Although he's known for dramatic roles, Garcia relished the opportunity to break loose and have some fun in The Pink Panther 2. "It was a lot of fun," said Garcia at the film's LA press day. "When I first moved to L.A., I was involved in an improvisational comedy group that performed in the cabarets here and The Comedy Store, among other places. And, I’ve always been a great fan of comedy. I don’t really watch much TV at night, other than maybe a little late night thing, when I’m in bed at the end of the night, or I’ll watch the Golf Channel for a little bit. But when I do watch TV because I’m in bed earlier or I have the time, I search out comedies. I prefer to watch Everybody Loves Raymond than going to an hour drama. It’s something I enjoy. I enjoy the art form of comedy very much. So, given an opportunity to do something with Steve Martin, Alfred Molina and John Cleese, it was very nostalgic for me because the Pink Panther was something I grew up with and they were movies that I really enjoyed. It was just a gas. I said, 'I would love to be in a Pink Panther movie. Are you kidding me?' Just to see that little Pink Panther in the beginning, running around to the Henry Mancini tune had a lot of fond memories for me."
Garcia labeled his experience working with Pink Panther star Steve Martin a "joy". And fans of DVD extras hopefully will be able to see just how much fun they had on the set if, as Garcia hopes, the DVD includes a gag reel of outtakes. "I’m sure there’s some stuff out there. We had a lot of laughs. Sometimes it was when the camera wasn’t even rolling, and we were just hanging out. It was pretty raunchy. I wanted to make my character more raunchy than what ended up in the film, but they kept saying, 'I don’t think that’s gonna fly.' I’d say things with double meaning and Sony didn’t want to go in that direction. I said, 'But the adults will get it. The kids won’t know what I’m saying. I’m not using bad words.' And he said, 'Yes, but maybe the parents won’t appreciate it.' It was a battle I lost."
The Pink Panther 2 cast didn't always stick to the script, but Garcia said he'd check with Martin to make sure it was okay to stray from what he'd written. "Sometimes I’d ask Steve, 'What if I say this?,' because he wrote it and I wanted to respect that. I remember saying one thing that had a double meaning and he got embarrassed. I couldn’t believe Steve got embarrassed and turned red. He’s very pale, so I could see the red," recalled Garcia, laughing. "It was the scene I have with Emily Mortimer when we’re going down the hallway. She said, 'Okay, it’s time for lunch. We can eat Japanese, French, Italian and surely not English because nobody wants to eat English.' That was her line, as we were walking down the hallway. And I said to Steve, 'Because I’m always doing things to make you jealous, what if I said ‘I would like to eat French,’ since Emily’s character is French?' And Steve turned red and said, 'Oh, I don’t think so.' I embarrassed him and I didn’t anticipate that I could embarrass him. He didn’t go for it. That’s just one of the many examples of Vicenzo getting out of control."
Garcia even had fun with the crazy accents of the Pink Panther universe. "Jessica Drake was the dialect coach for the film and we tried to find the right accent. The movie is full of crazy accents. It’s part of the charm of Pink Panther. The crazier the accent, the better. It has to be crazy and almost over-the-top. But, being that this character was an Italian from Rome trying to speak English, and not an Italian American, she pulled from her library about half a dozen different Romans talking English, and then we found one that we felt was the funniest and that suited my tone of voice and register, and we started working on that accent. She was great. And we had fun with it. You try to get to the point where you don’t think about it anymore and you understand the rules of the dialect -- what to pronounce and not to pronounce, and why your 's' might turn into a 'z,' and all that kind of stuff."
So could there possibly be another Pink Panther adventure in Garcia's future? "I’m not signed, but I’m prepared to negotiate," laughed Garcia.
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The Pink Panther 2 hits theaters on February 6, 2009 and is rated PG for some suggestive humor, brief mild language and action.
