Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512433
B Y T E R E S S A H I L L | D E P A R T M E N T H E A D H A I R PHOTOS BY EMILY ARAGONES/20TH CENTURY STUDIOS 76 • THE ARTISAN WINTER 2024 Going from Hollywood to the White House is exactly what this big-little film accomplished. On June 15, 2023, during Immigrant Heritage Month, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden hosted a public screening of the film before a crowd of several hundred. It was the first film ever shown on the South Lawn that focused on the Hispanic community. A rags-to-riches story about a Mexican-American janitor with only a fourth-grade education, who became a top executive at Frito-Lay. This film was all that, and a flamin' hot bag of chips. It began in May 2021, as Variety magazine reported, with several big studios vying to produce a script titled Flamin' Hot. Fox Searchlight won out, and Eva Longoria signed on to direct. A Thursday afternoon in late June of that same year, I received a call from my agent telling me he FLAMIN' HOT FLAMIN' HOT Jesse Garcia as Richard Montanez Bringing Mexican Heritage to the U.S. Capital L-R: Director Eva Longoria, President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden