Page 1 / 2 - Home

AE: Even with Showtime’s television movie, Fidel?
GD: Okay, I was in Mexico for three months shooting the life story of Fidel Castro, for Showtime. Mexico is beautiful, but after the first month, everyone on the crew and cast got sick, just getting used to the food. After the first month, I wanted to go home, watch MTV and eat McDonald’s.

AE: You’re probably best known for playing the leading drag queen, La Miranda, in Stonewall.
GD: I’d never done drag before. When I got cast in the film, they didn’t even ask to see how I looked in drag. They didn’t do any camera tests, or anything. So literally, the first time I was in drag for the movie was when I was on set. It was kind of scary. Nobody really knew what I was going to look like, but thank god it turned out okay.

I actually broke my hand right before we started shooting, so I did the film with a broken hand. I found a doctor who would give me a removable cast. That way I could take the cast off to shoot my scenes, then put it back on, then take it off again. It was a grueling shoot, to say the least, with singing and dancing, having to shave my body down, and even tweeze my eyebrows. All that stuff.

AE: What about The Terminal?
GD: I play Bobby Alima, who works in an airport, and Tom Hanks plays a character who’s stuck there. He starts befriending all these airport workers, and I’m one of the people who he befriends.

AE: Is Tom Hanks as great to work with as everybody says?
GD: Tom is a great guy, and a great worker, but working with Stephen Spielberg was surreal! Steven Spielberg is just so focused. He knows exactly what he wants and how he wants it to look. He’s flawless. It went so smoothly. He knew exactly where he wanted me to stand. He sees his movies like a painting, its all about composition, where everybody’s standing, it was amazing.

AE: What about my personal favorite, One More Time?
GD: We first did it as a short film. My friend Lane Janger wrote and directed it. Then we took it to Sundance Film Festival. Someone saw it and liked it, so they gave us some money to make it into a feature. Lane hadn’t even thought of making a feature script out of it. But when he got this interest from these people, he started writing this great script.

AE: What’s your training?
GD: I have no training. I went to business school, but I took all the classes on acting my school offered, about 4 classes. I also did all the shows at school. But, that was it. In my second year of college, I got an agent, and I dropped out school, because I got my first film, Fresh. I got lucky, and kept working ever since. Working on a film set and doing all those indie films is training in its self. I don’t think there is any better training than that.

AE: Do you still live in New York?
GD: I live in LA but I’m bi-coastal. I still have a place here. I moved to LA to do The Terminal and ended up staying out there, because I kept getting cast in other films and TV stuff. I’m really good friends with Mila Kunis (That 70s show). Now, she lives really close to me. I saw her right before I flew out here.

AE: But are you seeing anybody special?
GD: No. I’m single right now. Single, single, single. But I like to mingle!!!

AE: What do you attribute your success to?
GD: My drive, and my love for acting. I love to act. When I first started acting, I did anything. I did tons of extra work. I was an extra in Green Card, a film staring Andie MacDowell. I did a bunch of stage work for no money. Acting brought me to where I am now. I didn’t care about anything else in the industry.

AE: No ambitions to direct?
GD: Right now, I’m just happy being in front of the camera and doing good films. I’ll stay there, for now.

Guillermo Diaz Official Site