http://movies.about.com/od/bobby/a/bobbycs111206.htm

Christian Slater and Freddy Rodriguez Talk About "Bobby"

Emilio Estevez' dramatic film, Bobby, follows events in the lives of
22 people in the hours leading up to the assassination of Robert F
Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel. Christian Slater plays the man in
charge of the Ambassador Hotel's kitchen while Freddy Rodriguez
handles the crucial role of the hotel's busboy, Jose.

While Slater and Rodriguez play characters who loathe each other in
the film (Slater's character is a racist who treats his staff like
dirt), when the cameras weren't rolling the two got along well. Even
when they were filming Slater and Rodriguez managed to joke their way
through difficult scenes. Together to promote Bobby, Slater and
Rodriguez talked about working on Emilio Estevez' passion project.

What did you remember about Robert F Kennedy and did you find out
anything during the research that surprised you?

Freddy Rodriguez: "I don't if it surprised me, but what I got a sense
of was how he affected the people at that time and the way people
were energized and had this belief in the leader.

I can say that in my generation I've never felt that way about a
leader. I guess maybe a little bit Bill Clinton when he was in power,
but I've never felt the way the youth felt at that time. That was
always fascinating to me and was an educational experience to me. And
just how the world was in turmoil at that time and how they depended
on Bobby becoming a leader to change that. Because America depended
on him, when he was killed they were so completely crushed. I mean,
yes, because a being was killed, but also because their hopes that
change would come were crushed as well."

Christian Slater: "I was born in `69, so I did miss this particular
moment in our history. But I relied on things my parents told me
about the Kennedys and things I'd heard in school and (from) other
filmmakers — Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, who represented this time
period rather well. But the Kennedys to me have always represented a
certain amount of American royalty – Camelot - and certainly survived
a great deal of tragedy. I love the Kennedys. I love their faith and
belief in people and in America, and in the direction we really could
go. Somehow they just seemed to represent a really good quality and
aspect of what's in each and every one of us."

How long did you work on Bobby?

Freddy Rodriguez: [Emilio Estevez] has been at this for years and I
kind of feel like I've vicariously lived that journey with him. The
script was presented to me at least three years before it came into
fruition, so when it was presented to me and I read it and the money
fell through at the first production company it was at, I stayed in
contact with Emilio. He kind of updated me throughout the years as to
what was happening with it. I was very aware of the journey that he
went through with it, just trying to get it off the ground. When he
finally did get it off the ground and people did start to come on
board, I was just really happy that it was happening for him because
I knew what he was going through."

Christian Slater: "For me it probably took about 10 days coming in
there. It was the type of movie where everybody's schedule was
really, really crazy. There were so many people and so many different
story lines to put together and film. There were days when I would
show up and not work, and sit around. But the key for me was just to
be ready. Whenever they did need me I wasn't going to hold anything
up. I just wanted to make sure I was as available to Emilio as I
possibly could be."

Freddy Rodriguez: "I was pretty much there from beginning to end. My
schedule was pretty much peppered throughout the 37-day shooting
schedule. I had a lot of scenes in it, a lot of stuff that was cut
and you don't get to see, but I was pretty much there from beginning
to end."

Can you talk about shooting the assassination scene?

Freddy Rodriguez: "The assassination scene was hard to do for many
different reasons. I guess for me it was a tad eerie because my
character is loosely inspired by an iconic photo that exists of a
busboy holding Robert F. Kennedy after he was shot. I guess when we
were filming it, they would use that photo as reference to position
me. That was surely eerie to recreate. And then actually to see a
photo of myself in that same position, and to compare it to the
actual photo was a little tough to digest."

Christian Slater: "There were extras on the set that could point to
themselves in the actual footage. `There I am, there I am,' so that
certainly added to the power and intensity. You could really feel the
horror of it. From when they would say `action' to `cut', people were
definitely shaking by the end of that scene."

Do you know what happened to the real person who inspired your
character? Did he ever come forward?

Freddy Rodriguez: "Oh yeah, he's definitely been identified. After
the shooting there were even articles done on him and his picture was
taken for the paper. I think he retrieved his rosary after he put it
in Robert's hand, because I remember seeing a photo of him in an
article and he had the rosary in his hand. But yeah, he was
definitely recognized after that. I'm not sure if he's still alive or
not. We chose not to contact him during the filming of this project
because it was not really based on his life, so there was no need to
do that."

Christian Slater: "At the end of Bobby Kennedy's life, the person
that was down there on the ground (with him) were the people he was
actually speaking for and stood up. I find that to be phenomenally
ironic. It ties into the whole speech in the movie. Here's the guy
who's going to be the next President of the United States and at the
end of his life, it just doesn't matter what position we have. We're
famous, not famous, rich or poor — we have a short window of time
here and what are we going to do with it?"

Christian, how did it feel being the villain of the piece?

Christian Slater: "Wasn't there a guy named Sirhan Sirhan? (laughs).
Why am I the villain? I don't get it. I mean that's the bad guy… I'm
the evil bastard. Demi Moore's a vicious drunk. Bill Macy's a
womanizing cheating bastard, and I'm the villain… Yes, I tackled the
race issue there. I got the script — no, no, I got the call from
Emilio when I was in London and he told me about the people that were
involved in the movie and what the subject matter was, and I signed
on prior to reading the script. `Where do I show up?'"

Freddy Rodriguez: "He didn't know what an a-hole he was going to be."

Christian Slater: "Yeah, then I got the script and went, `Oh, s**t.'
But I was reading the character, I'm going along, `Okay, he's a rough
guy, he's a rough guy,' and then there was that scene, the baseball
scene, the radio moment, and having that scene in the movie actually
helped to make the character a lot more human.

I liked that there was that arc.

To bring it back to Bobby Kennedy, I think Bobby Kennedy was a
powerful enough man that he was able to raise the level of education.
Even the other characters that are in the movie, a character like
mine is able to grow and a bridge is able to be built eventually.
People are able to see each other as human to human at some point in
the film. I thought that was really important."

How do you convey the racial issue without making it seem
stereotypical?

Christian Slater: "It's certainly helpful getting to know myself more
so I'm able to differentiate who I am and what the character is that
I'm playing. That helps. And the exciting thing about getting to be
an actor is that you get to put on somebody else's clothes and get
into somebody else's mentality. I think the richness of the script,
really, and the looseness of Emilio's direction. That really helped
to make things feel very relaxed and human and not stifled.

For me, I come on the set and everything's very intense and very
heavy. Everyone's excited doing this movie about Bobby Kennedy, and
Sharon Stone is very intense, and they're all whoop de do, la di da.
My character was certainly much more… You know, I was a human guy, a
product of that time, and someone who had a job to do. I wanted every
available person to be there."