Think Andy Garcia and a host of movies come to mind. Whether it is The Untouchables, Internal Affairs, or the Ocean’s series. But now, he’s taking all that fame to something that means a lot more to him as a person. Andy has made a film close to his heart, The Lost City (premiered on Friday on STAR Movies, you can catch the repeat telecast today at 7.05am), taking place in the mix of the Cuban Revolution. Andy, who had left Cuba at the age of five, always wanted to make a film about his home country, and he fulfiled it by making this award-winning one. Here is what the debutant director Andy Garcia had to say about The Lost City.

When someone cares for something as long as you did for this and then it’s written and directed and you then see it, how different is it from the original dream?

The dream is the same. The story never changes. The execution of the story changes because you have perimeters that you have to function under — budgetary, weather, location. If I had my druthers I would’ve filmed it in four different countries, but I could only be in one because that’s all I could afford and so you adapt yourself to tell the story. But the story never changes. Just the way you design it changes a little bit.

This was like a wait-and-hurry-up project. It took you so long to get the money and then all of a sudden you had only 35 days to shoot it. What was that like?

Well, we prepped it in six weeks. Once we had the decision that there was a backing from my partners, Tom Gores and Johnny Lopez, and they said: “We’re going to make this movie. We’re good. This is the budget. It’s $9.5 million.” That’s like with the bank stuff, all the interest and everything — so I didn’t really have $9.5 million to work with, but I said: “Okay. But if we’re going to do it we have to shoot like no later than June 1, because if we wait any longer the hurricane season really kicks in and it’ll be raining everyday and I wouldn’t put you through that financial risk.

We’ve got to be in there before then. We’re going to be in the Caribbean.” So we made a commitment to hit those dates. Bill Murray jumped in. Dustin Hoffman who always told me if he was available he would do the movie figuring that he would never be available. So we flew together to the Dominican Republic. So they jumped on and obviously the rest of the cast was ready. We had been waiting 16 years to make the movie. So we had like six weeks to prep the film and then we didn’t get bonded until the last two weeks before we started.

There was going to be snags, but as I said to Frank Mancuso, I couldn’t have made this movie without him getting my back — I said: “I want to be in the position to have those problems because if not I’m just still talking about making the movie.” I said: “I’ll solve the problems, but I just want to be there. Throw me some problems will you?”

You had a great list of behind-the-scene talent on this. Was that as simple as just offering the job or did you have to romance them a little bit?

Well, Waldemar Kalinowski who was my designer, we met on Internal Affairs and since 1990, well, he went to Cuba in 1991 to scout the film. So we’ve been working on it since we met on Internal Affairs. Debra Scott (costume designer) was my first choice and once I was financed just as I was thinking of Debra — I had never worked with her, but have known her for years and her children grew up with my kids and I’m a great admirer of her work — I was shopping at Gelson’s and I ran into her there and I said, “Hey, Deb. How are you?” She said, “Oh, I’m good.” I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Oh, nothing. I just finished this huge film and I don’t know — I feel like I want to get back to the days where we made more personal films.” I said, “Let me buy you lunch.” She said to me, “If I wouldn’t have gone to Gelson’s that day I wouldn’t be in the Dominican Republic.” I said, “No. I would’ve tracked you down.” So she came onboard and I said, “The only thing that I can tell you is that the budget that you have to design this movie is the budget that you had for the shoes in Titanic. Not even the shoe laces. Just the shoes.” So they did extraordinary work with nothing. On a period movie, to make a period movie their budgets were nothing, but they’re magical people and they were able to articulate the ideas that we shared between us and get it done. Also, Emmanuel Kadosh, the director of photography, I had done a movie with him called Modigliani. I was always very impressed with him as a photographer. We shared the same sensibilities and theory on how to make movies and what movies we like, and he articulated my vision.

Are you hoping this will clear up some misconceptions about Cuba and the people?

That would be nice because there is such a lack of knowledge or understanding of what really went down during that time period. Most people think that the Cuban revolution was a Marxist revolution. It was not. It turned into that, but that’s not what was articulated. That’s not what people were fighting for. In fact, that’s not what Fidel Castro’s whole manifesto stated which was the restoration of the constitution, a democracy, elections and all of that. It only turned once he took power. That’s why we made it. I wish that we didn’t have to tell this story because then it wouldn’t have happened, and I wouldn’t be here. I’d be growing potatoes in Havana. I’d be very happy. I’d be a gentlemen farmer and piano player.

Any reactions from the Cuban regime?

I haven’t had any calls from Fidel Castro yet.

Do you think that this movie will appeal to the regular movie-going audience?

Well, to me it’s a movie that reflects all the classical elements of the films that I’ve responded to over my life. The movies of Esconte, about the end of a way of life, Casablanca. Dr Zhivago which I saw when I was very young and I was very taken by it. It’s a movie that looks at the end of an era. It’s a celebration obviously of a culture that I hold very dear and the music of that culture. The music is the protagonist in the film and it’s about impossible love, about having to leave the thing that you most cherish and then what do you do? In the movie before he leaves the soldier says to him, “You can’t take Cuba with you.” But you can and I did.

How much do you remember about actually leaving Cuba because you were so young?

Everything. Because I went through that same thing that my character goes through in the picture. I was five-and-a-half.

Music is so prominent in this film. How did your musical background play into this film and its soundtrack?

Well, I started collecting Cuban music when I was very, very young... I also started studying percussion at that age, in my teenage years. So in that collection, as I started forming the idea to make this movie I had this vast collection at my house and myself and (Guillermo Cabrera) Infante, who was also as dedicated about that world and writing about it and the music scene in Cuba and the cabaret world and stuff like that —between his suggestions and my own desires the movie was motivated by specific pieces of music and sequences were designed around it. Then I had recordings that I had been doing with Cachao for the past 10 years that I knew I was going to use in the movie like The Original Mambo that opens the piece….

I started re-recording some things that I knew we were going to use in the picture and so that’s like the second element. And then I pre-recorded a couple of my themes I knew I needed…. There is a piano piece called Solitude which is one of my character’s main themes and as I was editing I had a piano in the editing room and I finished the score by composing the themes as I was editing.

Did you always intend to play Fico?

Yes. Always Fico, but not at that age (laughs). He was the middle brother I think when we started. I always knew that this movie was difficult to make and I never really lost faith in it, but I knew that if I had to play the father and not Fico I would do that. There was always a part that I could fall into if they wanted me to.

Do you share your Cuban history with your kids?

Yes. They’re in the movie. Three of my four children are in the movie. One of them I had to cut out, not because she was bad, but just because the scene was lifted. My eldest daughter plays Mercedes, my younger brother’s (Enrique Merciano) wife. My little boy plays their son in the movie…. A Cuban Chinese girl who I cast to play the waitress in the Cuban Chinese restaurant, the night before she was supposed to arrive she told us couldn’t leave America because she didn’t have her papers in order. We got that news and then Daniella, my middle daughter who is also an actress and starting Cal Arts next year, stepped in and played the waitress on a moment’s notice.