SPOILER ALERT: This story contains details about “Jurassic World Rebirth,” now playing in theaters.
While growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo says he always believed he’d end up in Hollywood one day.
“I never liked school. I was terrible at school, very, very bad,” the actor tells me on the latest episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. “They always kicked me out of everything. I never paid attention to it. All I cared about was movies. There was something since I was a kid that I knew I was going to be in this world.”
“But then there was that part like, ‘Ah, that’s impossible. That’s in Hollywood,” he continues. “But there was something inside that really called me for that. I really give that to Steven Spielberg, to his movies — not just ‘Jurassic,’ but seeing ‘Hook’ for the first time. He really opened the doors of movies for me.”
Garcia-Rulfo, who first came to Los Angeles when he was about 20 years old, found his breakout role with Mickey in Netflix’s “The Lincoln Lawyer.” However, the spotlight has gotten a lot brighter these days because of his starring role in “Jurassic World Rebirth.”
In the sequel, he plays Reuben Delgado, a father whose sailboat capsizes after a run-in with – you guessed it – dinosaurs. He and his two daughters (and the older one’s boyfriend) are left shipwrecked before they find themselves joining a couple of scientists (Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey) and a boat captain (Mahershala Ali), who are on a quest to extract blood from living dinosaurs for a drug company.
“I was in the middle of shooting of [‘The Lincoln Lawyer’] Season 3 and my agents and managers were like, ‘Oh, they’re pretty interested in you with “Jurassic.” Don’t get your hopes up. I just want you to know that we’re very close and Spielberg is going to see some things from you,’” Garcia-Rulfo recalls. “It’s like, ‘Oh, cool, cool, cool.’ I keep working and then a week passed, and then I forgot about it. I’m like, ‘Gosh, I’m sure they give it to someone else.’”
But then he was sent the script to see if he was interested in joining the film. “It didn’t hit me until I was in Thailand and there was a huge dinosaur there,” Garcia-Rulfo says. “It’s like, ‘Oh my God, we’re doing ‘Jurassic.’ For me, it was such an inspiration, the first ‘Jurassic.’ … So it was huge. Now to be a part of it, you can imagine, too big for me.”
His casting marks the first time a Latino actor has a leading role in the franchise. “It’s huge,” Garcia-Rulfo says. “Hats off to the studio, to the producers, to Spielberg and [director] Gareth Edwards for doing that.’
He appreciates the impact seeing a Latino family in “Jurassic” could mean to the Latino community, but he also gives thanks to trailblazers like Salma Hayek, Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Eva Longoria, Antonio Banderas and the late Anthony Quinn for “opening doors and being in the fight.”
Garcia-Rulfo praises Luna for the emotional monologue about immigrants and ICE raids that he delivered while recently while guest hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
“It’s just heartbreaking,” Garcia-Rulfo says of Pres. Donald Trump’s ever-increasing ICE raids. “My heart goes to the families and we just have to come from a place of love and respect for everyone. We are all the same. We all bleed the same color. We all want the same needs, and I just wish that everyone has love for each other. That’s the dream. So yeah, it’s heartbreaking.”
During filming, Johansson became the unofficial group leader, organizing dinners and site-seeing trips on their days off. “She’s unaware of who she is,” Garcia-Rulfo says. “I tell her, ‘You know you’re Scarlett Johansson?’ She goes in the world like, ‘La, la, la,’ and that’s so beautiful.”
As for Bailey, Garcia-Rulfo says working with the “Wicked” star made him popular with his niece. “She was like, ‘You’re going to work with Jonathan. Oh my goodness,’” Garcia-Rulfo says. “I can see why. I can see why everybody goes crazy with the guy. He’s not just an incredible actor, but he’s a hot motherfucker.”
Speaking of hotness, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask Garcia-Rulfo about the blue shorts he dons in “Jurassic.” He says he initially wanted to wear something a “little more suave.”
“Open linen shorts, very Julio Iglesias kind of thing,” he remembers, smiling. “They’re like, ‘No,’ and then they talked me into [the shorts]. I was like, ’You know what? You’re totally right. And it totally works.’ Yeah, those shorts are sexy. I love them.”
Just a day or two before I talked with Garcia-Rulfo, he wrapped shooting on the fourth season of “The Lincoln Lawyer.” Season 3 ended with Mickey getting arrested after the police find the dead body of con-artist Sam Scales in the trunk of his car.
“It’s the most emotional season — heavy emotion — because of how we found him, and a lot of things happen, which I cannot say, but they’re very emotional for me,” Garcia-Rulfo says of Season 4. “I told the showrunners even reading them before we start shooting, it is the one that I’ve enjoyed the most. I’ve all enjoyed all of them, but this one is the one that I’ve enjoyed the most because it has the most heaviness.”
“Jurassic World Rebirth” is in theaters now. Listen to the full conversation with Garcia-Rulfo on “Just for Variety” above or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
