Ricky Martin on acting in Palm Royale, the Latin explosion and how coming out saved his career
As his global smash Livin’ La Vida Loca turns 25, Ricky Martin reflects on how he changed the face of music and his passion for Australia.
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Ricky Martin can scarcely believe that Livin’ La Vida Loca is about to turn 25, but he says the sure-fire dancefloor-filler is still changing his life.
His jaw drops over Zoom call from Los Angeles, where he is promoting his new AppleTV+ dramedy Palm Royale, when informed that the Latin-tinged certified banger will hit the milestone on March 27.
“The fact that I’m talking about it 25 years later is a wonderful thing,” he says with a grin. “The fact that you go to a wedding and they play this song still is a wonderful thing … then it tells me that was so long ago, but then it feels like it was yesterday.”
Puerto Rico born Martin says that the song from his first English language, self-titled album, which was nominated for four Grammys and topped the global charts from Greece to Guatemala (although only hit No. 4 in Australia), was a turning point not just in his life, but for Latin music more broadly. And he says he knew from the moment he heard the demo that it was something special.
‘I don’t want to sound arrogant in any way, shape or form, but I really felt that this was going to change everyone’s life – like the producers, the writers, the musicians that were part of it, the industry itself,” he says.
“It was a before and after and I’m going to own it. I’m not going to be embarrassed about it. You play that song today and you feel the tickles in your stomach just as you when you heard it 25 years ago.”
Martin, who started his musical career in a boy band in Puerto Rico and had already released four Spanish language albums, says that back then “the walls were higher” for Latin artists trying to cross over into the mainstream. But the astonishing success of that single and the album that accompanied it, which sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, helped pave the way for a Latin pop explosion.
“What it represented in the history of music, it opened doors to an entire culture and to an entire group of artists who really wanted to be heard, musically speaking,” Martin says. “We talk about Shakira, we talk about Jennifer Lopez, we talk about Enrique Iglesias. It’s just wonderful what that song could represent to all of us. It was a very beautiful time in music and I will never forget it.”
That song also put Martin on the path to becoming one of the most successful artists of the new millennium. He’s a two-time Grammy-winner, has sold more than 70 million albums, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is a philanthropist and LGBTQI rights advocate and was also a judge on The Voice Australia for three seasons. But despite all his success – or possibly because of it – he says he is still his own harshest critic. His fiercely competitive streak and drive to succeed began when he was in the boy band Menudo and to this day, the father-of-four says it’s something he has to rein in from time to time.
“You don’t understand how tough I am with myself,” he says. “I’ll bring my A game all the time regardless of what I’m doing. I am so self-critical, and I need to work on that. I know I have to let go once in a while because it’s not fair, but this is something that I grew up with.
“I started when I was 12 years old in a boy band and all those five guys, we were competing against each other. We wanted more fans than the others. I guess it is something that I really need to work on. It’s so much better now. It’s not as bad as it used to be.”
Martin says he had to learn to live with that pressure when he spread his wings into the acting world. Although he began his life in front of the camera in commercials from the age of 9, had stints in soap operas in Mexico and the US in the ‘90s, and appeared on Broadway in Les Miserables, his acting career took a back seat as his music career took off.
But his passion for the craft was reignited when he played real life figure Antonio D’Amico, the lover of slain fashion designer Gianni Versace, in the 2018 season of anthology series American Crime story. Martin was nominated for an Emmy for his performance and he says the honour both validated his faith in his own abilities and encouraged him to aim high with future projects. Above all, though, he committed to ignoring the critics and enjoying the ride.
“It’s a big responsibility – once you’re nominated for an Emmy it’s like you have to do things right,” he says. “You have to bring the A-game in everything you do but you have to enjoy the process. It cannot be painful. Sometimes pain is good, but you have to lean more to the towards a joyful approach towards everything in the creative process.
“I feel really good with myself, and I won’t go crazy and obsessed about trying to make people understand or believe in me in the acting world. I’m just going to act and I’m just going to make people get to their own conclusions about how I look or how I feel in front of the camera as an actor. I cross my fingers that it’s all positive.”
Martin says that he jumped at the opportunity to appear alongside Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters star Kristen Wiig, Oscar-winners Alison Janney and Laura Dern and comedy legend Carol Burnett in the new comedy drama Palm Royale. After seeing him dancing at on Oscars after-party, the show’s creator Abe Sylvia decided the pop star would be perfect to play Robert Diaz, a Korean War veteran with secrets who works as a bartender in the swanky titular club, in his tale about a broke pretender (Wiig) trying to bluff her way into the upper echelons of Florida society.
“Hey, let’s be honest,” Martin says. “If they give me the opportunity to work with the people that I’m working with – Carol Burnett, Laura Dern, Kristin Wiig … come on … Alison Janney … it’s wonderful. And then on top of that, you tell a really good story. I believe a story that could be of impact for society and would make people think, then that’s good, even though it’s kind of dark.”
The tagline for the 10-part series – a blackly funny if largely unflattering portrait of greed, envy, prejudice and extreme wealth – posits the question “How much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice to get what someone else has?”
Martin says that while this is a universal question for anyone who ever felt excluded or unrecognised, it was also one that he faced early in his career as “a gay man and having to hide my identity for many years”.
“I was in front of the camera and growing up in an era where that was not going be accepted and I was not going to be liked and that was exactly the opposite of my career wants,” he says. “You want to be accepted, you want people to recognise you, you want to get this standing ovation, you want people to say you’re doing great. Don’t talk about your personal life, we just want to see what you’re doing in music, and we want to see you on stage.”
Martin, who came out publicly in 2010, eventually realised that honesty and openness was the key to both his creativity and longevity and he couldn’t hide his personal life without his career suffering.
“The thing is that one feeds the other and people will get it when you’re faking it or when you’re not being completely honest,” he says. “The audience is smart and they sense honesty or hypocrisy and your life will be very short. I’ve been 40 years in front of the camera and I’m still here struggling and surviving and I think it’s because I am now being honest and transparent and I don’t hide my emotions. I tell you if I’m not feeling good. I tell you if I’m feeling amazing, and I share and I guess the audience appreciates that.”
Between 2013 and 2015, Martin spent extended periods in Sydney while filming The Voice – and he says he’s desperate to get back. He says he misses the people, the talent he encountered in the TV and music industry and his beloved Bronte to Bondi coastal walk.
“You don’t understand what Australia means to me,” he says. “And not only to me but to my children. I loved the time that we spent there and I talk about Australia all the time. I really love it there. Hopefully I’ll go there before the year is over.
“Australians have this warm and very charming love of my music and my work. I remember doing Customs in Australia and the officer told me ‘Ricky, where’s your Australian passport?’ And I’m like, ‘Thank you so much’. It’s just magic what I feel when I’m in Aussie and I definitely I would love to go back and spend long periods of time.”
Palm Royale streams on AppleTV+ from March 20.
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