Eugenio Derbez is intent on showing the real people who make America work in his new Hulu comedy film with Samara Weaving, The Valet.

Shadow and Act managing editor Trey Mangum recently spoke with Derbez, Weaving, Max Greenfield, Betsy Brandt and director Richard Wong. Derbez said that he wanted his character Antonio, a parking valet, to be representative of working-class Latinos.

“I tried to portray a real valet parking attendant, a real human being,” he said. “I wanted to make an homage or celebration of working-class Latinos working in this country, making America great. First of all, for me, I felt a responsibility for portraying this real-world…we wanted to keep it real.”

Part of keeping things real included having different ethnic groups, such as Latinos and Koreans, speaking their native languages to each other instead of English.

“[The film isn’t] like these movies where you see Sylvester Stallone and everyone’s speaking English. They go to China, and everyone’s speaking English. They go to Mexico, and everyone’s [speaking English],” he said. “We want to make it real and that was part of my goal.”

Derbez described the film as one that’s “really funny…[and] with a lot of heart,” as well as one that he hopes makes his fellow Latinos proud.

“It makes Latinos visible, especially the hard-working people in this country,” he said.

Watch more with Derbez, Weaving, Greenfield, Brandt and Wong in the video below.

In The Valet, Derbez’s character Antonio gets mixed up in the relationship drama of a popular actress (Weaving) and must pretend to be her new love. According to the official description:

“The Valet,” world famous movie star, Olivia (Samara Weaving) faces a PR disaster when a paparazzi snaps a photo of her with her married lover, Vincent (Max Greenfield). The hard-working valet Antonio (Eugenio Derbez) accidentally appears in the same photo and is enlisted to pose as Olivia’s new boyfriend as a cover up. This ruse with Olivia thrusts Antonio into the spotlight and unexpected chaos. In this fish out of water romantic comedy, two worlds and cultures collide as both Olivia and Antonio start to see themselves more clearly than ever before. “The Valet,” directed by Richard Wong and written by Rob Greenberg and Bob Fisher, is the English-language remake of the hit French film.

The Valet is streaming now on Hulu.

Betsy Brandt

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