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With Chris, I've known him for years, and we did The Boat that Rocked together, and we had a great time there. And we've been friends for a long time, and he just seemed perfect. With Rashida, I'd met Rashida a couple of times in L.A. At parties, or events. We said, "Hey, big fan." Then when we wrote this character and wanted her to be an American, we said: Ok, let's meet Rashida. We got her into town. We had lunch, and that turned into afternoon drinks, which then turned into dinner and more drinks. You get to a point where you're seven hours into your date and you haven't stopped chatting, or laughing, or throwing ideas around, or just bullshitting, and you think: This is amazing! I absolutely want to work with how this is. Not just in terms of working together, but as human beings connecting. It doesn't happen all the time.
So is that what you most hope to capture on the screen?
You want to. But sometimes it's not needed, and, actually, having that dynamic could be counterproductive. Sometimes you don't need that. And then lovely Ian McShane, I'd worked with him on Snow White and the Huntsman, and he's just — well, he's Ian McShane! You know when he's on the call sheet, you can hear people on set saying, "Oh, Ian's in today!" He's just amazing. As soon as Jon started to fashion this alcoholic Mr. Miyagi-style guru, the producer said, "We should offer this to Ian." And it was like: YES. Of course. Of course! So I called him up an said, "Hey Ian, would you like to come and do a salsa movie, where you're playing like a teacher..." And he just said, "Yeh. Of course I'll do it." And hung up. And that was it. It was like: Perfect.
Cuban Fury opens in Bay Area theaters on Friday, April 11.
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