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 Angel SalazarThe first thing you notice about Angel Salazar is how small he is (roughly 5'5"). Then he makes you forget. He stands up on chairs, talks to the crowd, dances with the people in the front row, and roars from beginning to end. He strips down to a diaper and sprays the crowd with super-soakers. He's a truly veteran performer, having started out in 1982 acting in A Stranger is Watching. Since then, he's been in Scarface, Sylvester, Punchline, and Carlito's Way, and has been doing stand-up all the way. Angel brought his brand of crowd-friendly comedy to Funny Bone Comedy Club in Buffalo, NY for a six-night engagement, where I was able to catch up with him after the show. How long have you been doing this? Your first credit is somewhere around '82 or '83. Yeah, '82 or '83. I've been doing comedy for a long time. Yeah, since the '80s, man. How do you keep up the energy? Aw, man. Well, in the eighties, it was a lot of drugs. Lot of cocaine, right? In the '90s it's Starbucks coffeehouse. Lot of espressos. They have one in every corner. You know, the guy who owns Starbucks has a bigger ego than Bill Gates. His goal in life is to have a Starbucks coffeehouse in each one of our homes, inside the house where we live. You talked a bit about being Puerto Rican. It said in your bio that you're Cuban. One reviewer actually called you "The Puerto Rican Freddy Prinze." It's like this - when I came here from Cuba at age fourteen, I swam from Cuba with friends, right? Teenagers. We got no... You know, crazy, fourteen years old, right? What were you doing, smoking in front of Seven Eleven? I came here with no family. I grew up in the Bronx, my teenage life. So the character I play up there is very much of a wise, street Puerto Rican guy. Did you have any idea that this is what you wanted to be doing? Yeah, I always wanted to be an actor. It was a big fantasy since I was a little kid. No, no. Not little - since I was a kid. [Laughs] You know, watching John Wayne movies, American movies. I can see the similarities in acting styles. More in the hips than in the delivery. You worked with Brian De Palma and Al Pacino twice. Is there a connection there? You were first in Scarface and then in Carlito's Way. What happened is, if you notice, right, in Carlito's Way he uses a lot of the actors from Scarface. The plot is very much similar. So, I guess he liked to do that. He did it twice. I hope he does it again. So I'll have another job, right? [Laughs] Did you ever hope to break into character acting? You know, my intent is to really... I guess because of the way I look, me physically, right? I get stereotyped in that role, but that's okay, you know? Joe Pesci plays the same character in every movie he does. I don't mind being typecast. I would like to play bigger roles. And my goal right now is that I'm writing a lot, writing my own script to do my own movies. Directing my own movies. How does the horizon look for that? It looks good. It looks good. Do you have a specific script you're working on now? Yeah. Yeah. I got a script this script called "El Nino" that I got at home. "El Nino." What did you think of the Pope's visit to Cuba? Oh, that was excellent. That was great. I'm totally against the blockade, the economic blockade? It's about time they let Castro be whatever he wants to be and have business with the Cuban people, trade with Cuba. The Pope's visit was great because I think it will help that. As a matter of fact, right now, Americans are losing money because other countries like Canada are doing business with Cuba. Have you ever gone back? Yeah, I've gone back. I went back. I went there and I brought thousands of dollars for my family. When I got there I realized they are living better than I do here. [Laughs] I say, "I want my money back! Mom, I want my money back!" You might have already answered the question with the show itself, but how does the act change from opening for Van Halen in stadiums to clubs? From Van Halen to where? To a club. To a smaller club setting. Oh. Me personally, I like the small club. Van Halen was too crazy. Comedy is supposed to be intimate. When you saw a guy like Andrew Dice Clay in big arenas, it's not the same. It loses something. I mean, to me, the only good thing about opening for Van Halen is that the groupies are there already, you know. Groupies girls everywhere, with the fishnets, and tall skinny ones. How does the act change from there to here? Do you do anything different from when you're in front of 30,000 people to when you're in front of 300? No, but there's some stuff that I do here that I had to take out. For example, heavy metal people like Van Halen, that's all they have in mind. That's all they want - heavy metal. I went up there doing my Bruce Springsteen, they were throwing bottles at me. [Imitates a metal fan.] "Van Halen, dude, Van Halen. We don't need Bruce Springsteen, man. Get that off the stage." That's not what they want to see. I don't do those things, just tell jokes. How many nights a year do you tour now? God, I don't count it. I don't know. Some comics do, what? Fifty weeks out of the year? I don't do that. It's a badge of courage for some people. I guess that's the difference between somebody who's been doing it a couple of years and somebody who's been doing it ten years. When you first start out, you go on the road a lot. Not anymore, you know. I go where my agent sends me. I deliver. -Nick |
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