'Holidays' a family affair on Humboldt Park movie set

Three of Hollywood's most respected Hispanic movie stars - Elizabeth Pena, Luis Guzman and Freddy Rodriguez - swear they had their best time ever on a movie set when they spent five weeks in Humboldt Park filming "Nothing Like the Holidays."

I know what you're thinking: Movie stars always say they had a great time on the set. It's like how every star manages to have been the producer's "first choice" to play a role.

But this time, the stars say they really mean it: Making "Nothing Like the Holidays" in Chicago was a whole different thing. When I met the three stars in Chicago's Four Seasons Hotel last week, I wanted to know: What made it so special?

"It was an awesome experience," said Guzman, the popular 52-year-old Puerto Rico-born character actor, "shooting in Humboldt Park with all the different families who lived in that neighborhood, who invited us into their homes. There was a celebration going on for five weeks, and that transpired on to film."

Really? Come on, now. Really?

"I've never laughed so much on a set before," said Pena, a 47-year-old native New Yorker. "Usually, when somebody yells 'Cut!' everybody splits and goes to their trailer. Here, when they cut, we just kept going and wanting to stay together."

Yeah? And?

"Usually, when a movie crew goes into a neighborhood, you're not very welcomed. People want you out, and that was not the case in Humboldt Park. They actually became part of the movie. That was different for me. And all the laughter and the dirty jokes."

Pena looked squarely at Guzman as she said that. He smiled.

I turned to Rodriguez for the straight dope. He's 33 and a born-and-bred Chicagoan who wouldn't fib about such things, even if he did serve as executive producer of the movie.

"Normally, when you make a film, you're not greeted warmly because you're taking up parking spaces and disrupting people's daily routines," Rodriguez said. "We were embraced. They literally opened their doors to us. We were invited into people's homes to get warm in between scenes because it was 20 below zero when we were filming.

"People would say to us, 'Hey, I'm going to the grocery store to get stuff to make a dinner for you guys. You're more than welcome to come and eat, and if you can't come, that's OK, too.' To think that people would go to all that trouble to cook us a meal, in case we got hungry, is beyond me. I've never experienced that before in my life."

"Nothing Like the Holidays" opens wide Friday. It centers around the Rodriguez family members who've come to their parents' Humboldt Park home for Christmas. Jesse (Rodriguez) is back from the Iraq war to reunite with his family, including his cousin Johnny (Guzman) and his mother Anna (Pena), who drops a bomb when she announces she's divorcing her husband (Alfred Molina).

Wait just a second.

Is the world ready for Pena to play an aging matriarch? Pena racked up a roster of movies as a Hispanic hottie in such works as "Jacob's Ladder." How does she feel about going from hottie to matriarch?

"It was liberating," she practically shouted. "Liberating! When you play the hottie, you gotta look gooood! When you don't, the whole vanity part of it goes out the window. It was awesome. You know how actresses always say 'Don't put powder around my eyes'? Well, I said, 'Powder them up!' In addition to it being liberating, I got to boss everyone around, which is fantastic!"

All three actors say their success in show business took them by surprise.

"I was a social worker in New York City working with teenagers. I stumbled into the business," Guzman said. "I wound up getting a part on the season premiere of 'Miami Vice.' All I wanted out of it was enough money to buy me a used car so I could drive to the beach on the weekends and not have to take mass transit.

"If it had been the first and last thing I ever did, I would have been OK with that. It just kept snowballing and snowballing. I'll be very honest with you. I pinch myself every day. I'm pretty awed by the places that I've been and the people that I've worked with. Watching myself up on the big screen. I'm pretty humbled by it."

Rodriguez, on the other hand, had a theater background.

"I never dreamed of doing movies and TV because I always felt that wasn't obtainable," he said. "The goal was to do a play at the Goodman or Steppenwolf. That was always our Broadway for us. No one ever talked about getting in a car and driving to L.A. to do TV and movies.

"The big thing in Chicago back then was 'I want to get an agent and get a national commercial.' When I was 17, I did a national commercial for KFC and I thought I was a superstar. Outside of that, it never seemed obtainable."

That was Rodriquez the actor. What does the first-time executive producer think of making a movie in his hometown of Chicago?

"I just think the people are grateful," he said. "Grateful that a Chicago guy has done OK and brought some of that success back to Chicago. I feel blessed that I'm in a position to do that."