Raquel Laguna/ SUCOPRESS. Actor Danny Pino is Roman Compte in the series Hotel Cocaine, airing on MGM+. In this interview, Danny talks about his character, about working with Yul Vazquez and about growing up in Miami. Hotel Cocaine is the story of Roman Compte, Cuban exile and general manager of the Mutiny Hotel, the glamorous epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. The Mutiny Hotel was Casablanca on cocaine; a glitzy nightclub, restaurant, and hotel frequented by Florida businessmen and politicians, international narcos, CIA and FBI agents, models, sports stars, and musicians. At the center of it all was Compte, who was doing his best to keep it all going and fulfill his own American Dream. Chris Brancato created the series and serves as executive producer and showrunner. Guillermo Navarro directed the pilot and is executive producer of the series alongside Brancato, with Michael Panes and Alfredo Barrios Jr. also serving as executive producers. Hotel Cocaine is produced by MGM+ Studios, in association with Stan in Australia and internationally distributed by Amazon MGM Studios Distribution
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00:00Thank you. Okay. So, I would like to know first, Danny, what attracted you to this project in the first place?
00:11What attracted me to this project in the first place was an actor by the name of Yul Vasquez.
00:23Tremendo actor. He's, you know, a friend and somebody who I've wanted to work with again since Law & Order SVU for years.
00:40And Yul called me and he said, I'm working on The Godfather of Harlem with Chris Brancato, who was the co-creator of Narcos, and he has this new project.
00:58It's based on a real life person, Roman Comte, and it's set in Miami in 1978, in and around the Mutiny Club and Hotel.
01:13And we'd be playing brothers. And that's all I needed to know. I was like, you know, to be able to work with Yul
01:26and develop a story from that time in Miami, a transformative time for Miami, from a small town to a modern cosmopolitan city.
01:44To me, I was born in Miami. I was raised in Miami. So, I immediately responded to what that could be. And then after reading the script that Chris had sent and multiple conversations with Chris,
02:00he gave us the license because Chris isn't Cuban and Chris doesn't, you know, he doesn't know Miami as well as Yul and I do. And Chris is a fantastic writer and an incredible storyteller,
02:23but also maybe an equally as incredible collaborator. And so he allowed for myself and Yul to Cubanizar la historia, Cubanizar los personajes, Cubanizar el diálogo, el cubaneo.
02:43And so that, I think, elevated what, you know, would have potentially been something, you know, less authentic.
02:56And what do you like the most about playing Roman Comte?
03:02Roman Comte actually existed. You know, to me, that's very interesting, right? It adds a level of complexity as well, because I know Roman's son, Maurice Comte.
03:22Maurice and I worked on Mayans MC together. He's a fantastic actor. And Maurice was working with Chris Brancato, our showrunner, on Narcos. And Maurice talked to Chris about his father and that time in Miami history.
03:45And specifically, you know, the Mutiny Club and how that was the magnet for, you know, stars, for rock stars, for movie stars, for, you know, socialites, for political figures.
04:02But also for, you know, para los marimberos, the cocaine cowboys, y además de los marimberos, la DEA, you know, that was investigating the entire thing.
04:13But the Mutiny was Switzerland, right? Because everybody, like my character says at the beginning of the show, was having way too much fun.
04:21What made it more interesting for me to play Roman was to also understand the cost, right? El precio for ese placer, right? Every pleasure has a price, is what my character says.
04:43And so it's a cautionary tale as well. It's not meant to glamorize esa época. It's meant to understand it and to see what the true cost was of, you know, the party.
05:08To keep that party going, what the true cost was. And obviously the cost was the blood that was running through the streets of Miami all the way back to South America.
05:18Describe Roman's relationship with Nestor, his brother.
05:24Bueno, yo creo que son hermanos y se quieren muchísimo. En un tiempo anterior tuvieron una relación súper cercana, ¿no? Como hermanos, con lealtad.
05:50Y después de entrenar con la CIA y atacar a Playa Girón y el fracaso de Playa Girón contra la dictadura castrista, y fueron encarcelados juntos por meses en Cuba.
