When Jesse Garcia first signed on to play Richard Montañez, the real-life janitor-turned-Frito-Lay executive who dreamed up Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, in 2023’s Flamin’ Hot, he had no idea the role would bring him hordes of younger fans. “Kids would come up to me, and I didn’t expect it,” Garcia says via Zoom from Pylos, Greece, where he’s currently shooting Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation of The Odyssey. “[It was] all kids of all backgrounds, you know — white kids and Latino kids and Black kids and everybody.” With his latest project, however, he can expect to expand his young fanbase even further: the 42-year-old actor is starring in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip, out Friday on Disney+, where he plays Frank, a dad whose efforts to take his family on a spring break trip to Mexico City to reconnect with their culture go hilariously awry. It’s a family movie, but Garcia says the role interested him because the writing will appeal to adults as well. |