he understood. But he really didn't.

[A] Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. It was Michael Mann again. He raised the weekly price twenty-five hundred dollars. I said I really appreciated it, but it had nothing to do with money. I'd said no to money before, I would continue to say no. Fifteen minutes after that, the phone rang--he was raising the price again.

[Q] Playboy: Were you getting tempted?

[A] Olmos: Yeah, I was tempted, of course. I could see my future changing. My wife was saying, "It's probably only for a few weeks." But I said no again. Twenty minutes later--now you're talking about the fourth phone call--he raised the price again, and I said to myself, "Now he's offering me more money for eight weeks' work than my father made in a year." If the show went one full season, it would be more than my father probably made in his lifetime.

[Q] Playboy: Hollywood money.

[A] Olmos: Unbelievable! So he raised the price again, I said no again. By now, he had raised the price two and a half times from where he started. Twenty minutes later, on the fifth phone call, he said, "You got it." I said, "What?" He said, "You got a nonexclusive contract. Just give me ninety days and you're out."

[Q] Playboy: Is that what nonexclusive means? That you can leave if you want?

[A] Olmos: Yeah. I could leave to do a movie. Then I could go back when it was finished. And they couldn't write me out of the show while I was gone. They had gotten me; they had checkmated me. The amazing thing is, now, in the last season, I'm using this clause to leave the show and do a film called Triumph of the Spirit in Poland. I wouldn't have been able to be in this film if I'd had an exclusive contract.

[Q] Playboy: Do Philip Michael Thomas and Don Johnson have nonexclusive contracts?

[A] Olmos: No one in the history of television has ever had such a contract. Producers do not sign contracts like that.

[Q] Playboy: Most of the villains on Miami Vice are Latinos. Does the perpetuation of such stereotypes bother you?

[A] Olmos: Yeah, even though a stereotype is always based on some form of reality. But the show definitely has a tendency to perpetuate stereotypes and also is chauvinistic toward women. I have gotten into intense discussions with the producers about that and I've had some big blowouts with them over it. But one of the truths, especially in the Miami area, is that the soldier on the street is usually black or Hispanic. If you were to do Butte, Montana, Vice, about the guys who are dealing drugs there on the street level, you'd be showing Anglo-Saxon dealers. But we've never argued that Miami Vice shows a realistic world. It's a heightened reality.

[Q] Playboy: Are you saying that the stories are essentially inaccurate?

[A] Olmos: There is nothing to base them on, as far as accuracy is concerned. Most of Miami Vice is fiction. Most of the writers don't even come from here. They don't know anything about Miami; it's one of the problems with the program. Most of them have never been to this city. They use a formula. And that formula, to me, leaves a lot to be desired.

[Q] Playboy: And what's the formula?

[A] Olmos: X number of exciting points, deaths and car crashes per commercial.

[Q] Playboy: One of the criticisms of the show is that it has actually glamorized the drug culture--with the mansions, the pools, the gorgeous women and the yachts.

[A] Olmos: Well, it has glamorized the lifestyle of the high-profile drug dealer. But then you read in the paper that one of the largest banks in the world is financed by drug money and that the laundering of drug money is probably its number-one resource. So you start to realize that Miami Vice is not glorifying anything. We can't even get as excessive as their lifestyles really are. Not only here but anywhere else in the world. You're talking about a hundred-and-fifty-billion-dollar-a-year market. That's bigger than the defense industry!

[A] So, you tell me, how much do we really glorify it? People think that Sonny Crockett is a little flamboyant. But then again, where these guys work in this city, you could not get in undercover if you were driving a 'Fifty-nine Chevy with dented fenders. The undercover cop as portrayed in Serpico could not walk into parts of the drug world in Miami and get away with it. Now, Miami Vice frequently portrays the drug world in an exploitative way, but what you have to remember is that there's a lot of truth in that glorification.

[Q] Playboy: But what about the kid who watches Miami Vice and sees dealing drugs for several hundred bucks a day as a lot better than what his father does--driving a cab or working in a restaurant? Isn't that the message you're giving him?

[A] Olmos: Except when they have the vice squad after them and you see what happens to them. Most of those dealers end up dead in the show. Or in jail. But it's certainly true that we read every day in our newspapers that crime does pay. And it doesn't take our show to emphasize it.

[Q] Playboy: How is the show chauvinistic?

[A] Olmos: Women are just used as decor. Once in a while, we'll have a story in which a woman is shown in a positive light, but mainly, they're suffering victims. Even the two female detectives on the show are not really used enough to show the positives of having women on the force. In terms of their dress, Trudy and Gina are undercover in the vice activities, so that's understandable; but every other woman is usually dressed in a very exploitative way. It's a male-oriented show.

[Q] Playboy: And there aren't really any ongoing relationships--Crockett was married for, what, five minutes?

[A] Olmos: The concept is that the show is about the inside dealings of police work, not what happens to the guy once he finishes blowing away somebody and goes home and sits down to a cup of coffee and his kid. It's not that kind of show.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about Stand and Deliver. For the reader who hasn't seen it, tell us the story of Jaime Escalante.

