TO GET THE obvious question out of the way first, Marc Anthony is not playing salsa king Hector Lavoe in "El Cantante" because his wife wanted to give him a job.
As a recording star and film star ("Man on Fire," "Bringing Out the Dead"), Anthony has plenty of work.
No, producer and co-star Jennifer Lopez offered Anthony the role nearly six years ago — long before they were a couple. It's been a long road to bring Lavoe's thrilling music and troubled life to the screen.
The fast-talking Anthony spoke to the Daily News by phone last week about "El Cantante," Lavoe and Lopez.
Q: You and Jennifer are both such big stars but yet the film has been such an independent project...
A:
It is an independent film —a friend of ours actually ended up financing the film for us.
Q: Why did it take so long to get the movie made?
A:
This was pre-"Babel" and pre- "Pan's Labyrinth."
Last year was a milestone for Latino filmmakers and this was pre-that. It would probably be easier to greenlight a Latino-based film or a film by a Latin filmmaker now.
But why it took so long is because we just had to get it right. It wasn't a money issue....It happened when it had to happen.
You could ask Tony Scott the same thing: Why did it take him 20 years to make "Man on Fire"? That's the way of the beast.
Q: Did working together so much on this project strengthen your relationship with Jennifer?
A:
It definitely strengthened our bond. There's no way that experiencing what we experienced wouldn't.
There's a certain shorthand that comes with being married. You know when your wife is upset, you know when she's happy, you know when she needs something — and that really served us well as far as the filmmaking process was concerned. Another thing I was privy to was her thoughts and her concerns about certain scenes we were going to film that day...on the drive in to work.
Not every actor has that. Usually you meet on the set, you block it, you go over the lines. But this was a 24-hour operation in our household.
It also strengthened our bond because playing two dysfunctional characters like this, who are way over the top, and so destructive, we felt really normal on our way home.
Q: What was your goal in portraying Hector?
A:
His music speaks for itself. His music is up there with Elvis, or with Johnny Cash or Ray Charles or Bob Dylan, and what I mean by that is that it was culturally significant, it transcended generations and those are the prerequisites for someone to be considered an icon. Coupled with the fact that his life was tragic made for an interesting story.
What I concentrated on almost innately is that I know what it was like to be a well-known salsero who's traveled the world and is criticized in the public eye and become a collection of headlines, whether fair or not. That was, I think, what Hector's legend had become. 'Oh, Hector, the guy who jumped off of the roof?' 'The guy who was a drug addict?' All that was already out there so I concentrated on the human aspect...What got him there? What was he struggling with? And I felt very protective of him.
Q: When Lavoe was big, you were just a boy. What was your relationship to his music?
A:
I was raised with Motown, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight & the Pips — I was born and raised in New York, in East Harlem. But my brothers, who were considerably older than me, would buy Hector's records and coming out of their rooms was Hector Lavoe and Willie Colon.
I didn't realize until I did the research the impact his music had on me, even subliminally. It had seeped into my psyche. I would hear these songs and go 'Oh, my God! I remember that song!' I had a story for each and every one of them. This was the soundtrack of my life without me even realizing it. *
Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez will be touring this fall and Anthony will be performing songs from "El Cantante" with his hits.