‘Flamin’ Hot’: Becky G, Diane Warren & Eva Longoria On The Message In “The Fire Inside” Song That Drove Their Careers To Success Against The Odds

Antonia Blyth
·11 min read
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Diane Warren may have 14 Oscar nominations behind her and one honorary little gold man already at home, but, as she says, that man “needs a buddy.” Having written songs for over 100 films in her career thus far, this year, she’s up for Best Original Song once again, with “The Fire Inside”, performed by multi-platinum, Latin Grammy-nominated singer Becky G, for the film Flamin’ Hot.

The film and the song’s music video are directed by multi-hyphenate Eva Longoria, who first broke out as an actress in the 2004 TV series Desperate Housewives. She was named Director to Watch at the Palm Springs International Film Festival last year.

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The song speaks not only to the story of the film—the invention of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos—but also the drive within that pushes us to follow our dreams and go far beyond others’ expectations. All three women relate to that theme on some level: Becky G went from living in a garage in Inglewood to becoming a huge star; Longoria had zero showbusiness connections and made her way up on her own via many acting jobs, and Warren, who says she’s spent years ignoring the word ‘no’ and pushing on with her music regardless.

The film Flamin’ Hot follows Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), a janitor in a Frito-Lay plant, who was inspired to introduce a spicy-hot family-favorite flavor to the Frito-Lay company and had to push past many obstacles to get his idea through to the CEO. Ultimately, Flamin’ hot Cheetos would corner the Latin market and become a phenomenal success.

Here, Longoria, Becky G and Warren describe their connection to the story and their experience working together. Watch the music video below.

DEADLINE: Diane and Eva, tell me about how your paths first crossed? You happened to have offices in the same building, right?

EVA LONGORIA: I am so lucky. It was just fate. The fact that I met the greatest songwriter of all time in the elevator. And that one day she would write the song to a film I direct. That, even thinking back now, it gives me chills, going, if somebody told me that was going to happen, I would not have believed it. Like, “You know what? You should get Diane Warren to…” I’d be like, “Okay, yeah. Sure.”

DIANE WARREN: I was excited.

LONGORIA: I think her genius and her work ethic is second to none. It’s just a gift to any film. To digest an entire film into lyrics in…

WARREN: Three and-a-half minutes. It’s capturing the essence, right? So if I do a song for a movie, I’m writing a song I want to hear in that movie. And this movie’s a beautiful movie. It’s a beautiful story. It had so much heart. But what I got out of it, was it’s about passion. It’s about one guy who’s a janitor, but he has an idea. He has an idea that he’s excited about, and everybody’s shutting him down. Just like my life, where everybody’s always shutting me down. Trust me. But the song is about passion. There’s two meanings of the word. It’s the fire inside. Obviously, you’re going to eat those things, you’re going to have a lot of fire inside whether you want it or not. [Laughs]

LONGORIA: What you say is great. When I read his story, not this script, because we rewrote the script, but when I heard his story, I was like, “Oh my god, I am Richard Montañez.” Then I hire my DP, and my DP is like, “I’m Richard Montañez. People always tell me, ‘No, not you.’” And then when Diane came on, she sees the movie, she goes, “Oh my god, I’m Richard Montañez. People always tell me no.”

And then Becky saw the movie three times in a row.

BECKY G: And bawled my eyes out every time.

LONGORIA: She saw it, and then she went to go get her mom. She was like, “Come and sit down, we’ve got to see it again.” And then she’s like, “Oh my god, this is my story.” All these different people from different walks of life identified with this one man’s journey, of people telling him no. And Diane defines that. Becky’s defined that in her career.

WARREN: We’re all a million to one that we’re here sitting here right now. Really, more than that, the odds. I’m a songwriter from Van Nuys. My dad sold insurance. What are the chances, right? I didn’t know anybody in the music business. All of us here, we didn’t know someone. We weren’t nepo babes.

LONGORIA: Yeah, I grew up on a ranch in Texas. I’m not supposed to be here.

BECKY G: And I grew up in Inglewood, in a garage. I’m definitely not supposed to be here.

DEADLINE: Tell me about that situation?

BECKY G: Well, long story short, the turning point where I started working, when I was nine, was we lost our home. And the oldest of four kids, the oldest daughter of a Mexican-American family. So you throw in all the cultural layers of that, and then growing up here in LA, what my family was going through, I was too young to actually do something about it, and that was really frustrating.

And with my grandparents, all four of them having been so lucky to have them very present in my life and part of the village that raised me, hearing them, starting working at eight, nine years old was normal. I mean, obviously, I live in the United States and there’s such thing as, you know-

Child labor laws. I was like, well, if they did it, I can do it too. You know? And so yeah, that’s kind of where it all started.

But I think one of my favorite things about the song, and about even this trio that came together, after such an amazing film, and how we were all inspired by the story of Richard, is that we get to share this story that we all feel personally connected to in some way. And it looks different on everyone, but the feeling is something that we all have in common. And I mean, Diane’s like an honorary Latino now, basically.

