Flamin' Hot costars Jesse Garcia and Annie Gonzalez on confronting their real-life characters' past

Flamin' Hot stars Jessie Garcia and Annie Gonzalez both say it was fate that they got to play husband and wife in Eva Longoria's feature directorial debut.

"I read the script and I go, 'Oh, this is mine. I know this was written for me,'" Garcia tells EW about auditioning for the film, directed by Eva Longoria and written by Gentefied co-creator Linda Yvette Chavez. "I don't mind auditions. I don't mind the self-tapes. All I have to do now is put in the work." And, perhaps because they still share that connection that comes from playing a real-life long-time married couple, in a separate interview Gonzalez says in almost the same ambitious tone, "When I read Linda Yvette Chavez's beautiful writing, I was like, 'Yo, I'm the only one that can play this. I have to play this.'" She adds, "I needed this role as much as it needed me."

20th Century Studios Jesse Garcia and Annie Gonzales in 'Flamin' Hot'

In the movie, streaming now on Hulu and Disney+, Garcia plays Richard Montañez, the real-life man who rose from cholo to janitor to top marketing executive at Frito-Lay after he helped create Flamin' Hot Cheetos. But the film isn't just some corporate culture, go get 'em, pat on the back; Flamin' Hot also loudly declares who the real heroes were behind that magic red dust: Richard's wife (Gonzalez's Judy Montañez), his family, and the Latino community who didn't let his dream die.

After a few missed opportunities, Garcia was eventually able to meet Richard at his home. "We sat around and talked for two or three hours about all kinds of stuff," Garcia recalls. "I wanted to know the details of their slang throughout the '70s, '80s, '90s, how it evolved, the hairstyles, what Richard kept in his pocket. The pet names they had for each other and the kids. Stuff that I could add in that wasn't in the script, cool little details."

"I don't want to mimic him. I don't want to make a mockery of what he is," the actor continues. "He's such a unique, charismatic, funny, and quirky guy that there's no way I could do him justice like that. So for me, the important part was telling his story."

20th Century Studios Jesse Garcia as Richard Montañez in 'Flamin' Hot'

Unlike biopics of the past, Flamin Hot isn't about celebrating a man who suddenly bullied his way to the top. In fact, in several key moments, the film lends a vulnerability to the working-class hero, flawed in the most human of ways, fueled by a dream to provide a better life for his family. Garcia recognized that vulnerability in Richard, someone he thinks doesn't subscribe to stereotypical ideals of masculinity.

"I think if you do look at men, while they suppress their feelings — and that is part of the stigma of having feelings, that they're a bunch of softies," Garcia explains. "I think the older men get especially, the softer they get, because you can only bottle stuff up for so long until you cry at a cat commercial."

For Gonzalez's part, she says becoming Judy felt "very second nature" to her, adding, "I feel like a lot of how she moves through the world is a lot of what I identify with." Judy, though not part of the corporate history, gets credit in the film as being part of developing the spicy snack recipe. But more importantly, Judy also represents the unsung work of many women — the support system that takes care of the home so her husband could achieve what he did.

20th Century Studios Annie Gonzales as Judy Montañez in 'Flamin' Hot'

Though the movie largely concentrates on the corporate rise to the top, Flamin' Hot is also honest about both the Montañez's cholo (gang member) history. Richard had questions about it, and Gonzalez recalls Judy having "some apprehension" about her "cholita past" being portrayed on screen.

"This beautiful God-loving woman, I remember I sat with her and I implored her that it's important to see her testimony of 'you don't choose that life, you're born into it because of circumstance and environment, but you then get to choose where you end up,'" she recalls. "'You get to grow and you don't ever leave that. That's a part of your soul. And it's not bad, it's a part of it. That can help inspire a bunch of other people too.... That might have been what I'm born into, but I can grow and blossom into something else.'"

Gonzalez continues, "Understanding how to position yourself to uplift the collective is one of the biggest things. I feel like that's a part of my purpose. We all have different mediums of how we do it. I do it through acting and my work. She did it by supporting Richard and helping come up with a concept to market to Latino audiences. I think we're all doing the same thing in different mediums, so it wasn't hard to understand [her]."

For both Garcia and Gonzalez, getting to show the authentic journey of the real-life people they portray was important for the future of representation. "there's something I heard recently that was like, 'You don't realize you've never seen yourself until you have,'" Gonzalez shares. "How exciting that I might possibly be that for someone else, like Richard and Judy, and inspire them to want to pursue their dreams."

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