06:08Y cuando llegaron al exilio de nuevo en Miami, Roman con una hija y Nestor todavía con esa ilusión, con la imagen de una Cuba libre, él hizo otras decisiones, ¿no?
06:32Y se involucró en la marimba y se hizo uno de los cocaine cowboys más grandes de Miami. Y pues Roman hizo otra decisión para proteger a su familia.
06:45Él es un hombre humilde, trabajador, valiente, inteligente, pero padre, ¿no? Y pues pasaron años con distancia.
07:05Y cuando se presenta el agente de la DEA, desarrollado por Michael Chiklis, tremendo actor. Y nosotros, Michael y yo, trabajamos en la serie de SHIELD hace años.
07:24Pero él le hace una oferta a Roman que no puede rechazar. Y entonces Roman se involucra en ese mundo de su hermano, de la marimba, y es un mundo sumamente peligroso, no solamente para Roman, pero para su familia, para su hija.
07:47And so they get closer because of that. You know, I think part of the interesting story is, as I'm going back and forth between Spanish and English, porque eso pasa en nuestra serie, y es el idioma de Miami, ¿no? Es el Spanglish.
08:04Yo creo que algo importante e interesante de esa oferta que le hace el agente de la DEA a Roman es un riesgo y es un peligro, pero también yo creo que él tiene esperanza de ver a su hermano de nuevo.
08:31Y esa relación de revivir esa relación con su hermano.
08:44In your opinion, what makes Hotel Cocaine different from other narco TV series out there?
08:55Well, I think that Hotel Cocaine certainly has the DNA of many television shows and movies.
09:08You know, in much the same way that, you know, The Godfather, and I'm going to mention these incredible pieces of art, not to say, you know, I don't want to sound pretentious and to say that Hotel Cocaine reaches those levels, although, you know, I think we're striving to.
09:29But certainly the DNA of the organized crime story of, you know, The Godfather, although it has the backdrop of organized crime being about the mafia, it's really about family, right?
09:48And about loyalty and about power in much the same way that Goodfellas is about family and about loyalty and about power.
09:57You know, I think you can make the argument that Breaking Bad is about family and about loyalty and about power.
10:07You know, we can go down the line of, you know, these stories that share a similar DNA.
10:13But what makes Hotel Cocaine unique is what we just talked about.
10:19The Spanglish, El Cubaneo, you know, it's a story told from a perspective that we haven't seen.
10:29Because Scarface, even though it takes place in a similar time, I mean, we're actually an antecedent to Scarface.
10:37We take place two years before 1980, where you find Tony Montana and that version of Miami.
10:45You know, I think our story is different, similar in a lot of ways, but different in that our characters have been in the United States for a while and they have established themselves.
11:03They're not just arriving to the United States.
11:08In fact, I think it would be very interesting in later seasons, if we're lucky enough to tell that story, to see the Arthur McDuffie uprisings that happened in 1980 in Miami, to see the Mariel Boatlift happen in Miami and how that affects and transforms further the city that I was born and raised in.
11:35And how it affects specifically, you know, the family that you see at home, but also the family that you meet at the mutiny.
11:46Question very quick, as an actor, what did you learn working for so many years in Cold Case and Law & Order?
11:55I think the simplest answer, because this could take 45 minutes, to be honest, Raquel, what did I learn?
12:10So much. There's so much I learned from so many amazing artists, actors, directors, writers, crew, producers, you know, executives.
12:25There's so much that I learned, but I think the most important thing I learned was gratitude, to be grateful for the opportunity to play these characters, to work with these people.
12:39And to continue to grow as an artist. I think gratitude is the thing I take with me and I apply it everywhere.
12:50Thank you so much for your time. Great show.
12:53Thank you, Raquel. Muchísimas gracias.
12:55Gracias.
12:56Muy amable.
12:57Saludos.
12:58Saludos.
12:59Adios, Dorian.
13:00Gracias, Raquel.