[A] Olmos: How do you describe this plot line? It's the true story of a teacher who helps a group of minority kids understand the value of education and helps them take a mathematics examination twice. When you see this on paper, it just doesn't bounce; nobody wanted to buy it. That's why it took us so long to sell it. It's not what they call in Hollywood "high concept." In fact, it's the worst concept.

[Q] Playboy: Let's try again.

[A] Olmos: OK. Jaime Escalante is a very gifted and committed teacher at an inner-city school in L.A. who takes eighteen not-very-motivated kids, most of whom would never go to college, and convinces them that they should prepare themselves to take one of the most difficult tests in the world--the Advanced Placement calculus exam--to get them college credit. That's it, the not-very-exciting story. But what really happens is, these kids eventually understand the potential they have to become masters of their own destiny, to be the best they can be as human beings. That's what is so inspiring about Stand and Deliver. It's one of the most uplifting films I've ever seen.

[Q] Playboy: What has been the impact of Stand and Deliver since its release?

[A] Olmos: I think it will be worth more in the year 2050 than it is in 1989. I tell you, if I never do another thing in my life but this, I will be forever grateful to have been given the opportunity to make it. Because of Stand and Deliver, I've been asked to be the keynote speaker at a conference of four hundred or five hundred executives from the largest corporations in America who get together to look at how business can further the advancement of society. Do you know what the power of that group is?

[Q] Playboy: What do people say to you about the movie?

[A] Olmos: Oh, it's monumental. People walk up to me on the street, in planes. Never have I done anything that has gotten this response. People thank me; they talk about the value of education and how that's lacking in our political structure. So the movie has just begun to awaken the need to make education a number-one priority in politics. During the Presidential debates, George Bush, if you remember, labeled Jaime Escalante as one of his heroes, and Reagan gave him the highest award he could--the Presidential Freedom Award for Excellence in Education. But the best response is from teachers, who cry, who say, "This is why I got into the profession." There have been standing ovations at performances, not only here but in Germany and Australia.

[A] You know, the film is really about the triumph of the human spirit. It's about something we've lost--the joy of learning, the joy of making our brains develop. It evokes the same feelings as Rocky, Chariots of Fire, The Miracle Worker.

[Q] Playboy: What has happened to Garfield High School?

[A] Olmos: Because of Jaime, and because of the movie, the school's feeling of pride has made it become one of the top schools in the L.A. area. That from having been close to losing its accreditation.

[Q] Playboy: To what does taking the Advanced Placement calculus exam entitle the student?

[A] Olmos: High school and college credit. And, in terms of getting into college, you can just about call your own shot when you pass that examination. Because only two percent of the entire student population in the country attempt that exam, with fewer than three percent of that two percent passing it.

[Q] Playboy: All eighteen of Escalante's students passed the first year. That's remarkable.

[A] Olmos: He had eighty-six percent of the students pass it in 1987. Last year, the percentage dropped to sixty-seven, and he attributes the reduction to the amount of attention the film brought to the school. The press was around there all the time and it was just too overwhelming for him and the students. But he contends that it's the number of students who take the exam--who have the confidence to prepare for it and to sit in the room--that makes the difference. Not how many pass or how high they score.

[Q] Playboy: What has happened to that class of 1982, the Stand and Deliver group, since graduation?

[A] Olmos: I think all but two of the eighteen have graduated from college and are professionals or are in school and intending to graduate. One girl went to USC and got her master's degree in business in five years, when it normally takes six.

[Q] Playboy: What is it about Escalante that inspires such transformation in students?

[A] Olmos: Jaime Escalante is truly gifted, even beyond his dedication and commitment. He is gifted with the ability to make complex math very practical. I've been in his classroom. He does parabolas off the are of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's sky hook. And he uses Jerry West as a straight line. So when he uses number forty-four, everybody knows what he's talking about. Jerry West! Forty-four! Straight line! It's so unbelievably wonderful I can't tell you. He has shown that it does not take a specially gifted student to understand the concepts of calculus. He says, "If you've got the desire, I'll get you through it. But you must come to class with the desire, the ganas." He also requires the student and the parents to sign a contract, which he signs as well. It says, "When you come to class with desire, I will come to class with as much desire, if not more, to teach." So it's a commitment made by everybody involved.

[A] Jaime has a gift--the ability to touch your heart, to spin you around and entertain you. He always catches his students off balance, bringing out little toys, using props and disguises to keep their interest, and then has a mastery of the subject matter that he's trying to teach.

[Q] Playboy: So the subject doesn't have to be advanced math in order for this transformation to occur. It could be history or Shakespeare.

[A] Olmos: I think that it was essential that it did come out of mathematics. As the movie says, mathematics is the great equalizer, the universal language. You can speak to Russians in mathematics; almost every language uses the same kind of mathematical symbols. And it also happens to be the foundation for thought and theory. It actually develops the portion of the brain that calculates, that makes choices.

[Q] Playboy: Did those kids see that in the course of their study?

