Olmos Finds the Funny for 'Greetings From Tucson'

[TJ]

http://tv.zap2it.com/news/tvnewsdaily.html?31356

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - In "Sibling Rivalry," the episode of The WB's "Greetings From Tucson" airing Friday, May 2, at 8:30 p.m. ET, Edward James Olmos -- whose roles have included a futuristic cop in "Blade Runner" , a modern cop in "Miami Vice," a teacher in "Stand and Deliver" and a futuristic leader in the upcoming "Battlestar Galactica" -- does his first-ever role as a priest ... maybe.

"I'm trying to remember," he says during a break in filming the episode (with his mother in the audience). "I can't remember off the bat, what I've played in that respect. I was flattered [to be asked]. I like the show. I knew the kids on the show, so I was very happy to be part of this."

In the episode, directed by Tony Plana and written by series executive producers Peter Murietta and Rob LaZebnik, teen siblings Maria and David (Aimee Garcia, Pablo Santos) will not stop fighting, so their desperate parents, Joaquin and Elizabeth (Julio Oscar Mechoso, Rebecca Creskoff) send them to a priest (Olmos) as a last-ditch effort at reconciliation. Music group Los Lobos also makes a guest appearance, playing at Maria's birthday party.

"This is our last episode of the year," Murietta says, speaking on the set of the family's home. "It will air next to last, because we shot the finale last week. I remember back in the summer, [a reporter] asked, 'What religion is the family?'"

As it turns out, the family on "Greetings From Tucson" -- which has a Mexican-American father and an Irish-American mother -- is Roman Catholic, as is Murietta, who also shares his mixed ethnicity with his TV creations.

"We've mentioned a few times about going to Mass," he says. "We'd dropped in references to it, but we really hadn't gone there. So we thought, we wanted to do a show basically about my reality."

"This came up about a year ago, my mother was very worried, because we're having a baby, and she was telling my wife that she was very worried, because the age difference in our children is five-and-a-half years, and it's the same with me and my sister. My mom was saying to my wife, 'Because of that age difference, they'll never be close, because Peter and his sister aren't close.'"

"We're like the brother and sister on this show, so I had that in the back of my head. We were talking about episodes to do, and I said, 'Let's do a show where the mother is concerned that her children aren't going to be close, and aren't close.'"

"We started there, then we started thinking, where would it go? We started thinking things would come to a head, and they'd have to seek help. Where would they go? We thought that this is the opportunity to go the Church."

Asked if Olmos was hard to convince, Murietta recalls setting up a breakfast meeting with the actor. "When we sat down, he was like, 'I'm very excited. I love the show. I love what it says about us, and what it's communicating to the world. It's an important show. If you need my help with anything, let me know.'"

"I sent him the script with my cellphone number on it, and he called on Sunday night and said, 'Let's do it.'"

"I think it's been a wonderful example of good humor," says Olmos of the show. "The humor translates itself across the board to every culture watching. It doesn't matter what culture you are."

The episode also offers Olmos' fans a chance to enjoy his seldom-seen humorous side, which even comes as a surprise to Garcia, who also works with him on the PBS drama "American Family."

"He's quite funny, though," she says. "His timing is really good, and he takes pauses at the right places. I knew he had a dramatic body of work, ad I said, 'I wonder how his comedy is?'"