Me (7 page)

From the time I was twelve until the time I was seventeen—the five formative years of adolescence—all I heard was: “Wear this. Cut your hair like this. Sing this. Learn this dance routine. Talk to this journalist.” I never had the chance to make my own decisions, which is why I had no idea how to make them! During those same five years, I was trained—I was indoctrinated—to personify a concept. I was forced to hide my feelings and my personality at all costs. I couldn’t be Kiki or Ricky. . . . The only thing that mattered was that I was a good Menudo!

While I was in New York I had a lot of time to think, and I realized that over the previous several years I had become an expert at hiding my emotions. I’d say to myself, “No, I don’t want to feel this,” and I would shut down. It was hard for me to say, “I love you,” because the thing I feared most was rejection. I had spent so much time thinking that the only thing that mattered was that you follow a certain set of rules for other people to like you, so I didn’t have a clue what it meant to be genuine and express my own feelings.

For nine months, I lived happily among the people in the great city of New York, and experienced what it was like to live like “a normal person” instead of a celebrity. It wasn’t the life of a monk or an ascetic, but I created a peaceful and relaxed lifestyle for myself, and that’s the way I continued to live my life from then on. I would sit on a park bench and look at the people passing by, without being accosted for autographs or photographs. In this city of millions, I was anonymous. And that simple life, enjoying and noticing simple things like the change of seasons, allowed me to find the inner peace that I had lost. I reconnected with the dreams and fantasies of my youth, and I still believed in making all my dreams come true.

The silence allowed me to think of the future and genuinely ask myself what I really wanted to do. One possibility was to study acting at New York University, but I didn’t know if I wanted to go back to the stage. Show business was still a source of mixed emotions, and one day I told my mother I wanted to study computer science. She, of course, immediately said, “Son, please don’t do that.”

I felt angry that she was not going to support what I wanted to do, so I responded: “Mami, I’m telling you that I want to study, which is what all moms want for their kids. And you are telling me you don’t want me to? How is that possible?”

“Son,” she said, “you may not realize it yet, but it’s your destiny to be onstage.” She already knew what I was about even before I was willing to accept the truth.

“Mami, don’t even think about that!” I said to her. “I never want to go back to the stage. I’ve had enough.”

I was a bit annoyed, so we didn’t touch upon the subject again. A few months later she came to visit me and we went to see a concert at Radio City. Suddenly, in the middle of the show, I turned to say something to her, only to find her with tears streaming down her face. She was sobbing like a baby.

“Mami, what’s wrong?” I asked, worried.

“Son, you just can’t give up on show business,” she said. “That is your place, in center stage, in the spotlight.”

My mother’s words stayed in my head. They affected me, of course, but not enough to make me change my mind. Now that I think about it, I never really sought out the stage. It was the stage that found me. I did it because the opportunity came quite naturally. Like everything else in my life, it was as if destiny itself had laid it out before me, and the only thing I had to do was decide whether to take advantage of the opportunity. Now more than ever, after everything I have been through, I am convinced that this is how everything in life is, that this is its magic and its beauty. We all walk down a karmic path, a spiritual journey, and we each have the opportunity to decide what to do with our own lives. It is as if we are wandering through the desert and all of a sudden a horse appears. We can ignore it and keep walking, or we can get on that horse. And if we do mount it, we can just sit there and do nothing and let the horse drive us, or we can take control of the reins and gallop toward the place where we truly want to go. When an opportunity comes my way, I am the only one who decides to either take it or leave it.

Around that time, one of the opportunities that came my way arrived by telephone. I called a former colleague of mine in Mexico just to say hello and see how he was doing. While we were talking he invited me to spend a few days in Mexico City with him, and, since I had all the time in the world, I accepted the invitation without thinking twice. A few days later I boarded a flight toward another great city. The original idea was that I’d stay for just one week, but, just like when I arrived in New York, my plans changed drastically. . . .

A few nights after I arrived, I went to the theater to see a play that was produced by and featured three close friends, who happened to be great stars of the Mexican stage: Angelica Ortiz, Angelica Maria, and Angelica Vale. The play was called
Mamá Ama el Rock (Mama Loves Rock)
, a musical comedy. Besides the fact that I was excited to see my friends, I’ve always loved going to the theater and I never missed an opportunity to see a new show. It had been a long time since I’d seen these friends, so when we started talking they asked me what I was doing in New York.

“I’m studying,” I answered.

What a lie! I simply didn’t want to get into the details.

“Okay, forget about school,” one of them replied. “You have to stay here.” Her assertiveness surprised me, and right away she added, “See that guy standing over there?” She pointed to one of the actors. “He is leaving in a week and I don’t know what to do. Do you want to replace him?”

Without thinking twice, I said yes, and that is how I started out in the theater world.

MY FAMILY AND my friends in New York could not believe it when I told them I was moving to Mexico, but they were all very happy for me. They knew it would be good for me to go back to work. And just like that, out of nowhere, I had to go back to being extremely intense and focused on my work. I had just one week to prepare for my theatrical debut. Yes, in one week I learned the choreography, the lines, the blocking, everything. I was back to being the disciplined soldier of my Menudo days, but I enjoyed it so much because it brought back the euphoria I had not felt for a whole year. It was crazy to dive into doing something that was totally new for me, but the truth is that the experience with Menudo had taught me how to work at a fast pace and keep up with all the hard work. And as the saying goes,
De los cobardes no se escrito nada
(Nothing has been written about cowards), so I let go of any fears I might have had and plunged headfirst into this opportunity that life had thrown my way.

