“Gun Hill Road,” opening at the Ritz today, tells two compelling, parallel stories within a Latino family in the Bronx. Enrique (Esai Morales) returns home from prison and has trouble reconnecting with his family. His wife, Angela (Judy Reyes), is having an affair, and his son, Michael (Harmony Santana), is transitioning his gender to become Vanessa.
Enrique’s issues — which revolve around masculinity and honor — come into conflict with his son when he discovers Michael likes to wear eyeliner and use the girls’ bathroom at school. In contrast, Michael/Vanessa’s concerns — aside from Enrique’s return — include dealing with Chris (Tyrone Brown), who wants to keep their sexual relationship out of the public eye.
Morales and Santana spoke separately with PGN about their roles in “Gun Hill Road.”
Santana, making a memorable screen debut, said she learned about the film after meeting director Rashaad Ernesto Green at a gay pride parade in Queens.
“I was working at a booth for AIDS awareness and prevention, and Rashaad came up to me with a flyer about the film and what he was looking for. I said I wanted to audition. I came in. At the time, I wasn’t going by Harmony. He told me to come back as a girl, and I did, and that’s when he told me I got the role.”
Santana then went into an intense, six-week training course with an acting coach to prepare for “Gun Hill Road.” She laughs when she admits that her coach had her practice moaning for the film’s sex scene. “Preparing for that was so weird!” she admitted with a laugh. But the actress gets serious when she talks about having to draw on her personal experiences to create the tensions between father and son.
She confessed that she has not spoken to her own father in five years. “I was hearing conversations he had with my mom — and him calling me ‘faggot.’ It was more mental and verbal abuse. My mom defended me,” Santana recalled with obvious pain.
She also acknowledged that in real life, she experiences many of the same issues Vanessa does, from getting hormone shots to dating a guy who wants to keep their relationship on the down low.
What appealed to her about the role, she said, “is that Michael/Vanessa goes through a lot of things trans women go through.”
In one of the best moments in “Gun Hill Road,” Michael dresses up to go out as Vanessa. It’s a telling, non-verbal scene that explains more about her character than any expository speech could. Santana is justifiably proud of it.
“Rashaad had initially written for me to put on makeup and the outfit and shoes. He had me dress myself and ask, ‘What do you do next?’ I gave him the idea for the gaff [genital hiding undergarment]. He had no idea what that was. It’s my favorite scene, but I felt a little exposed,” she demurred.
The other narrative of “Gun Hill Road” is the depiction of masculinity as represented by Morales’ character, Enrique. When confronted with Michael/Vanessa’s gender-identity issues, Enrique has a constant refrain, “What does this say about me?” His reaction is authentic as machismo is an integral component of Latin culture: Men are expected to carry the male gene forward, “Not push it back in such a flagrant way,” said Morales over the phone.
“My character has this misguided notion that he is the victim here,” he explained. “In the Latin world, mothers say, ‘I put forth machos — men.’ For a guy to have a girly son, after being in prison … ” the actor let the sentence hang, as if for dramatic effect.
The conversation shifts to Morales playing his first ex-con role since his mesmerizing film debut in “Bad Boys” alongside Sean Penn in 1983.
“It’s so freaky. I avoided playing convicts after ‘Bad Boys.’ I believe art adds up. If you’re always playing drug dealers and cons, then you’re just biding time as an actor. I like to do stuff that makes people think.”
He continued, “Since ‘Bad Boys,’ I’ve always wanted to take the bad-guy character and give him more dimension.” He gives Enrique life in “Gun Hill Road,” walking around as if he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Morales described meeting the real-life man Enrique is based on: “I got the core of his pathos and his belief, which has religious undertones. ‘God don’t make mistakes. God is perfect and you’re insulting God for putting him in the wrong body.’”
The actor even admitted to once sharing a similar attitude. “I was him to some degree. I adopted an attitude people had about gay and trans people. This film is an act of retrogression in my own personal life.”
What attracted Morales to “Gun Hill Road” was the way it attempts to bridge an understanding between characters.
“People are who they are no matter what. No matter how much you try to make a man out of [Michael], you can’t,” he said. “People like Enrique are missing out on gay and trans people. You see this story told in an honest way. You’re rooting for Harmony’s character. The film is designed for people like my character who have a narrow concept for what being a man is.”
Then Morales cited his favorite scene in the film, a quiet moment when Michael and his father are sitting on the couch, silently watching TV. “They are so close and yet so far apart. That’s the beauty of this film. It doesn’t try to solve everything neatly.”