[A] Olmos: Oh, yeah. He told them constantly: "Where are the jobs? Where's the money? It's in computers, it's in medicine, it's in engineering, it's in electronics. And what's the language? Mathematics."

[Q] Playboy: Did you study math?

[A] Olmos: I think a lot of us were afraid to step into that arena. When they told me in the eleventh grade that I had completed my two years of algebra and my one year of geometry and I had all my math prerequisites for college, I said, "Well, that's great." And I didn't take any more math. Now I regret it. I should have taken trigonometry, math analysis and tried to go on to calculus. I think all students should be into calculus by the time they graduate from high school.

[Q] Playboy: And now you have a project to get Stand and Deliver placed in every school.

[A] Olmos: Yes. It is going to happen. We made the film first and then we went out and solicited the financial help of major corporations in America. Pepsi was the first one to join up, then Arco. They helped sponsor the film in the first place for American Playhouse. And now we have IBM and General Motors committed. My idea is to put a cassette in every private, parochial and public school. Also in every library, correctional institution, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the girl scouts and the boy scouts, children's hospitals, Indian reservations--places that can benefit from the movie. It was a God-sent project and I'm really happy that Jaime Escalante is alive and well today.

[Q] Playboy: Not too long ago, your picture appeared on the cover of Time with the headline "Hispanic Culture Breaks Out of the Barrio." Does that mean we can now label you the spokesman for America's Hispanic community?

[A] Olmos: If you wish. But I always wonder, Why do you and other people need to look at me as a Hispanic-American actor, instead of just an actor? I've never heard anyone say, "Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, that great Jewish-American actor, Dustin Hoffman." Or "Here he is, that marvelous Italian-American actor, Robert De Niro." But I do hear, "Here he is, that Hispanic-American actor, Edward James Olmos." I'll never understand that. I see myself as an actor, as a human being who happens to be a Hispanic-American. I do have mixed blood, by the way; I'm a mestizo--part Spaniard, part Native American.

But Stand and Deliver is now called a great Hispanic-American movie. It's interesting how a positive situation, such as the identification with one's culture, can be distorted so that it boxes you in.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't you perpetuating some of that by the kind of parts you play?

[A] Olmos: Well, I don't play just Hispanic-Americans. I'm about to go to Poland to do a film in which I play a Greek gypsy imprisoned at Auschwitz. But I have made a conscious choice to do certain stories that excite me. And I've turned down some that I was offered because I couldn't find myself in the stories. Like, they originally offered me the George C. Scott part in Firestarter. And Scarface, where I couldn't see any reason at all to make that movie. And they wanted me to be in Red Dawn. Most of those were non-Hispanic roles. I just chose not to do them. And the stories that I did choose to do happened to be Hispanic characters. It's interesting, though, that when Playboy interviewed De Niro, Hoffman and Don Johnson, their ethnicity wasn't an issue.

[Q] Playboy: Well, they aren't associated with their ethnicity and you are. And there are Jewish and Italian actors who are associated with their ethnicity, as well.

[A] Olmos: People have placed me in that position. Time placed me in that position. And I'm not going to deny my culture. I'm very proud of what I am.

So, who do you consider a Jewish-American actor?

[Q] Playboy: We knew you would ask that.

[A] Olmos: Well, answer it. Yeah, you can't. Who do you think is a Scottish-American actor? Or a Swedish-American actor? Or a...you see, the only ones who get it are black-American, Hispanic-American and Asian-American actors.

[Q] Playboy: Jewish-American actor: Judd Hirsch.

[A] Olmos: Wrong! No one has ever told him, "You're a great Jewish-American actor." But people put a tag on me. Why?

[Q] Playboy: Maybe it has to do with the growing awareness of the Hispanic in the U.S.

[A] Olmos: It does.

[Q] Playboy: That's good, isn't it?

[A] Olmos: Did I ever say that it was bad?

[Q] Playboy: Let's take you out of this argument for a minute. Time will probably not do a story called "The Jew in America." People would yawn--they'd say, "We've been reading about the Jew in America for decades already." But they haven't been reading about the Hispanic culture. Isn't that part of it?

[A] Olmos: I know. Guilt. A tremendous amount of guilt. And I'll bet you anything the next thing to be covered will be: "Who's the hot Asian actor around now?" If we had an Eddie Olmos who was Japanes, you might be sitting in his trailer.

[Q] Playboy: One of the emotionally charged issues in urban America these days is bilingual education. What are your thoughts about that?

[A] Olmos: I believe in bilingual education, totally. In areas with a large Latino population, they should do what they've been doing here in Miami for twenty years: offer all students Spanish and English.

[Q] Playboy: What was it like when you were a student in L.A.?

[A] Olmos: When I got to Belvedere Elementary, there was a sign on the wall that said, If it isn't worth saying in English, it isn't worth saying at all. It was done for the kids' betterment--everyone thought at the time. It was commonplace, going to school and being told that you must speak English. It was very good. Everyone should speak English, and everyone should learn to speak Spanish, and everyone should learn to speak computer. Those are the three languages that must be spoken in the Western Hemisphere.

[Q] Playboy: Why Spanish?

