Just Between Us

by Mario Lopez

  “Mario, have you considered changing your name? Perhaps to something less ethnic” was a suggestion I started hearing during this time. Agents and manager types wanted me to make the change to widen my appeal.

  My dad wouldn’t even consider it. He said, “Mario Lopez is your name. That’s what I named you. You should be proud of it.”

  Arguments for a name change continued from others. After all, they argued, the respected Mexican actor Anthony Quinn had changed his name from Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca. I had a friend, Miguel Gil De Montes, who changed his name to Mark Roberts. The list went on and on. But Dad was right: Mario Lopez was my name. And as entertaining as it was to think about cool wrestling names I could take on, I got through the name-changing phase and went back to auditioning for commercials.

  After I was fortunate enough to book a McDonald’s commercial, I went in on a milk spot that was about this kid who throws a basketball in a hoop, but over his shoulder without looking behind him. And the line to a cow watching was, “Hey, Mr. Moo. What do you say?” Instead of amping it up, I said it really cool, as if I were trying to con Mr. Moo. The casting director laughed out loud because that laid-back delivery wasn’t what she was expecting. She read the cow’s line, “Fresh moo juice makes my day.”

  At first I wasn’t sure her laughing was a good thing. I’d gone into that audition wearing a leather jacket, like Fonzie, and thought I was being super cool by trying to imitate a much older guy, as opposed to how I thought a little kid would read that line.

  Sometimes it pays to follow your creative instincts and do something different, as long as it’s not too over-the-top. I ended up getting the job. That was a big national commercial and I can still remember it. A young actor could make a lot of money doing commercials back in those days, and for a kid those earnings could be put into a savings account and help pay for college. And earning money like that can be very meaningful—especially for a ten-year-old kid whose parents were from blue-collar backgrounds and who’d never had the means to go to college.

  Still, my mom and dad didn’t emphasize the money. As long as I liked performing and as long as I wasn’t booking jobs just to feel proud of myself—a common issue for child actors—my parents continued to support me all the way. When I think back to that two-hour schlep up the 405 to Hollywood and then back—sometimes for an audition that lasted all of thirty seconds—I’m stunned. My parents were champs, never questioning whether it was worth it, even when I’d get two or three auditions in a week. Because I was mostly being sent out for calls seeking a Mexican boy, these auditions tended not to be on the same day as they could be for commercial actors going out on all kinds of calls.

  To my parents’ credit, they also refrained from treating me any differently once I began to work regularly. Nor was I allowed to develop an inflated sense of self from earning some good money, when that came, along with the added attention. Our family’s lifestyle didn’t change, and just because I was making my own money didn’t mean I lived in Neverland. If I got excellent grades, I might be given the new edition video game system or some of the latest kicks, but not much more than that. My upbringing would not have let me become Famous Mario or some showbiz child tyrant. Even as a working kid actor, I still had chores at home and a mandate for school to come first. My parents did not indulge behavior that could be seen as me getting all “Hollywoody.” The message from my parents, no matter how famous I later became, was that I was still one of their two Lopez kids, part of a huge loving extended family from Chula Vista, California. Period.

  Over the years, I had a chance to meet child actors who became household names and to observe not only the pitfalls but also how to avoid them. When I met Gary Coleman from Diff’rent Strokes, I didn’t warm up to him, mainly because he seemed spoiled. That does happen when a child professional has a team of handlers who cater to the young star’s every whim while controlling him at the same time. When I worked with the boys in Menudo—the globally famous Latin boy band that was the One Direction of its time—I saw how fast you could blow up to become young superstars of the moment but then how only a few teen idols, like Ricky Martin, get to shine on after their time in the sun. When I met Ricky Schroder, who is a couple of years older than me and was the child star of the series Silver Spoons, he was a good example of how to embrace your success yet remain down-to-earth. Ricky befriended me, gave me a personal tour of the Universal lot, and even let me ride his bike around the lot on my own.

  Obviously, there are more extreme examples today of young performers who do not fare well when they fall from grace or when their success is so massive that they lose all sense of boundaries. For some it’s blowing all their money and for others it’s substance abuse and legal problems, including litigation against their own parents. Some come back from the edge, but when your name is Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus, it’s not like you get to go through periods of acting out without the whole world watching.

  Those pitfalls are not easy to avoid. I’m one of the few child actors who never went down those roads, thanks to the boundaries my parents set.

  The irony in all this is that it’s not normal to be a kid who makes money and is famous or becomes recognized out in public, so you need to have strong guidance in keeping a balance between industry work and a normal upbringing. There were ongoing examples of kids on auditions whose pushy mom or dad hung on the casting director’s decision, desperate for their progeny to do the family name proud, as if not getting the job would stop the world from turning. It stressed me out just to watch it. My parents, thankfully, went in the opposite direction. My mom was her usual excited self when I did book something, but, like with Dad, it wasn’t going to ruin her day if I didn’t. There was never a conversation about me having a “career.” That can’t be healthy for a ten- or eleven-year-old—or even a sixteen-year-old.

  After I had such a lucky break as to get a TV series right off the bat, I was able to go back to auditioning without a big job right away and keep my laissez-faire attitude. Me, the high-energy keep-him-out-of-trouble kid, laissez-faire? Well, with sports, no. In the heat of the action, I was a different kind of animal, given the competitiveness I’m wired with. When it came to acting, though, I mainly wanted to do a good job. That may sound inconsistent, but in the end I knew that’s all it was to me: a job. It didn’t summon the same passion that wrestling did. Acting wasn’t a contest that involved a matchup of skills against skills. Acting strengths can be very subjective, and though I enjoyed the challenge of interpreting the lines, it wasn’t do-or-die.

  And, luckily, that attitude worked to my advantage. Casting directors seemed to like a kid who played it cool, who wasn’t desperate for getting a job.

  Little did I realize until somewhat later that my easygoing approach to pursuing acting roles would serve me well when it came to dating. Generally, if you play it cool and nonchalant, you’ll do much better at getting the girl . . . just like the role.

  This is all to tell you that I didn’t experience the emotional roller coaster of working and then not working, nor the super high of getting a part along with the super low of being rejected. When a job ended I wasn’t crushed; I thought we were just done with it. As an adult, I know what it feels like to be disappointed about a canceled show. But as a kid, I didn’t care; I just rolled with it.

  At age eleven, I was back to my regular life in public school—back to wrestling, karate, dance, and theater. My parents were still schlepping me to and from LA for auditions. Then, in the fall of 1984, I went in on a call for a new series called Kids Incorporated.

  Mom recapped the breakdown from my agent as we jumped in the car to head to LA. All she knew, she said, was, “It’s an ensemble show for a teen dance and rock group.”

  The audition was a cattle call on steroids. Massive. Kids in the thousands were lined up around the block—all looking like we were plucked out of an eighties rock video, most wearing a lot of acid-wa
shed denim, big hair, and neon colors. Talk about being ahead of its time—this audition was exactly what you’d see in later decades with tryouts for American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, The X Factor, and other reality shows: thousands of people with a dream of being chosen, all standing outside in a seemingly endless line. Having been there myself, I would always have a special place in my heart for kids who become reality show contenders and have to put their talents on the line to be judged.

  The Kids Incorporated call was not just for actors but for young performers who could sing, dance, and possibly even play an instrument. My dance abilities were strong, but my training at All That Jazz had been limited to jazz and tap, not ballet. I messed around with break dancing and was starting to put a crew together—complete with taking a piece of cardboard to school so I could refine my head spins—but I was ahead of my time and hip-hop was not the well-respected dance genre that it is today. Compared to some of the kids trying out who had trained in ballet and gymnastics since they were in diapers, I had less training but showed in the audition that I could hold my own. As far as singing goes, I had my dad to thank for my years of mariachi singing at local bars and competing in various singing contests. I also had Dad to thank for getting me into drumming. One of his buddies was a drummer and they would let me bang around sometimes, eventually teaching me some basics. After that, I taught myself the rest and loved playing drums whenever I could. Was I any good? Back then, I wasn’t bad. I’m not saying I could do the drum solos like I was the fifth member of Led Zeppelin, but, man, I’d love to play as well today as I could at age eleven.

  So, between my singing, dancing, and acting, I made it through the gauntlet into the final round of contenders. It’s quite possible that playing the drums was the extra factor that helped me land the gig.

  Wow, I thought, this was going to be so much fun. And it was. But it was also probably the toughest job I ever had in show business. As soon as I was cast, we went to work right away and were doing three shows per week in Hollywood, at Sunset Gower Studios. We had to practice and perform three concert numbers and multiple dance numbers for each episode. In almost every show, I sang, danced, and played the drums. Like show business boot camp, the production schedule for Kids was grueling.

  The New York choreographer Duraine Gusman was a tough taskmaster—especially and noticeably with me. We had to learn and master her choreography for five to seven dance numbers a week, a daunting undertaking for the most experienced dancers. Besides the fact that I was one of the less rigorously trained dancers in the ensemble, I was also the youngest member in the cast, so I got my butt kicked. In my own defense, I happened to be a quick study, and when the time came to perform on camera, I was right on the money, killin’ it.

  But Duraine Gusman was not the epitome of patience. I have a vivid memory of an afternoon in one of the rehearsal halls at Sunset Gower when I was struggling with a couple of eight-counts of complicated choreography. Gusman kept stopping us and shouting at me, saying, “Mario, try it again—you don’t have it!” It was embarrassing. When she stopped us a third time and came over to me, shaking her head and saying, “No. Can you not get it? What are you, brain-dead?” or words to that effect, I was shaken.

  My dad was in the rehearsal room that day and he was so upset that he stood up and walked out. He told my mom what had happened, saying, “If Gusman had been a man, I would have put him in his place about treating a kid like that, but she’s a woman so I held my tongue.”

  When my mom came to me, ready to read the riot act to our choreographer, I said, “No, don’t say anything. It’ll make the situation worse.”

  Sometimes, as my parents saw, you have to let kids fight their own battles. From then on, I doubled down, working even harder, and proved to our choreographer that I could keep up.