WARREN: I love it. I love it.

LONGORIA: Honorary Chicana.

BECKY G: For real. And I think Eva did an incredible job at being able to be so culturally representative to something that feels very right for us as Chicanos, which is like we’re either too Mexican or too American. And Richard just got to be Richard in this story. And I felt so seen. And then I think on the other side of that, it was an invitation to those who may not be Chicano, but still feel like they could identify with that underdog story, and be like, there were many times where there was all of these obstacles in front of me, and instead it was an opportunity. It was an opportunity to dig deeper. It was an opportunity to go and push myself to be something that I never thought I could be.

WARREN: It’s the fire inside that did it. That’s literally what that is.

LONGORIA: But that’s how you came up with the chorus. She watched it. She was one of the first to watch the first assembly. And we brought her in. I was like, she’s been asking me to see it. She’s like, “When is it finished? When is it finished?”

WARREN: I was bugging you. Becky knows what a pain in the ass I am too.

LONGORIA: So then we finish it and we screen it for Diane, and she’s like, “I got it. I already got it. I already got the song.” In the [screening room] lobby, in my ear.

WARREN: I had the title in the lobby. So I wrote it down, and the next day, I programmed a reggaeton kind of beat on my drum machine. I knew it’s not going to be a big ballad. It had to be f—ing authentic and cool, and sound like a hit. And the beautiful thing is, it sounds great outside of the movie and inside of the movie. Because I know people that hear this song, they go, “I wake up to the song every day.”

LONGORIA: Yeah, it’s my ringer.

BECKY G: It’s a vibe. The amount of TikToks we made of that [phone ringtone]… it’s so good.

DEADLINE: Eva you had Becky G in mind for this from the beginning right?

LONGORIA: Yes. The only one.

DEADLINE: Tell me about making that happen? And then the music video?

LONGORIA: Oh yeah, that was fun too. But for me, I’m not musical. Diane knows, I’m not musical. My composer knows this. But when we were shooting [the film], we were talking to Diane, and I was just like, “It’s got to be Becky G. It’s got to be somebody who, again, represents what this movie’s about.”

Authenticity was my north star, from hiring behind the camera, in front of the camera, below the line, our whole crew. I don’t have to explain why there’s Tapatío on the dinner table. There was such a shorthand that we already had. And so I wanted that connection with Becky. And I’ve been a fan, and I’ve known her through other things. We have a soccer team together. We’re both Mexican American. We’re both Chicana. Her last album was about that intersection of who gets to say you’re Mexican enough? And you go, “I do. I get to say.”

And that was part of Richard’s story. And I didn’t want to hit people over the head with the classism or racism, it’s just, I had to set the table for, this is how we navigate our identities in this country. And Richard’s story, as authentic and specific as it is, it’s so broad and universal. Because that could be a Korean American story, it could be a Cuban American story. It could be any immigrant, anybody who straddles the hyphenate. Anybody who straddles that hyphen, of like, I am in both worlds. And I always say that, I’m like, “I’m 100% Mexican, 100% American at the same time.” “Oh, you’re half-and-half?” And you’re like, “No.”

BECKY G: Yeah, why do I have to give up a part of myself to be accepted? I’m 200%. It’s very special.

LONGORIA: But it had to be Becky. And then it’s so funny, because I’ve seen her rise. And she’s had the most insane last couple of years. And so for me, I’m always like, “Oh, we’re going to get Becky.” And then all of a sudden she’s like the hottest thing in the market. And then they were like, good luck getting Becky.

BECKY G: And then all she had to do was phone me, and then I was like, “I’m in.” For me, it was a no-brainer, for sure. I mean, from Richard’s story… And then I mean, she speaks to the honor it is to work with someone like Diane. The feeling for me is absolutely mutual. But for me it’s double, because I have two icons that I get to collaborate with, work with, learn from… It’s the invitation that is this story, this film, this song. To be your best self, to take chances, to bet on yourself.

WARREN: It’s all about betting on yourself now.

BECKY G: You got to be willing to be yourself out there. The amount of times you are the only woman in the room, the only woman of color in a room. And it’s like, I’m not supposed to be here. That’s what can happen. It never felt that way for me, and it’s because of incredible women like Diane, who have done so many incredible things, and said, “Oh, you think this is where it stops? Let me just show you what else.”

LONGORIA: Let me bring you into this other room.

BECKY G: I think, even just to speak to the music video, I did get a little jealous. I was like, “Man, it would’ve been cool to act in the film.” But it was cool, I got to experience her as my director for the music video.

DEADLINE: Do you have any confirmed new acting gigs coming up?

BECKY G: I definitely have some things in the pipeline. I think we’re still, especially after the strikes, there’s still things in very fragile form, I guess you can say. But yeah, I’m definitely very excited about that space.

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