[A] Olmos: Because more people speak Spanish than any other language in the Western Hemisphere. And it should be spoken as they speak English in other parts of the world. In Latin America, schools start teaching English in the first grade. And you have to take English for eight years. It's just part of life.

[Q] Playboy: Do your children speak Spanish?

[A] Olmos: Yes, they do. They don't speak it fluently, but they are speaking better and better, with the help of the school system here. Miami is an extraordinary place. It is about twenty years ahead of the rest of the country in dealing with some of the problems that other areas are soon going to be hit with. Politically, Hispanics are much more involved and organized here. And they are economically at a higher level. Most of those who came here in the Fifties, from Batista's Cuba, were professionals. They were doctors, lawyers and people who set up their own businesses. And everything became bilingual.

[Q] Playboy: A Hispanic politician has said: "We are the fastest-growing group but the least educated." Do you agree or disagree?

[A] Olmos: I'm not sure of observations like that and I'm not an expert on that situation. I do know that most of the people who immigrate to this country from Latin America are either striving for economic relief from their existence in poverty-stricken areas or exiled from some kind of a revolutionary war in their country. And they're less educated than the' Hispanic who is native-born and raised in this country. It's a devastating problem. It's something that we have to look at and really start to try to understand how to deal with in every city with a Hispanic community.

[Q] Playboy: There's a rich mixture of Hispanic cultures in America--Mexican, Central and South American, Puerto Rican, Cuban--yet they're all lumped together under the umbrella called Hispanic. Is that a problem?

[A] Olmos: Yeah. I really think so. They're about as different as, say, the Swedes and the Germans. They are Latino, they all speak Spanish, but they're very different. Lumping them all together under one banner has a positive effect and a negative effect. The positive effect is that they become a more viable commodity to deal with; you have to reckon with the strenght of that group of individuals. But there's a problem with respect to their cultural backgrounds, which are very different.

[Q] Playboy: In what ways?

[A] Olmos: Customs, foods, clothing, their indigenous roots. The basic foods--rice and beans--are the same. But the meals are completely different. The values are different. And the manner in which they deal with certain characteristics, such as machismo, is different.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about that.

[A] Olmos:Machismo is found in all male animals; it's not indigenous to the Hispanic. But you see it a lot in the depictions of the stereotype of the Hispanic male. I don't know the different cultures well enough to decipher every single one of them. I know only my own, the Mexican. I was speaking to the Cuban-American National Council here. I said I believe that the future of the Western Hemisphere lies in the hands of the Hispanic woman. And there was silence. And I said I felt that it was very difficult because of machismo and ego and-- have a great word--envidia. That means jealousy. Because of jealousy, the Hispanic male can't fully collaborate with other Hispanic males. So really, the only person who's going to unite us as a people and as a force is the woman. Because of her rearing of children and her love of mankind through the child, she can look past cultural differences, past money, and see the common bond of humankind.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think that much of that understanding has infiltrated the Latino Culture in America?

[A] Olmos: The male culture, period. You've got to stop thinking about the differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic males when you get to those questions.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Olmos: Because there's nothing more volatile than that kind of question. The Japanese, the Asian, the Native American, the Anglo-Saxon, the black, the Hispanic--they all have their own sense of machismo and their own sense of dignity and pride, being able to walk among men.

[Q] Playboy: What about the Hispanic's assimilating into mainstream American culture? Does that concern you?

[A] Olmos: I don't think that any culture really assimilates. It's like the theory of making a gumbo soup or making a rich salad. I believe in the salad theory.

[Q] Playboy: What is the distinction?

[A] Olmos: The difference is that in the soup, or melting-pot, concept, all the ingredients dissolve and become more than they were, blending into a fine soup. I've never seen that happen in the U.S. What I see is the salad concept: The lettuce stays the lettuce, the tomato stays the tomato, the onion stays the onion, and you put on top of it a Russian or French or Italian dressing. And it's a really great salad rather than a melting pot. I don't need to assimilate to anybody's culture to understand it. Nor do I have to lose my identity, ever. I don't think the Greeks or the Germans or the Irish have ever lost their identity in America. Yeah, they're all wholehearted Americans, but I don't see them losing their identity.

[Q] Playboy: That's a good analogy, except for the fact that in the salad, all ingredients are still in one bowl. But here--

[A] Olmos: You're going to say that the lettuce is not allowed to play in the salad bowl? Well, that's a problem of mankind since the existence of two tribes. Tribe number one says that tribe number two can play only up to a certain point but has to stay on the other side.

[Q] Playboy: Right. Doesn't that bother you?

[A] Olmos: Racial prejudices bother me. Prejudgments bother me. But the fact that we're all different doesn't bother me. I like being a Mexican-American. I like knowing Korean-Americans. I enjoy having friends who are Hungarian-Americans. And I love Native Americans. I think they all have something to offer. And they all deserve to be heard and allowed to understand their identity. Los Angeles, for example, is a place where every single culture that's found in the world exists. It's one of the few places that can probably say that. It's wonderful.

[Q] Playboy: But our point is that they're not living together.

