The Hollywood Reporter - 06.11.2019

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 35 NOVEMBER 6, 2019

JEFF LORCH/GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE

‘I Like to Consider Myself the Godfather’

A

bout 80 miles south

of Miami Beach,

where Andy García

grew up as the son of

Cuban exiles, sits Key Largo. The

largest of the Florida Keys, it was

immortalized in the 1948 Warner

Bros. film Key Largo, in which

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren

Bacall find themselves stranded

in a hotel during a hurricane

when — to make a bad situation

worse — they’re taken hostage

by a ruthless mobster, played by

Edward G. Robinson. The John

Huston picture is one of García’s

favorites. “The first time I saw

it, I noticed the credits said it

was based on a play,” he says. “I

thought, ‘Wow, it would be great

to mount that. It’s all in one place.

You have the storm, these great

characters. ...’ ”

A late-night inspiration several

decades ago is at last about to

Andy García co-adapted, with Jeffrey Hatcher, Key Largo, which will run at Geffen Playhouse until

Dec. 10. He plays a mobster who torments characters played by Danny Pino and Rose McIver.

As a new adaptation of Key Largo (which he co-wrote and stars in) premieres Nov. 6 at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse,

Andy García recalls past mobster roles and his Mamma Mia! seq uel co-sta r: ‘I owe ever y thin g to Cher’ By Seth Abramovitch

become a reality: García, 63, has

co-written a new stage adapta-

tion of Key Largo, which receives

its world premiere Nov. 6 at the

Geffen Playhouse. He also stars

as the mobster Johnny Rocco,

“but he’s even worse than in the

movie,” García notes. “A real

malignant narcissist.”

Reclining backstage, García

appears to have settled comfort-

ably into his elder statesman

status — but is no less suave than

the young heartthrob who broke

out in such gangster epics as

1987’s The Untouchables and 1990’s

The Godfather Part III. His appeal

is certainly not lost on Cher, who

played his love interest in 2018’s

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

“She picked me, you know,” García

jokes. “She said, ‘I want him.’ So I

owe everything to Cher.”

Not quite everything. García

credits much of his success

to his “second father,” Frank

Mancuso, the 86-year-old former

Paramount Pictures chairman

who was an early champion (and

who serves as a producer on Key

Largo). It was at Mancuso’s urg-

ing that Francis Ford Coppola

cast García in the role of Sonny

Corleone’s illegitimate son,

which earned him an Oscar

nomination. García remembers

the chaotic first day of the Rome

shoot in which Winona Ryder,

who’d been cast as the daughter

of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino),

abruptly left. “In the morn-

ing she was in makeup,” García

recalls. “Next thing we know,

we’re being told she ‘wasn’t fit

to work.’ ” A scramble resulted

in Coppola’s then-18-year-old

daughter, Sofia, stepping in. “I

thought she was treated very

harshly by the critics,” García

says of the future filmmaker. “I

think if people revisit her perfor-

mance now, you realize it was for

no reason.”

García, married since 1982 to

college sweetheart Marivi Lorido

with four children, hints at the

possibility of doing something

on Broadway. There’s a decent

chance that Key Largo, directed

by Tony Award winner Doug

Hughes, could be the play to get

him there. In the meantime,

his movie dance card is full. He

recently wrapped Big Gold Brick, a

darkly comic indie about a father

who hires a younger man —

played by close friend Oscar Isaac

— to pen his biography. “But I’m

the old man in the room,” García

says. “I like to consider myself

the godfather.”

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