From Disney Dad to Christopher Nolan Collaborator, Jesse Garcia’s Game for It All

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When Jesse Garcia first signed on to play Richard Montañez, the real-life janitor-turned-Frito-Lay executive who dreamed up Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, in 2023’s Flamin’ Hot, he had no idea the role would bring him hordes of younger fans.

“Kids would come up to me, and I didn’t expect it,” Garcia says via Zoom from Pylos, Greece, where he’s currently shooting Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation of The Odyssey. “[It was] all kids of all backgrounds, you know — white kids and Latino kids and Black kids and everybody.”

With his latest project, however, he can expect to expand his young fanbase even further: the 42-year-old actor is starring in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip, out Friday on Disney+, where he plays Frank, a dad whose efforts to take his family on a spring break trip to Mexico City to reconnect with their culture go hilariously awry. It’s a family movie, but Garcia says the role interested him because the writing will appeal to adults as well.

“The story’s so good,” he says. “It has a little bit of comedy and drama and identity mixed in there, and within the family, within the culture, within each one of their individual storylines, everyone’s trying to figure out who they are, who they’ve evolved into being. It was a complex and touching story that I really wanted to do.”

The film is a standalone sequel to 2014’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which was based on the children’s book of the same name. For Garcia, it offered the chance to star opposite his good friend Eva Longoria, who directed him in Flamin’ Hot, as well as improvise with Cheech Marin, who plays his father-in-law. (“He’s a legend, man,” Garcia says, beaming.) But it was also an opportunity to “do the Latino community a service,” he adds, noting that it’s important for there to be a Disney movie centered around a Mexican American family.

“They’re an American family, like so many other American families,” he explains. “They break a lot of the stereotypes…. Some cultural identity is involved as well, and kind of digging back into the roots and going to Mexico. But it’s also a movie that doesn’t hit you over the head with it. It’s just part of their journey; it could be a part of anyone’s journey.”

Representation matters, and even though we spoke before Alexander hits Disney+, Garcia had already received plenty of messages on Instagram from fans about it. 

“People are really proud of the representation and how we’re taking steps forward, little by little,” he says. “Latinos keep coming out and supporting it, and everyone spreads the word so that we can keep getting these movies made and greenlit.” He remembers the impression that movies like La Bamba, Selena and Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi had on him growing up.

“What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was seeing a reflection of myself, right?” he says. “And subconsciously recognizing that and feeling comfortable and feeling at home.”

Beyond the impact it might have on other people, Alexander is significant for Garcia because it was an opportunity to flex a creative muscle he doesn’t often get the chance to showcase onscreen. 

“People are finally letting me do comedy, even though that’s what I trained in when I first started,” he says. “I was doing sketch comedy, I was doing a lot of improv, but for whatever reason I book a lot of dramas.”

As a former college cheerleader who majored in exercise science, Garcia is also eager to lean into his athleticism in more physically demanding parts. “I’m trying to diversify my roles,” he explains. “I want to do some more action stuff now when I’m still young — you know what I mean, youngish — and I’m still healthy enough to do these bigger action roles. I would love to do some bigger movies and TV shows, and I’m also working on directing and producing some stuff that I’m developing as well.” 

“I have to be 150% into what I’m working on,” he says, “otherwise it’s not worth it to me. I want to feel like I’m excited to go to work, even if I’m only on four hours of sleep.”

He’s referring to the fact that it’s 9 p.m. in Greece and he’s just gotten home from a long day on set — one that began at 4 a.m. He’s not at liberty to discuss much about The Odyssey; even his character is being kept under wraps for now. But it certainly ticks off all the boxes for him, and he promises “people are going to see stuff in this movie that they’ve never seen before,” adding, “It’s going to be epic.”

If the whiplash of acting in a Disney road-trip comedy and Christopher Nolan’s next blockbuster isn’t enough, that’s just the tip of the iceberg for Garcia. He has a number of projects in development that range from a cop show set in Houston in the 1980s to what he describes as “some horror stuff.” He’s also writing and looking to move behind the camera and direct, noting that he’s currently “accepting pitches” for the right feature.

“I’m just looking to work with good people who want to make cool stuff and be good to each other, because the industry is tough right now,” he says. “If we can chip away at the damage that’s been done over the past five or six years and start to repair the industry and figure out different ways of doing things, which I think we should, I think there’s going to be a new generation and a revolution in filmmaking.”

Wherever that revolution comes from, Garcia is planning to have a hand in it.

Photography: Franz Steiner (except where noted)