[A] Olmos: And it's OK that they don't live together. I just don't want the atheist to look at the Jew or the Jew to look at the Christian and get violent over the fact that the other one doesn't believe the way he does.

[Q] Playboy: But isn't that very separation one of the facets of racism? If you took a poll of most Anglo-Saxons in America about what their picture was of the Hispanic culture, we think they might answer--if they were candid--maids, gardeners, handy men, construction workers. And that they related to them that way. It's in part because of this separation that you're applauding.

[A] Olmos: You're saying that because of the separation, prejudgments are set. I think maybe there are people who would say that, but I think that there are many Anglo-Saxon people who would say, "I deal with them on an equal level constantly. They are my equals in the work force." Because there are just too many Hispanics now. There are too many Gonzalezes and Fernandezes who are doctors and lawyers.

[A] But, again, back to the fundamentals: If you want to prejudge, you can. It's your right. If you want to stereotype, you can. But you'll be hit between the eyes when one of your loved ones ends up marrying a Hispanic. I would like everyone to be exposed to images of blacks, reds, browns, yellows and whites in a positive way. Because what we present to the world is really stupid. Can you imagine what the rest of the world thinks of us as we send out Rambo? I've talked to people all over about that.

[Q] Playboy: What do they think?

[A] Olmos: They laugh at us because, basically, we have a Rambo mentality. Our former President said something like, "I saw Rambo last night and the next time there's a confrontation somewhere in that part of the world, I'll know what to do." And he really thinks that Rambo is a good image to have out there in the world. It makes people afraid of us. I believe that Ordinary People, On Golden Pond and Stand and Deliver are better representations of the American image than the Rambo image is.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about immigration. Eighty-five percent of the illegal immigration is Hispanic. Central Americans come across the border with a dream; then they get here and life is almost as difficult as before.

[A] Olmos: They don't even need a dream. They just need to know that there's a possibility that they won't get shot and killed here. That's a better possibility than staying where they are and dying. People cry, "Why don't they just stay home?" Well, because right now, the political turmoil in Latin America is over whelming. A lot of people say it's not our problem. It is.

[Q] Playboy: How so?

[A] Olmos: Basically, because of what we've forged in those countries with those governments. In two hundred years of dealing with Central America, we have helped them get into the mess they're in. They couldn't have done it all by themselves. We turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the injustices and went for the economic rewards of the situation. And we kept on saying, "We had nothing to do with it. They're a free country. They can do whatever they want." But we continued to deal with them. So if we're not supposed to take on the responsibility, who is?

[Q] Playboy: But does the responsibility include open immigration?

[A] Olmos: No. Because there is too much strife. It means that we must now start exporting; instead of guns and ammunition, we must start exporting a tremendous amount of good will and sensitivity toward the common man in whatever country we're dealing with.

[Q] Playboy: That sounds lovely but....

[A] Olmos: Idealistic?

[Q] Playboy: Politically naïve.

[A] Olmos: Yeah, it has to start from having the right values and ideals. Our country will eventually work with the people of Latin America in a positive way to reconstruct human dignity and self-esteem throughout the Western Hemisphere. We have no option. And it may take less time than we think, because the immigration situation is just too overwhelming. People all over this country are going to start saying, "What are we going to do about this? Somebody has to come up with a solution."

[Q] Playboy: It looks as though the Hispanic community will be facing a critical time in the next twenty years or so.

[A] Olmos: I think the non-Hispanic culture will be facing a critical time, unless it understands, first of all, that the Latin American is in the majority in the Americas, not the minority. And that within thirty years, there will be a doubling of the population of Latin people in this country alone. That's why I think it's essential that the arts open up to the Hispanic culture. Stand and Deliver was a surprise to a lot of people, whereas to us, it was simply a confirmation of our own beliefs.

[A] I see the arts and the humanities as the only two things that really bind us together: First, there is the humanity; all of us are human. We all bleed the same way; we are all from the same origin. Second, there is the art, whatever discipline. I can see a painting created by a black Jewish woman born and raised in Russia and understand it and either enjoy it or not enjoy it. But it can still unite me with a sixty-eight-year-old Mississippi man of a different religion and culture who saw the same painting. We would have nothing in common other than that moment we saw the same piece of art. That is a wonderful thing about art; it breaks down the barriers and unites us.

[A] Religion tries to do that. But I've never known the Baptist to call the Mormon to make sure the Jehovah's Witness is not late for the bar mitzvah. It's more like, "We don't know if you can make it to heaven without being Catholic or being on the list of souls for the Mormon Temple."

[Q] Playboy: Has there been increased exposure to the Hispanic culture in the arts? Stand and Deliver seems like a rare bird.

[A] Olmos: Before Stand and Deliver, there was La Bamba. Before La Bamba, there were things like Zoot Suit, El Norte and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. None were huge commercial successes. Slowly but surely, I think the economic interest has opened up and, like anything else, it'll be a slow process. And pretty soon, a Hispanic-themed film will be as normal as an Italian- or Jewish-themed film.

[Q] Playboy: How critical is the drug crisis to the Hispanic culture?

