HOTEL COCAINE: Maurice Compte Reflects on Helping Bring a Fictionalized Version of His Father to Life

For years, television viewers have seen Maurice Compte act in a wide array of shows like NARCOS, POWER, THE LAST SHIP, IN THE DARK, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, and MAYANS M.C. But his creative impact on the MGM+ series HOTEL COCAINE is a bit different…and a lot more personal.

The new drama (which wraps up its first season on Sunday, August 4) follows Román Compte (Danny Pino), the manager of The Mutiny Hotel. In the series, Román tries to protect his brother, Nestor (Yul Vazquez), who has been smuggling cocaine and his the rest of his family (who the DEA threatened in order to get Román to inform on Nestor).

Though the series is heavily fictionalized, it’s still, at its core, the story of Maurice’s father—whom Maurice has dubbed a “cocaine cowboy.” After working with writer Chris Brancato on NARCOS, Maurice pitched that his father’s story would be one to tell. Brancato suggested he write something up and come back to him. Five years later, Maurice came back to the showrunner with an idea, and the ball started rolling on HOTEL COCAINE. 

Here, Maurice (who serves as a co-executive producer on the MGM+ series) talks with Give Me My Remote about getting the show made.

Looking at those five years between your first real conversation and the follow-up pitch to Chris, what were you thinking about during that time about how to tell this story?
How am I going to do this? [Laughs.] You know, when you live a life, it’s very difficult to see your parents as objective. When you’ve had a subjective experience with somebody your entire life, or you’re part of the stories, it’s difficult to separate it. 

And really, when Chris put that challenge up to me—which he has then gone on to say that most of the time he puts actors up to challenges like that, never to hear from them again—it really had me reframing the entire history and every story that I heard from there on in a different way. There was now a purpose and a place for these things to kind of get funneled into. 

What I was listening for wasn’t really the stories themselves, as much as the meanings you’re trying to convey. That’s really what I think HOTEL COCAINE becomes about: the immigrant experience. It transcends borders. 

This story is told through the lens of Cubans and Cuban-Americans, but I think the story is much broader, and it really talks about what it means to be in a family and immigrants, and what it means to have an opportunity. What it means to be a refugee versus an immigrant, where you can’t go back and wish that you could go back to a place. What are all these things coming together? What does it mean to find a family that took different paths than you guys were set to be on, in your country of origin? All of these kinds of questions, which are really fundamental questions of the soul and the psyche, get answered in this kind of series, which is wonderful.

What was the creative process in figuring out how much—and what—you wanted to keep true of your father’s experience and also what you wanted to let the writers have total fictionalized control over?
When you work with a writer like Chris, when you work with any writer, truly, it’s imperative that you trust them completely. And that you understand that the vision that they have is one that is going to serve the greater story that is trying to be told. Not just by you, because I’m just one person trying to tell one story, but a person with Chris who has over thirty years of experience. He’s trying to tell a larger story that permeates the biases and the individualized persona of the person and gets into the collective. 

When I told Chris the story…and we talked about it, and I would pitch them different anecdotes, and write to him about different loglines, I think Chris and his genius was really putting together a much larger story and digging much deeper than the externalized versions of these stories that were being told to him.

From what you did pitch to him, what is your favorite element of your father that did make it into the first season?
The idea that he would do anything for family. There’s a theme underneath it that isn’t really obvious to a lot of people, but my dad had to wear a lot of hats. It may come out in later seasons, but my dad did work with government forces—a lot of Cubans did. All of the Cubans were being trained to go back in for a second invasion at some point. And then supposedly Castro [was] sending over a lot of infiltrators, communist spies. And the CIA would catch wind of these people, and they would send people off to deal with them. 

So, my dad had a very deep desire to keep his family safe, but he had a much deeper desire to return to his country, to free Cuba, to find a way to make a difference, and to set the path straight again. Those two things always seem to be in complete juxtaposition to one another; you can’t leave the past behind and then try to go meet up with it and make it right at every corner. And that’s what you see with that character, Román—he’s dealing with a lot of these different positions that he’s being put in. “What am I going to do with this life now? How am I going to manage my family and my brother and keep them safe? And my brother, who took this completely different path than what I would have taken. And what my main goal is, which is to get back home, get back to my country, my land.”

I think it’s different for our generation, but for my dad’s generation, they felt like aliens. Which is a very appropriate word that they use in immigration. They’re foreigners in a foreign land. And they may have a skill set that may lend itself to helping the current environment that they’re in. But I think secretly they have a longing to get back to what’s theirs and what is familiar to them in their hearts and souls.

Was there ever any point where you thought you might play your father? Or did you always know you’d want someone else to play that role?
Well, I’ve known Danny for years. I saw him perform, definitely, the first time, over 25 years ago. And I’ve seen his career advance, I’ve seen who he has become. You know, the truth is that Danny embodies certain qualities innately that make him the right person for this. Danny doesn’t have to try to work very hard to become the embodiment of what a person like my dad was, who was a fixer. And I wouldn’t say a showman, but [my dad] was definitely comfortable in situations that were social and were very open with multiple people. He knew how to smile, and he knew how to take cues from people. 

Not that I don’t know how to do that, but there’s an ease with Danny that even when I look at him, I’m in awe of him. There is something about Danny being the manager of a hotel, such as the Mutiny was, you would completely feel comfortable there, you know what I mean? And you’d probably have him help you bury the bodies. [Laughs.]

