George Lopezis coming out with the next installment of hisChupaCartermiddle-grade novel series.
“There was this mylar balloon that I could have sworn turned and got in our picture,” he tells PEOPLE of the event. “I was making fun of the balloons because I’d never seen mylar sugar skull Day of the Dead balloons, so I was like what’s up with this balloon? Where do you find these things?”
“And it’s there and it’s a little bit twisted, and we took this picture — it’s almost like at the end ofThe Shining, where Jack Nicholson is in that picture. When I looked at the picture, the balloon was at our shoulders, like it was meant to be in the picture.”
Lopez continues, “I feel that to this day, I don’t know how it got into that position, but I understand that itcouldget into the position.”
“So it’s different from the first one, but kind of based in like this cultural belief in the afterlife or believe in fate or in a universe,” Lopez notes of the new novel.
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Lopez has grown fond of writing for middle-grade readers, who he says are in a unique “incubation period” at this time in their life.
“I don’t even know if they know how much their lives are going to change when they come to these books, because of social media and peer pressure and all those things. But what’s beautiful is there’s an incubation period that that they’re in, and I don’t think they know that they’re in it, but I remember reading books when I was in my incubation period.”
“So I was 12 and those books still —El Chicanoand all those books from book drives that I got at school — they still mean a lot to me, and it’s been over 50 years.”
Though he’s no stranger to family-facing content, Lopez says writing for kids is “very different” than acting on family-facing shows.
“It’s very different because so much of my career was meant to be exaggerated — in the comedy, in the standup — this was more of a real-life situation.”
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“I had my very first friend, Ernie, pass away. The night before we did the pilot of the new show. And it’s very emotional for me because my first friend, but when I looked back on our relationship, he took me on every road that I’m still on today.”
“He was the first guy that introduced me to comedy, he introduced me to golf. He introduced me to going to concerts and the guitar and those are things that I still do. I never got a chance to tell him that I owed him for putting me on my path,” he shares. “It’s very difficult to think that he is not around anymore, but also his impact, I feel it in everything that I do.”
Lopez is modest about what he’s contributed to Latino representation in media, but when talking of the series' future, he thinks back to representation in the books he was exposed to as a child.
“When I was growing up, we thought nobody would be able to relate to our issues — even though they’re the same issues that they had. I think they thought that you had to be a certain color to have these problems, but all kids have them.”
“I think Ryan is doing a great job with me, that we are leaving something that I would have loved to have read myself [as a kid] and that is an honor. I would have loved to have these books. And a lot of the parents that I talked to, they’re not Latinos, but they relate to the issues too.”
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In the year ahead, Lopez is excited to continue celebrating family with his showLopez v. Lopez, in which he stars in alongside daughter Mayan, 26.
“I think about my solitude and then I get to work with my daughter, who chose to go into the field that my grandmother and grandfather told me I was wasting my time with. She chose to be a comedian and now that the show will continue on. Every day, I get to see this kid and it’s almost like a flashback. I look at her every time we’re working and I see her at two, at four at seven, at ten, and it’s the most beautiful thing that I get every day to have Mayan stand next to me.”
“And then you’re creating a Latina, very powerful producer, creator and, you know, so I hope that she continues on,” he adds.
Looking ahead, Lopez is excited to see how far the series can go and what it will come to mean to its readers.
“As I get older — there’s a beautiful bag of tricks that I have, but the more adult ones are more jaded and jagged,” Lopez notes. “I think Ryan and I have found a way to work together that inspires kids. I’d rather inspire kids because that will inspire them years after I’m gone. It’s the most lasting legacy, and then I come back as a mylar balloon that gets in everybody’s picture.”
source: people.com