[A] Olmos: Oh, I think it's tearing apart the fiber of our entire society. There are no two ways around it. The value system of America says that greed is good and that success is in the dollar. And the selling and distribution of narcotics brings about the highest financial rewards--it's the largest industry in our country, because our values are in the wrong place. People say that as long as there's a need, there's going to be a supplier. And I say, yeah, but we must understand the real root--that if we could change the value system so that dollars weren't the highest form of showing your success, we would be on the road to solving the drug problem.

[Q] Playboy: When you were a child growing up in East Los Angeles, were you ever into drugs or gangs?

[A] Olmos: I was in between, because I had a brother who was into gangs. It wasn't that he was into a single gang, it's just that he hung around with a group of guys who were considered a gang. And I saw the problems that he got into. He ended up having the choice of either going to jail or going into the Marine Corps. And he chose the other gang--the Marine Corps gang. And that gang straightened him out, but still, it was a gang.

[Q] Playboy: Those were his only two choices?

[A] Olmos: Well, he saw it that way.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about the project in which you brought rival gangs together in L.A.

[A] Olmos: It was the first breaking of bread, so to speak, the first peace treaty among fifty-seven gangs, together in one room for the first time. Several people who have worked for years in the gang-prevention task force finally got these kids to meet, to declare a truce from Thanksgiving to Christmas. And I went and spoke to them.

[Q] Playboy: Had they all been fighting one another?

[A] Olmos: Oh, yeah. There had been blood spilled. These guys will fight against anybody who goes into their territory to either mark their walls or trespass on their domain. It's all about drugs, you know. Most of the gangs find their strength through being the street dealers. They control the streets and they will kill anybody who tries to move into their territory. The bigger the gang gets, the more streets they can cover.

[Q] Playboy: And are the wars usually black against Spanish, or--

[A] Olmos: No, no. It has nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with business. It's that simple, and it's brutal and ruthless and it's done by kids who don't yet know the value of life.

[Q] Playboy: How old are the gang members?

[A] Olmos: They can start as young as kids in grammar school and go all the way up to eighteen or so. The gangs have their names, their identities, their laws and their structures. And their warfare is dominated by the dollar--the only color is green.

[Q] Playboy: How many gang members do you estimate there are in Los Angeles?

[A] Olmos: There are sixty thousand in the county who are registered with the police--those are only the registered ones.

[Q] Playboy: So fifty-seven of these gangs were represented at the meeting. Describe the scene to us.

[A] Olmos: It was wonderful but difficult, because we knew very well what it took for them to be sitting in that room. I told them it was a day that I had been waiting for for forty years--the day that I could see these rival gangs that I had known about my entire life sitting together in the same room without any kind of confrontation. There were hundreds of people in the room, and they left their weapons outside. We all held hands and ate together. It was monumental, so moving. A lot of people were crying.

[Q] Playboy: What was the outcome?

[A] Olmos: They created a truce for six weeks, and then things went right back to normal. They have too many years of hatred and vengeance. The gangs are their survival. This will not change overnight.

[Q] Playboy: Our understanding is that it wouldn't have occurred if you hadn't been there, because you're a hero to those kids. And you first thought you weren't going to be able to make it.

[A] Olmos: Yes. I had to fly in from Miami, where we were shooting the show that day. I told them at the show that I absolutely had to do this, no matter what. So I flew that morning from Miami to L.A., got there at eleven-thirty and had to be gone by twelve-thirty to make the plane back, to shoot that night.

[Q] Playboy: You're deeply committed to talking to kids, particularly kids in trouble. How did you start?

[A] Olmos: About fifteen years ago, Roosevelt High School in L.A. invited me to talk to an assembly. This was before Miami Vice, and nobody knew who I was. All I did was share what my occupation was, how I'd got to where I was, and allow them to question me. They invited me back to speak to another group and I did that. Another school heard about it and asked me to do the same. Then a couple of libraries and juvenile halls started passing me around. Now I do about a hundred and fifty talks a year, wherever I am, about two or three a week. The pattern is, whenever I go to a city for whatever purpose, I visit two schools and one juvenile hall.

[Q] Playboy: Some of the kids you talk to are extremely tough. How much can you influence them in an hour or two?

[A] Olmos: I can't influence. I can only share my experiences in the hope that they will be able to understand something from my life that they can carry with them. And that's all one can hope for.

[Q] Playboy: What's a typical speech like?

[A] Olmos: I start out by saying, "I came by to say hello and to allow you to ask me any type of questions that you may have about the show, or about my life, or how I got where I got to, or what color my underwear is." Then they ask me questions that always start out with money and cars and Don Johnson. Always. And then, slowly, we get into important stuff.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about visiting juvenile halls.