Given your long relationship with Danny and Chris, what conversations did you have with them both before and after this show came to be?
I knew nothing about [the development process]. This was my first time in the producing world. And so what I did know is that as Latins begin to permeate the world stage in terms of stories and in terms of who we are, I think one thing every Latino can agree on is that we’re culturally different, that we each have our own unique traits and talents that make us individuated. Which is truly what makes the tapestry of the Latin world so diverse and so wonderful is that you take a Dominican and he’s nothing like a Mexican and he’s nothing like a person from Paraguay. You take a Cuban and he’s nothing like a Spaniard, but you can also find these underlying similarities between all of them. And I think it’s time, because we are coming into this new light of being seen in this way, that we begin to delineate one another and talk about our differences. And that was one of the things I spoke about with Chris, and he agreed with that.

I was doing MAYANS with Danny a few years ago when Chris had called me and told me that this thing was going to be a go. And I said to Danny—because he, again, he just has that persona, that openness, that smile…it’s really his smile, man; that smile, that you just kind of come up to him—“There’s a show. There’s something that’s happening right now.” 

And I was very cryptic, because Chris had told me, “Look, it’s not a done deal yet, so be careful of who you tell.” So I very cryptically, told Danny, “You know, there’s something happening and there’s this thing that I’m putting together with someone. And I can’t really say what it is, but if it happens, I would love for you to be the guy.” [Laughs.] He says, “You’re putting something together. If it happens, you’d love for me to be the guy?”And I’m like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “Alright, sounds good. Good to see you, Maurice, let’s take a picture together.”

I really didn’t want to break any code of silence with anybody! But I really wanted him to be a person who was already in, and maybe have it ruminating somewhere. And then it wouldn’t have been such a foreign thing when it came and when he saw my dad’s last name—my last name. And it came to pass. 

Chris had been working with Yul for some time in GODFATHER OF HARLEM, and he’s known him through other things. And so they already had that; there was one Cuban already checked off. But I think what the beauty of the show is, is that when we bring Colombians in, they’re Colombians. They’re not Latinos. You get to see their full color. When we bring Mexicans [it’s obvious they’re from a different culture]. And I think Chris is doing a great job with that.

Were you able to make it to production to see filming in season 1? Or did the pandemic protocols impact that at all?
I was luckily able to be there for a bit of time before the strike happened, and things got tightened up a bit because there was a bit of a COVID scare, as there is everywhere, in the Dominican Republic; things got very strict and rigid. 

I did have some very emotional heart and mental moments where I was just like, “Wow” [on set].  I would just see myself looking at the monitor while things were being shot, and talking to my dad in my mind, as though this exchange was occurring. It was special.

What was the most surreal moment of being on that set?
“Roll sound, please.” [Knowing production]’s happening. Here we go. This is really happening. Day one, I couldn’t believe it. I remember I walked off, and…I’m not a person that’s…I mean, I’m obviously in touch with my emotions when I need to be. But in that moment, there was a tsunami of emotions that came when I looked around and Danny came out. He was excited. And Chris, who is just such an amazing [partner]. And [director] Guillermo Navarro, who I had seen get a lifetime achievement award at the LA Film Festival years ago, and I dared to dream what it would be like to work with him on my dad’s story, because I’ve been dreaming it up for a long time. 

It’s all the beautiful elements of being Latin. It’s music. It’s literally the Copacabana, the song, just in real-time. It’s the drama and the music and the food and the sensations that are the Latin experience. It’s a beautiful time for this. These stories were coming out of some very trying times. And in that, I think what happened to everybody during these trying times is that we were forced to sit with ourselves, and we’re all learning about ourselves, and it’s a really wonderful time to get back to figure out who you are and what’s important to you. 

That’s one of the central themes of this show—what matters? Where’s your home country? Is it over there? Is it here? What are you going to do now? 

Chris has mentioned they want you to act on the show if it returns for a second season. How much say would you want to have in your potential character given how close you are to the story? 
Once you jump into a moving train, you can probably switch tracks a little bit here and there, but you have to trust the conductor. There’s no point [doing anything else]. 

Chris would thank me every once in a while: “Maurice, you completely let me run with this.” I didn’t let him do anything. Chris is the guy that’s really been the heart and the soul of this thing, as much as we all have. But he has the vision. And I knew from the beginning that I wanted nobody else to be the person to do this. It’s wonderful to collaborate with a person of his stature. And just his level of sensitivity to understand things. It’s just good to have that. He’s been a mentor to me for a long time before we started on the show. So to be able to actually have him elevate me from being an actor—not that there’s anything different in it—to see me as a creative collaborator with him? It’s just a huge thing. And I’m in awe of it a lot of the time. So there really is nothing to question.

I did a small role one time with Quentin Tarantino in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD. He calls me in and he’s trying to explain to me—he’s such an amazing human being—what my role is gonna be. And I literally stopped him right there, and I go, “Listen, Quentin, it’s okay. If you need some guy on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard with just a bucket full of maps to just yell ‘Star maps’ to an oncoming crowd for your film, if you need somebody to yell, ‘Hot dogs,’ I’m your guy. You don’t have to tell me. I’m your guy. I’m here.’”

When you feel that level of confidence—Chris is definitely one of those guys where it’s like, “Chris, I know that you’re going to do something amazing. Let’s not talk about what you’re going to do; talk about what you want me to do when we do this thing.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

HOTEL COCAINE, Sundays, MGM+

RELATED:

• HOTEL COCAINE: Yul Vazquez and Danny Pino Dissect Nestor and Román’s Tense Confrontation
• HOTEL COCAINE Post-Mortem: Danny Pino on the Death That Marks an Important ‘Turning Point’ in Season 1
• HOTEL COCAINE: Danny Pino Explores the Complexities of Portraying Roman Compte

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