  Stumbling over some choreography didn’t detract from the fun I had every day for the three seasons I was on Kids. We were given a feel for what was hot in pop culture, performing hit songs of the day, like “Careless Whisper” by George Michael and “The Warrior” by Patti Smith. And just as on A.K.A. Pablo, I worked my way into unplanned acting opportunities as they came up. Since I was primarily in the performing ensemble—not unlike Jennifer Lopez (no relation), who was one of the Fly Girl dancers on the sketch comedy show In Living Color—I didn’t have many lines. But when the script called for one of us to rap, I vied for the job and got it. How awesome was that? I performed New Edition’s “Cool It Now” like it was my own personal theme song. The rap was a reminder that when you’ve “got a girl who takes her time” you have to take it slow, to “cool it down.” That was a breakthrough for me on the show. There is a clip of this, by the way, on YouTube if you want to see that moment in action. Not bad for early vintage rapping. From then on, they started giving me more lines.

  Oh, and then, toward the end of 1985, when I was still eleven, I started noticing girls for real—including some of my talented castmates, like the lovely and multitalented Jennifer Love Hewitt, who is still a friend, and also one other vivacious, beautiful fellow eleven-year-old, Stacy, who seemed to think I was sort of cool.

  Stacy’s parents and mine became friendly and learned from one another that the two of us had crushes on each other. There was something about her that was sort of magical, as if she knew this was the beginning of a career in music. We gravitated toward each other in what I figured was basic flirting. And, sure enough, one day Stacy and I were on a break from shooting, standing back behind the set just talking, and, in the most natural and mutual way possible, both leaned in for a kiss. After that, we stole little kisses whenever possible. There was a lot of kissing, as I recall, but nothing more than that really—all very innocent eleven-year-old affection.

  These days whenever I see Stacy—who was Stacy Ferguson back then but now is better known as Fergie, a solo artist after attaining fame and fortune with the Black Eyed Peas—we laugh about the preteen romance we had on Kids Incorporated. For me, there’s something special about having had my first kiss with Fergie, back before she was a rock star but still on her way to somewhere great.

  • • •

  Although Kids Incorporated remains the toughest job I ever worked—as a kid or an adult—it tested my mettle and made me stronger and more resilient as a performer. Those three seasons were long, even if I was doing it part-time. And being pushed by a tough-as-nails choreographer was a challenge that benefited me in the long run. When I left the show, I was a far more well-rounded performer and immensely grateful for the ride.

  Kids was key in turning me into a youthful Renaissance man, in showbiz terms, because I now had trained to do everything. Between the two series I had been fortunate to develop my chops in multiple disciplines. Most kids who come of age in the entertainment industry are known for doing one thing or another, not for being the classic triple threats you see on Broadway or that used to populate Hollywood in the olden days. There are obviously exceptions—like the phenomenal Justin Timberlake and the gifted Bruno Mars, two dudes who started young and can do it all. But for the most part, nowadays being an all-around young showman is pretty rare.

  Of course, being a multifaceted performer would not have been possible without my mother having the foresight to put me in so many damn activities. At a certain point, these different calling cards would make me highly sought after as a young performer. But my life as a professional continued to be balanced with having a normal life as a teenager in between gigs. I wasn’t chasing it; rather I would let it come to me. I never asked for more auditions. Instead, I just responded to the calls, giving my best at the time. Meanwhile, I did theater at school, as in the past, but didn’t add more private coaching for voice or acting. Performing was one of the things I did—it wasn’t the be-all and end-all to my existence. Part of not becoming all Hollywoody, I believe, was appreciating the steps along the way without needing them to be taking me anywhere other than where I was.

&nb
sp; That being the case, after A.K.A. Pablo and Kids Incorporated, I did an eclectic mix of guest spots on various shows, a few pilots, and continued to do commercials—when I could get them. My favorite guest spot was on the hit sitcom The Golden Girls, where I played a Cuban immigrant boy who was going to be deported. This was before the real-life Elián Gonzáles story, but it was similar. On that episode, I was reunited with the one and only Bea Arthur, who again helped me raise my comedic game. Once again, she took me under her wing and made sure I got to know all the Golden Girls. All those women on that show were some of the funniest and gifted women on television.

  After that episode and the other guest spots that came along, I kept on doing my thing, which at the time was negotiating my way through junior high and those wild and crazy days of adolescence. High school was just around the corner and so too was my audition for the role of a young lifetime.

  CHAPTER 3

  SAVED BY THE BELL

  The year was 1989—the end of a decade of excesses that saw the debut of the TV show The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, an explosion in conspicuous consumption that turned household budget watchers into carefree shopaholics, and a pop culture fiesta that began early on with Madonna’s “Material Girl” video that was both fashion manual and theme song for status seeking and accumulating megawealth. For kids growing up eighties-style, that meant wearing the top brands, with designer labels and logos sewn on the outside of clothes. It meant owning the latest video games and the newest sneakers that cost more than dress shoes, and everyone climbing in Mom’s minivan to be driven to the growing list of after-school activities that we all were increasingly expected to enjoy.