[A] Olmos: Any city I go to, the first places I hit are the juvenile halls, the holding facilities where they keep young people while they're getting their trials set or they're waiting to be dispersed to prison. I used to go to prisons, but I would rather spend my time at the holding facilities before they get to the hard-core lock-down prisons. I've been in holding facilities with eleven-year-old kids who have killed. And they know nothing's going to happen to them. At the age of seventeen, they'll be out, and in the meantime, they get three meals a day and a warm place. I usually talk with them about how to use dead time. I tell them there are two kinds of dead time that they're going to experience. There's the dead time when you are in jail--where you can't leave and that's the way it is--and then there's the dead time that happens when you don't use even the jail time creatively. Because you always have the ability to learn and move yourself forward. I tell them that if they use their time correctly, they'll come out of there like a shot from a pistol, with such energy and direction that they'll know exactly what they need to do with their life.

[Q] Playboy: Do they hear what you're saying?

[A] Olmos: It depends. They usually don't realize the choices they have. Mostly, they've gotten peer pressure not to study books but to deal drugs and steal, and they don't see that they have chosen that. Usually, they won't have any hope until they get out of there, and then they can maybe start their lives over again. And that's wrong. There's hope inside prison. You can use that time.

[A] I remember one kid in a juvenile hall in Laredo, Texas, who had just gotten arrested for murder. He broke down and cried. He was supposed to be leaving that day for Miami on vacation with his parents. He said to me, "I shot a kid last night in a drug deal that went wrong and I think he's dead." And he got real tough, but you could see that he wanted to relate to somebody. He wanted to get it off his chest. That's a human saving device. He had to talk it through. And everyone in the room, all the other kids, didn't say anything. And I didn't either. What do you say to the kid? "Oh, it'll be all right. Things'll be great"?

[Q] Playboy: What do you say?

[A] Olmos: You can't say anything. He's got to deal with the truth of his situation. I just started talking about dead time. I said, "You're going to have some time in here. You have to think about what you've done, how you could have changed those choices, done something different."

[Q] Playboy: Is it heartbreaking to work with these troubled kids?

[A] Olmos: No, it isn't; I can't let it be, because if I stopped to think about the down side, you know, I probably couldn't work with them. It would be overwhelming and debilitating. It wouldn't give me any energy; it would just knock me for a wallop.

[Q] Playboy: So what do you focus on?

[A] Olmos: I think you have to focus on what's going to happen that day and not take it any further. I don't get into delivering messages, but there are some points that I constantly hit--that discipline, determination, perseverance and patience are the key ingredients that we need to be successful in life, that we all have the same thing when we start out--nothing. So that makes us all equal. And none of us were born very gifted and talented, we're all just learning, we're all in the same boat. There are very few Mozarts born in the world. I say, "I did not come out of my mother's womb reciting 'To be or not to be'"--which I say in a heavy Spanish accent. I try to make them laugh a lot; that's Jaime Escalante's technique for reaching kids. It grabs and holds their attention. They don't know where I'm coming from. There's an instantaneous rapport with people when I start talking about what drives me to do what I do.

[A] I also say to the kids, "Listen, you should never in your wildest dreams be sitting here and listening to me, because I'm your worst nightmare. With me, all your excuses go out the window. You can't use any of them to excuse why you can't cope or achieve your full potential. You're looking at a guy with an upbringing no different from any one of yours. I'm just the average guy who learned to hit the home run. I went from not knowing nada, zippo, nothin' about acting to winning Emmys and Golden Globes." Then they get to sit there and think about that. And they begin to sit up straight and it gets real quiet. Money, cars, fame, fortune--that'll always get their attention, because that's what they all dream of. If they ask me about my money, then they're going to get the full brunt of it. They're going to find out that, yeah, I have money, but I made it through values of integrity that are very strongly committed. You know, they usually ask me how much money I make.

[Q] Playboy: And do you tell them?

[A] Olmos: Yes. Why shouldn't I? Should I be tactful? You know how many people's attention you would hold in that room if you were tactful? You would lose their interest in two minutes. So the more honesty you bring, the more possibility there is for some kind of interaction and connection.

[Q] Playboy: How much money do you make?

[A] Olmos: I get thirty thousand dollars an episode. I made probably a little more than a million dollars a year on Miami Vice.

[Q] Playboy: You also tell the kids a great story about your cars. (concluded on page 96) Olmos (continued from page 72)

[A] Olmos: Well, the message is not very subtle. I tell them that last year, I bought my wife a 1986 BMW Seven-forty-five, the European model that would cost you around fifty-two thousand dollars. It has an incredible stereo system--nine hundred watts. It's got the CD player, the telephone. It's got BBS wheels with Pirelli tires. I bought it for twenty-two thousand dollars at a police drug auction. They found two hundred thousand dollars' worth of cocaine in the car. The guy whose car it was got thirty years; I got his car. Then I tell them how I went to another drug auction and they had this gorgeous brand-new 1987 red Porsche Nine-thirty turbo with less than two thousand miles on it. With the stereo, phone, everything else on it, it's an eighty-four-thousand-dollar car. I picked it up for fifty thousand dollars. The previous owner got twenty years. That's about as right to the point, as nitty-gritty as you can possibly get. I say, "You have a choice: You can be either the current owner of the car--that's me--or the dope dealer who owned the car, who's in jail. Which one of us is the winner? You want to be the owner of the car? Just discipline yourself to do something that you enjoy that isn't fattening and isn't harmful to your health or anybody else's." So they may say, "OK, man, I want to sit around and listen to music all day long. That isn't fattening; that isn't harmful to your health." "Great," I say, "you can be a musicologist and understand music to the ultimate, or you can be a disc jockey. And if you did it seven days a week, you could be an expert in music. And if you really got ambitious, you might be able to listen to music of different eras, say the Fifties and the Sixties. Or maybe you'll go back to the music of the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century." And all of a sudden, their trip of just sitting back and cruising through life turns into something else. And I tell them, "You may get wealthy off it, you may not. That's not the issue. The issue is that you'll get to the end of your life feeling satisfied with yourself. And that's the main thing."