I adapted to life in Mexico very naturally, with no major difficulties. Not only did I already have friends and professional connections. I also had the good fortune of moving in at first with another old work colleague. His parents and sister took me in as one more member of the family, and thanks to that I never felt alone. I loved living with them, but after a few months, when I was a bit more settled, I felt it was time to become more independent and I rented my own apartment.

There’s a tradition in Mexican theater: Whenever a show reached its hundredth performance (or two hundredth, or three, or four, successively), some famous actor, director, or producer would come onstage and present the cast with a plaque to recognize the achievement.

When I began to work on
Mamá Ama el Rock
I wasn’t aware of this tradition, and I didn’t have a clue what a big deal it was. So when our time came to receive the award I just decided to focus on doing the best show possible. The rest of the actors, however, were extremely nervous, because they knew someone important was sitting in the audience that night. They all wanted to put on the best show in history, and when the curtain went up, the tension was palpable.

I, however, went on like normal, completely calm. I played my role as best I could, and I went home to bed. Had I known that a famous producer was watching us that night, I would have probably been just as nervous as everyone else. But since I had no idea, I was totally calm. The next day the producer called me and said he wanted to meet me personally. We spoke for a while and he ended up offering me a role on a famous soap opera called
Alcanzar una estrella (Reaching for a Star).
I accepted, and that’s how this new chapter of my life began: soap operas. The soap had great success, not only in Mexico but also all over the world, its achievement not unlike the hit shows
High School Musical
or
Glee
, which years later took off in the United States.

I ended up joining the cast in the second season, which was called
Alcanzar una estrella II (Reaching for a Star II).
The story was set around six young boys who were in a band called Muñecos de Papel (Paper Dolls). I had the role of Pablo Loredo, one of the members of the group. The soap was so successful that later a film was made, called
Más que alcanzar una estrella (Beyond Reaching for a Star)
, in which I also had a starring role. Eventually, the show producers organized a tour for Muñecos de Papel. Needless to say, this was a complete Menudo flashback for me—although this one was not as intense, not even close—and I have to admit that I was not terribly enthusiastic about the prospect of going on tour; all I wanted to do was act. I had toured enough already! But I finally accepted and even enjoyed it because we were a great group of people who all really got along so well.

Amazingly enough, thanks to my role in the film, that year I received the Premio El Heraldo—which is the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar—for my performance. It was a great honor for me, and to this day it is one of my most treasured awards of my career.

Now that I think about it, I realize that everything I did during that time—even when I was acting—had to do with music. It was almost inevitable. And though it’s tempting to say that it was all a big coincidence and it did not necessarily have to work out this way, it could also be that the universe was conspiring to move me in the right direction. Menudo was an incredible experience that taught me a lot about the music business, and even more so about myself. But the work was so intense that it left me questioning my passion. I think that deep down I never wanted to stop singing, but I had somehow buried this desire deep inside me. During the time I spent in New York, I honestly believed that I did not want to set foot on the stage again, but I think it was just because I was burned out. The effort had been so monumental, and my life during that time had been so crazy, that I just didn’t see how I could continue at that pace. But the opportunities that came my way in Mexico gradually changed my point of view, and I realized that life onstage didn’t always have to be as intense as it was with Menudo. In some magical way, acting reinvigorated my passion for singing, and though I enjoyed acting very much, I felt the desire and the need to sincerely express myself through music.

Needless to say, we all have to make the best of the opportunities that come our way, but we should never forget about our true passion. If in the deepest part of yourself you feel that you are a poet, regardless of whether you are a doctor or an accountant, you shouldn’t stop writing your poetry. On the contrary: It is important to remember that what you do and what you are are not always the same thing. Both are part of life, part of the same journey. If you don’t try to do what you are really passionate about, you will never make your dreams come true. You may have lots of things, like beautiful houses or fancy cars. You may find love and have a family that adores you. You can have all that and a lot more. But if you are a poet, and you don’t write poems, how will you win the award for poetry that you have always dreamed of? If you don’t cultivate your passion, you will always feel a void. You will always feel that something is missing. I am not saying that you have to leave your work and write poems twenty-four hours a day, but each and every one of us should always try as hard as possible to never abandon our dreams.

From a young age, I knew that music filled my soul immensely. I also love the connection that emerges with the audience when I perform live. The energy that comes from the crowd, with everyone moving to the rhythm of my music, is incredible. It’s electric! There is nothing like it, and nothing else comes close to it. I like the work I do in film and television, but it lacks the immediate reaction and intensity of a live audience because you are on a screen. No matter what people say, to me there is nothing more amazing than the connection forged with the crowd during a live performance. I want—no, I need—that immediate reaction. The applause and the energy of the public are my addiction—they are my vice.

And that is how—through a series of haphazard chances—I returned to music. I will always be infinitely grateful to Mexico for everything it gave me, and all the opportunities it offered. It was my springboard into the rest of the world, because from theater I moved on to television soap operas, and from soaps to film, and through film I came back to music. One never knows how destiny will rear its head, and sometimes it is not in the most obvious way. Thanks to the soap opera and the film, someone at Sony Music noticed me and offered me my first solo recording contract. Obviously, I was ecstatic. The idea of making a record that would be just mine, on which I could freely express myself as I wanted, was my dream come true.

The Sony Music executive who offered me the deal handed me the contract and said: “Ricky, you have to sign this right away. If you don’t sign this document before I get on a plane to Madrid tonight, I’m getting fired.”

I laughed inside, and said to myself: “What a son of a bitch.”

It goes without saying that today I would have waited for my attorneys to review it. But because then I was an eighteen-year-old boy and all I wanted to do was sing, I closed my eyes, signed the contract, and said to myself: “Regardless of what may happen, I want to make this album, so what difference does it make?” All I wanted was to start recording as soon as possible. I was so excited about getting back into the music world that I didn’t care what the conditions were.