 |
  
 
 |
|
Hey, Mr. DJ
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 17-Jan-07 @ 05:48 PM
Although he’s now considered a veteran of the Los Angeles theatre scene,
EFREN RAMIREZ’s early acting career relied heavily on sporadic TV appearances
on shows like ER, Judging Amy, and Boston Public; that is,
until 2004 when he was faced with a Sophie’s Choice moment—a
role in the big-budget studio flick Alamo or an oddly-named, no-budget
comedy, Napoleon Dynamite. Luckily for Ramirez, he went with the latter
(good thing because Alamo was a box-office bomb), and thus a star was
born. In between nationwide DJ gigs and creating his own film production company,
the California native took his time scouring scripts for his next move—or moves,
as it would appear by the double duty he’s pulling in this month’s Crank,
where he plays a transvestite, and Employee Of The Month, as the sidekick
to a lovesick Dax Shepard. Well, his resume is nothing if not diverse, right?INTERVIEW: Kathleen Perricone PHOTO: Blair Bunting So you just got back from a DJ tour. What kind of music do you spin? It all depends on the state you’re in. Some people like hip-hop, others like the Top 40 scene. It’s mostly a combination of electro-clash and hard house. My favorite is to do mash-ups, like mixing Adam Ant with Eminem. Have you ever thought about putting out an album of mash-ups, kind of like what Danger Mouse did with Metallica and the Beatles? No, not really. There was a time when DJing at raves was my only job, but now every time I come home from a tour, I have two to three scripts I need to read. I enjoy doing the DJing, but my focus is much more on the acting. Well, audiences are looking forward to having you back in theaters. First up is Employee Of The Month, with Dane Cook and Dax Shepherd. What’s the movie’s premise? We all work at a Costco-like place. Dane and Dax have been working there for over 10 years.Dane is still a box boy and Dax is the number one check-out clerk. He’s competing against Dane to win employee of the month, not to mention Jessica Simpson’s heart, and I help him try to accomplish that. Basically, my character’s relationship with Dax’s is a lot like Laurel and Hardy. Working with those two must have been a non-stop riot! Yeah, well, we were working so late at Costco… Wait, you were at a real Costco? Yeah, an actual Costco. [Laughs.] And because they needed it during the day, we were working like vampires. So it’s, like, 5 o’clock in the morning and we’re all delirious. It was just so funny. I couldn’t stop laughing. And it didn’t help that Costco had just gotten in a new shipment of Napoleon dolls. I was like, “Oh great, this movie’s going to haunt me forever!” Did everyone tease you? Yeah! That doll was right there. [Laughs.] I was like, “You’ve got to move those out of the way.” And everyone was yelling, “Oh, my God, Pedro’s here!” You probably get people coming up to you all the time reciting Napoleon lines. Oh yeah. When I was DJing in Long Beach, there were, like, 2,000 screaming fans cheering, “Pedro, Pedro…” You should just change your name to Pedro. I know. Pedro Ramirez. It has a nice ring to it. Well, what can you do? Pedro’s a lovable character. It could be worse. Yeah, I know. I understand that to the public eye, they’ve only really seen that movie so far. I also did a MTV movie with Ciara [2006’s All You’ve Got], so now the MTV Generation fans come up to me and they’re like, “You’re totally different!” I’m like, “Yeah, I’m an actor. That’s what I do.” [Laughs.] Well, apparently your pickiness paid off because you also have another movie, Crank, coming this month, as well. Tell me about your character, Kaylo. I play a transvestite. [Laughs.] I’m going to shock all the Pedro fans. They’ll be like, “Oh, my God, he’s in make-up.” Now how exactly do you get into character for something like that? Well, I DJ at different clubs, and I’d be at gay clubs looking for my character, and I wouldn’t find [him]. Then I got hired to work at this strip club in Detroit and that’s where I found the girl I wanted to emulate. I was like, “You’re her!” She hadn’t seen Napoleon Dynamite, so that was good. So we basically just talked, and she told me all about her life. Wow. That’s some serious method acting. I like to play characters with substance. After Napoleon Dynamite, I’m actually able to finally select where I want to go and tell the stories I want to tell. At some point in my life, I’d like to play Salvador Dali or Sal Minneo. I hope to some day have that opportunity. It seems a lot of great things came from Napoleon. You also did a lot of public speaking afterwards, right? Yeah, I went to a lot of high schools and universities and talked to them about fulfilling their dreams and the art of acting. Talking to kids is one of the great things I enjoy, especially in the neighborhoods that are really bad. Sometimes they’re like, “Yeah, but you’re Hollywood.” But then I tell then about how I grew up and how hard it was for me. I wanted to work as an actor, so I’d take the bus two hours to school. And then I look at their faces, and they’re like, “No way!” If I can change one person, that’d be cool. ALT [SIDEBAR] EFREN RAMIREZ AGE: 33 HQ: Los Angeles, CA RÉSUMÉ: The cult comedy that launched a thousand catchphrases Napoleon Dynamite, as Pedro Sanchez, Napoleon’s sidekick and candidate for class president; this month’s Crank, as Kaylo, a transvestite who crosses the adrenaline-infused path of Jason Statham; Employee Of the Month, as Jorge, the Hardy to Dax Shepard’s Laurel. EFRENSPACE: Ramirez set up a MySpace page to promote his DJ gigs and within his first five months, he was already boasting more than 21,000 friends. “Every time I DJ, I always ask, ‘Who wants to be my friend on MySpace?’” he explains. “And now, everyday, I just keep getting more and more!” SOUTHERN COMFORT: Besides the obvious benefits of working with Jessica Simpson, Ramirez also discovered his love for country music while filming Employee. “She started teaching me about Garth Brooks and Hank Williams,” he says. “So I started collecting all that stuff and now I have tons of country music on my iPod.” ALT |