[Q] Playboy: Do you have a high self-esteem?

[A] Olmos: Yeah, I do. I think that's the only thing that we're put here to feel. But I think we're much harder on ourselves than we are on anybody else.

[Q] Playboy: You've said that you believe your causes and community activities feed your acting. How?

[A] Olmos: They are an extraordinary source of energy that I would not have otherwise. After an hour of speaking with those kids, I walk away with a buzzing feeling inside. Because you're one person giving to more than three hundred people who are giving back to you. I learned that the first time I ever gave a talk. After I finished that day, I had to perform that night in a play. It was one of the best performances I had ever given. And if I do two or three schools in one day, I go home and I'm careening off the walls and just feel great about what I've done with my life that day. I'm in love with life; yeah, it's very rewarding. These are the most fulfilling moments that I've spent on this earth. That and just staying with my family are the two things that give me the most joy.

[Q] Playboy: More than your work?

[A] Olmos: Yeah. There's no comparison.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your education project.

[A] Olmos: David Rockefeller, Jr., wanted me to help them recruit teachers into the educational system and I said it would be my honor, but the only way I would do that would be by making sure that they helped me change society's attitudes toward teachers and the value of teaching. You know, in the Twenties and Thirties, we had reverence for the teacher. We valued education and made sure that our children used their brains instead of their backs so that we could further advance ourselves economically. I don't know when we decided that it was more important to be an engineer or a chemist or a businessman. Why aren't people going into the profession? If you asked a teacher if he would suggest that his own children become educators, he'd say no. And if you asked parents the same thing, they would say, "Are you kidding? No, I want him or her to be successful." The day must come when education and the teacher are valued at the highest level by our society. If our values were on straight, our Government would give the most money to protect the future of this country--to education, not to armaments. People say, "Oh, that's too idealistic, Eddie. Idealism just doesn't work in the everyday world." Well, I beg to differ.

[Q] Playboy: What are your suggestions?

[A] Olmos: We must concentrate on the values that we give our children. If the majority of the people in this country are saying, "Don't be a teacher, it doesn't pay enough; better to be in business," or if we're paying eighteen thousand dollars to twenty-five thousand dollars a year to teachers, or if we don't invest our money and time and energy for the advancement of the human mind, then you can just about write off this country in fifty years. And fifty years is going to come and go real quick.

[Q] Playboy: So the corruption of our value system is at the heart of the matter.

[A] Olmos: It has to be. I mean, what's the answer to the problem of drugs, of teen pregnancy, of AIDS, to any of the major situations happening in our country? It's all about education and making that our highest priority. We must stop thinking that our future lies in being militarily strong and start thinking that it lies in being educated strong. Everybody knows about it, but nobody wants to look at it. Everybody wants to go fishing.

[Q] Playboy: How do you shift people's values?

[A] Olmos: You being through the media. For example, I proposed to David Rockefeller that we mount a two-year campaign in thirty-second and sixty-second radio and TV spots directed to all the educators of this country--just thanking them. We would inundate the American public with commercials and actually get all the networks to give time, to acknowledge the thousands of people who spend their entire life committed to the advancement of thought and theory. To do nothing more than praise them for twenty-four months, nonstop. To have an Educator Month, culminating with a tremendous commitment by all Americans to say thank you to them.

[Q] Playboy: Will the foundation do that?

[A] Olmos: They're going to have to do it if he wants me to get involved.

[Q] Playboy: Do you consider yourself idealistic or pragmatic? Or in between?

[A] Olmos: I've been called an idealistic optimist who's romantic and pragmatic.

[Q] Playboy: That about covers all the bases. Do you ever wonder whether or not your community service is making a difference?

[A] Olmos: I get frustrated, but worrying about whether or not I'm making a difference is useless; it's really self-defeating. You don't even think about that. Nobody knows what makes an impact; all you can do is expose people to something. I do a film the same way--I don't know if anybody's going to go see it, but I'll make it because I like the story. I talk to these kids because I really enjoy it; there's a satisfaction in knowing that I gave something to somebody that day. And then ten years later, I'll be walking through an airport and a guy comes up to me and thanks me for talking to him in school years ago and says I touched his life and it really made a difference with him. And he shakes my hand and walks away. And that's enough. That's the payback for me.

"Jesuits are very strict with themselves, very disciplined, and so is Castillo. I would like to think of myself that way."

"If you asked a teacher if he would suggest that his own children become educators, he'd say no."