The Academy continues “Seen,” a series of candid interviews on culture, identity, and representation with some of today’s most influential Latinx filmmakers and artists.
Available now on the Academy’s YouTube, episode 2 features Edward James Olmos – nominated for a 1988 Best Actor Oscar® for his role as Jaime Escalante in “Stand and Deliver”– in conversation with journalist Nick Barili, the series host.
Olmos invites Barili to meet him at Bell Gardens Intermediate School, a site of Olmos’s Youth Cinema Project, to see firsthand how the program empowers students to tell their stories on film. Olmos reflects on growing up in the cultural diversity of East Los Angeles, his stints in baseball and rock ‘n’ roll before he finally landed on acting and the importance of collaboration and creative control. He discusses what his roles in “Zoot Suit” and “Stand and Deliver” mean to him, as well as the larger culture, and why he regularly turns down work.