(In Part 1 of this series, Edward James Olmos talked about how growing up in a diverse neighborhood affected the rest of his life. In Part 2, he talks about the value of discipline.)
Edward James Olmos learned the value of discipline early in his life.
While Olmos blossomed into a talented baseball player, the skills of that sport didn’t come naturally. He says he could barely catch a ball he threw against a wall, but with much-determined practice, it became second nature. Fast forward a few years, and he’s the Golden State Batting Champion.
“Discipline is the key,” he says.
Olmos says participating in an activity that brings passion will increase performance, especially practicing on the hard days when you don’t feel like doing it.
“It’s a very simple, simple understanding, but it’s hard to do. It’s easy to say, but it’s hard to do,” he says.
Consequently, baseball taught him discipline, determination, perseverance and patience. These attributes filtered into many aspects of his life.
“It made me able to do whatever it is that I wanted to do and become the best that I could be in doing that because I had the discipline to do it every day, seven days a week. That’s really the key,” he says.
Even though Olmos’ baseball talent was prodigious, the siren song of music, especially mid-1950s rock and roll, wooed him.
It made me able to do whatever it is that I wanted to do and become the best that I could be in doing that because I had the discipline to do it every day, seven days a week.
By 1961, he had joined a band that took the name “Pacific Ocean” at his suggestion. While he may not have been the best singer, no one would be the wiser if you could scream the lyrics.
Olmos started taking collegiate acting classes a few years later. He thought they would help improve his singing. However, he discovered projecting a spoken word was easier than a sung one.
“It helped me,” he says. “The theater helped my music [and] my music helped my theater.”
Growing up around so many diverse cultures in his neighborhood helped Olmos decipher his various roles on stage, television and the big screen.
“Melodies trigger off other forms of understanding that you’ve had,” he says. “For me, it’s all interrelated. There’s no way I would have become who I am had I been isolated in some kind of a situation where I hadn’t been exposed to the kind of things that I was exposed to. I wouldn’t be who I am at all.”
OLMOS AND HIS BIG BREAK
In 1978, Olmos got his big on-stage break by starring in “Zoot Suit,” nabbing the role of El Pachuco in the musical drama that chronicled the then-well-known 1942 “Sleepy Lagoon” case that caused the wrongful murder convictions of a group of Hispanic kids.
The play had an expected run of 10 days but instead ran a full year before moving on to Broadway. During its run in Los Angeles and New York City, Olmos earned a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, a Theatre World Award and a Tony Award nomination.
“That’s luck,” he says. “When you prepare yourself for the opportunity, the opportunity opens itself, and you’re prepared for that opportunity, and you do it, and man, you just succeed.”
“Zoot Suit” — both in Los Angeles and New York — led to Olmos nabbing guest-starring roles on television, like “Starsky and Hutch” and “Hawaii Five-Oh,” and movies like 1982’s “Blade Runner.” Two years later, Olmos joined the cast of “Miami Vice.” During that run, he won Emmy and Golden Globe awards.
Further accolades followed with his starring role in 1988’s “Stand and Deliver,” where he earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for best actor.
CULTURAL AWARENESS DEFICIENCY
Olmos is still surprised that he is the only U.S.-born Mexican American to earn an Oscar nomination. No one else has done so before or since.
“Excuse me? I’m the only one? That’s very, very, very beautiful but weird. Very strange,” he says. “I’m 77. I did that back in 1988, and I got that accolade then, and there’s been nothing. I haven’t inspired anybody, or nobody else has been able to do it.”
Olmos attributes the lack of nominations to a cultural-awareness deficiency.
Previously, “they haven’t been given the opportunity. Period,” he says.” Now, the Oscars allow the culture “to explore and become themselves, just like they do the African American experience, and most recently, the Asian experience. It’s been fantastic.”
Even Indigenous actors have recently garnered significant awards, he adds.
“When I go anywhere, I tell them, ‘I can’t believe it, guys. Come on. Write our stories; produce our stories,” he says. “That’s what I did. I had to learn how to act. I learned how to sing. I learned how to dance. I learned how to produce. I learned how to direct. I had to do all of that, or else I wouldn’t be able to do the movies I needed to make and the stories that I needed to do.”
Check out Part 3 tomorrow where Olmos talks about telling your authentic story.
