Dennis Quaid: The way I choose my movies is when I read a script it’s the one and only time that I’ll have a first-hand experience of it – and it’s the story really that makes my selection for me. This is such a beautiful, incredible true story that I was immediately drawn to it. It was a story that I was not aware of.

JWK: You have, of course, a very eclectic career but you do seem to have some affinity for inspirational and faith-themed movies. How much of a role does your faith play in the roles you select?
DQ: I’m sure it plays a large role. I love making movies like this because they have such a great impact on audiences. (They) lift people up. There’s so much in the world that you can see on the news that’s negative. Especially if it’s a true story, I’m attracted to movies like this myself…My character, in many ways, is a guy who really gets humbled. He’s a braggadocio. Really, he brags on the outside but I don’t think he has a very high opinion of himself on the inside. He’s become jaded to life. The character himself kind of gets his own faith back. By being humbled like that, that’s when God does His work.JWK: You, of course, have been through some well-reported trials in life that you came through. 

DQ: As much as anybody in this life. Everybody’s going to really go through the fire in life and be tested in life. Miracles happen I think when I get out of the way myself and let God do His work.

JWK: I read that early on in your career you were considered for lead roles in The Dukes of Hazzard and B.J. and the Bear. Obviously, things worked out for you. Would you ever consider doing a TV series?

DQ: I have done television series. Of course, I would. What’s going on in television and, especially, streaming these days is like (the) Golden Age. It’s a wonderful time to be doing television.

JWK: Getting back to films, is there any one movie you’ve done that you’re really particularly proud of?

DQ: I’m just grateful to still be here. I really am because I’ve been doing this for 46 years or whatever. I think my favorite movie personally is The Right Stuff. (I got to play) one of my childhood heroes, an astronaut, Gordo Cooper. I got my pilot’s license on that movie. It was just like a boyhood dream playing that (part).

JWK: Speaking of playing famous people, I see that you’re set to play former President Reagan in an upcoming film.

DQ: Yeah, we finished it, in fact. That should be coming out in, I think, January.

JWK: So, what was it like playing him?

DQ: It was probably the biggest challenge, acting wise, of my career – because Reagan is my favorite president and he’s so well known to all Americans and people of the world. To get the character right is a big responsibility.

JWK: What was the hook for getting the character right, for you?

DQ: That Reagan was actually not a rich man. He was a humble man. He really was a person who lived his principles and that’s what he imparted to everyone. That was really the way in for me.

JWK: Returning to Blue Miracle, you and your co-star Jimmy Gonzales work great together on screen. I believe this is his first starring role. As really a screen icon and a veteran of so many great movies, do you have any advice for him?

DQ: Have faith. Keep on going. We’re lucky to be doing what we do. This is not a job. It’s a really a gift.

JWK: Anything else you’d like to say about the film?

DQ: Well, it is a story of miracles. I love stories of miracles and I think everyone else does too. And it’s a film you can watch with your kids….This is like an impossible-dream story that I think will really touch people’s hearts and entertain them at the same time.
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Jimmy Gonzales on how his own life prepared him for his starring role in Blue Miracle and the experience of co-starring with Dennis Quaid.

JWK: I’ve been reading about your background. You actually spent your teen years living in a foster home. How did that prepare you for a role as an orphanage manager in this movie?

Jimmy Gonzales: That’s a great question. It was something that I have wrestled with – my past, my experience in foster care. I was extremely blessed towards the end with a family that really invested in me – but it gave me a direct line of understanding of what it’s like to face the biggest fear that I think any human being can face at that age – at the age of the kids in our movie and my age when I went into foster care and at any age as a child, really. And that was the loss of (my) caretakers, the crumbling of this reality that I had. So, I’ve done a lot of work around that and, like I said, it just gave me a direct connection to the kids – and that’s what I needed in order to play Omar.

JWK: From what I’ve been reading, you’ve had a fairly rough background. When did you realize that acting was your path out and forward?

JG: My mother doesn’t speak English to this day. She’s from Mexico. I was about six. Spanish was my first language. English was my second. I learned to speak English fairly quickly when I went into kindergarten. I had three other biological (siblings), two sisters and a brother. She’d put them to bed every Friday night on some “trumped-up charges” and she would take me and we would go to Blockbuster and she would find a movie that had a great cover. Usually, they were scary movies. She didn’t like Mexican movies. She just didn’t like the whole soap opera aspect of Mexican movies back in that time – now she loves ’em.

So, our whole routine was she’d put the kids to bed. She and I would go to Blockbuster. We’d come back. We’d pop in a VHS in the VCR and then we would watch the movie and I would interpret the movie to her. It was a thing that I just fell in love with but the thing that really stood out was (when) we watched this movie called The Elephant Man (directed by) David Lynch. That movie (wow), we didn’t talk – not one word. She just watched it, I watched it and we were both were weeping at the end of it. And I distinctly recall that feeling staying with me forever – (through) my teens – and always feeling that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to have that kind of effect that that movie had on my mother…then, when I was 25, I made that determination to follow that dream that I had as a child.  

JWK: I just want to be clear. You grew up with your mother but went into foster care in your teens – but your mother is still alive. What happened?

JG: I went into foster care at 11. I was the eldest of four. My father was dealing with addiction and crime. He was actually in prison. So, my mother was a single mom and I was out getting into some serious trouble that I hadn’t gotten caught for. As a kid, I was involved in selling, distributing drugs and – running drugs. She was aware of it and her last-ditch effort to get me off the streets was (to) put me in foster care.

JWK: So, a loving act by your mother – and you’ve come a long way. This film is actually your first starring role – and it’s opposite Dennis Quaid. What was it like working with him?

JG: It was an incredible experience. Dennis is amazing. Early on in my career – I hadn’t even started acting (professionally) – I was a PA on the set of The Alamo in the early 2000s. I remember he was a star in that and now here we are some 20-odd years later and I’m actually starring in a movie with him. So, it was surreal to say the least. He is a phenomenal actor and a phenomenal human being. He really helped (me through) the jitters that I had of carrying my first movie. He was just so gracious.

JWK: What would you like people to take away from Blue Miracle?

JG: Faith without works is dead. That doesn’t necessarily have to be in any particular denomination. It doesn’t have to be in any particular religion. Work hard, have some faith and put in the effort and you can overcome extraordinary circumstances and extraordinary challenges.

JWK: Where do you see your career going? What would you like to do in the future?

JG: I would like to be a person that…is a representation to other kids that are in the circumstances I was as a child – to be able to give that message that if you have the dream, no matter what it is and no matter what your circumstances, your environment (or) your situation looks like, if you really want something and you work really hard at it, you can achieve it.
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