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<\/p>\nSPOILER ALERT: The following reveals plot points from Hulu\u2019s Only Murders in the Building\u2018s Season 5 premiere and Episode 2.<\/p>\n
Three Amigos fans have been asking for a reunion on Only Murders in the Building, co-created by Steve Martin, who also stars opposite Martin Short. Both Martin and Short led the 1986 comedy feature, directed by John Landis, alongside Chevy Chase, who has been the obvious choice for a cameo in the Hulu series. However, Martin and co-creator John Hoffman proved there was a plethora of options.<\/p>\n
More from Deadline<\/p>\n
In Episode 2 the new season of Only Murders in the Building, it was revealed that the legendary Tony Plana had quietly joined the series in a guest star role. Plana stars as George, the Arconia doorman who trained Lester (Teddy Coluca) 20 years prior, in a flashback episode that fleshed out the character\u2019s origin story. Lester is this season\u2019s murder victim whom the trio, including Selena Gomez alongside Martin and Short, is investigating for their popular podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an amazing time to reconnect after so many years,\u201d shared Plana while chatting with Deadline last week from his home in New York that he shares with his wife and fellow actress Ada Maris. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019d seen Steve since back when we did the publicity for that film. Martin, I saw him a few times over the years because his son and my son attended high school together.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just picked up where we left off. We discussed our time in Three Amigos and how surprised we were by its enduring success after all these years,\u201d he added of the reunion.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hoffman revealed how Plana ended up on their radar for Season 5.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t [Tony] the greatest? When we were casting George, we thought, \u2018Who do we want that has the weight to carry what he\u2019s carrying with a little edge and that dance you have to do?\u2019 We got a list of actors, and I saw Tony\u2019s name on it, and I stopped everything,\u201d Hoffman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called Steve and Marty, and said, \u2018Tony Plana is on our list for George.\u2019 I didn\u2019t need to say more. They told me, \u2018Get him! He\u2019s the greatest guy.\u2019 It was a no-brainer for us. I just love him, and he came, and we had this reunion, the 2 \u00bd amigos. I directed that episode that Tony is in, so I got to see everything happen,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
Plana played one of the two main villains in Three Amigos. He brought to life the character of Jefe, the second in command to Alfonso Arau\u2019s El Guapo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a very funny story about the Three Amigos. Well, it wasn\u2019t funny at the time, but in retrospect, it\u2019s funny,\u201d Plana recalls. \u201cI was in a Broadway show called\u00a0The Boys of Winter\u00a0(1985), which was very much a theatrical version of Platoon. Oliver [Stone] came to see me in the play, and we went out for a drink after. He told me he was writing a piece about Vietnam and asked me to take a look at it. Oliver had given me such a wonderful role in Salvador, and I had a great time working with him, so I said, \u2018Sure.\u2019 After that, I didn\u2019t hear from him for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the meantime, I did another show about Cuba, a satire of the Bay of Pigs invasion at the Public Theater called Rum and Coke. Halfway through that piece, my agents called me to say John Landis wants to meet me in Los Angeles. I met him on a Monday and read the part of Jefe on the way home. Later, my agent called me and said, \u2018You have it.\u2019 I said, \u2018Oh, my God,\u2019 and then I asked, \u2018Well, who is this project with?\u2019 They said, \u2018Steve Martin. Martin Short and Chevy Chase, as well as a whole other slew of very funny people,\u2019 \u201d he added.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tony Plana in ‘Three Amigos’<\/p>\n
Getting Three Amigos also meant he would have to leave Rum and Coke, giving his notice right after opening night. \u201cI felt terrible,\u201d he notes. Adding to that, having to decline the job on Platoon playing Sgt. O\u2019Neill, Plana thought he had ruined his career.<\/p>\n
While\u00a0Platoon\u00a0would go on to win the Oscar for Best Picture and Best Director for Stone, Plana, who, until\u00a0Three Amigos had mainly been a dramatic actor, doing the comedy film opened doors to exploring different projects than those he had done in the past. In hindsight, the Cuban actor says he has no regrets.<\/p>\n
\u201cGosh, why did this have to happen? Why did it have to be the same time?\u201d he reflected. \u201cAs it turns out, Three Amigos wasn\u2019t a huge blockbuster. However, people continue to watch it over and over, passing it on to their children, and so on. This was 40 years ago, and I still get stopped everywhere for Three Amigos. I don\u2019t even know how they recognize me with all that sh*t I had on in the film,\u201d he added with a laugh.<\/p>\n
He remembers when he showed up on his first day at Three Amigos, he had a mohawk from a previous project. This is how Jefe ended up wearing that long \u201ccrazy wig,\u201d because Landis had no choice but to call the department for help when he saw his haircut.<\/p>\n
Of their reunion after four decades, Martin and Short couldn\u2019t help but boast about how great things worked out in the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love Tony,\u201d Short shared during the show\u2019s junket.<\/p>\n
Martin added, \u201cTony Plana was an essential element of Three Amigos. I had such wonderful scenes with Tony and Alfonso Arau in Three Amigos. We had a little three-way comic scene that I always cherish. He was also a part of my favorite scene, which is El Guapo, played by Alfonso Arau; it\u2019s his birthday, and the group gets together to give him a gift of a sweater We love Tony Plana, and he was very sentimental about working together again. It was all very nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Plana joked about how jealous his friends are that he got to work on Only Murders in the Building; they\u2019re all fans of the show. Most of his scenes took place in the past, in the lobby of the Arconia, the building at the center of the series. The show\u2019s first four seasons were shot on location at an actual New York building, before moving into a studio for the fifth season, where the lobby was re-created.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lobby of the building that they used until the fifth season was the lobby of the building that we used to live in when I was doing Ugly Betty,\u201d said Plana, who worked opposite America Ferrera and Ana Ortiz in the hit series as their father, Ignacio Suarez.<\/p>\n
Although he did not return to the old building, he spoke about all the excellent doormen who had worked there over the years, like Lester and George. He said the doormen he had in the buildings where he and Maris lived throughout their years, when they moved to the East Coast, \u201cwere like family.\u201d Similarly to how the episode portrays Gomez\u2019s character Mabel as a baby, then as a toddler, and through her high school years, Plana says his son and daughter experienced the same thing.<\/p>\n
Plana has been celebrating 50 years as a professional actor, saying the accomplishment added to the emotions he was feeling when he first saw Martin and Short after so many years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was big hugs all around. They were incredibly welcoming and a lot of fun. I recall Steve telling me that he never thought this would happen to him. At this point in his career, he needed something. Both he and Marty had done a whole tour together when all of a sudden, the show pops up and boom!\u201d<\/p>\n
Going into the new season, Only Murders in the Building has four successful seasons under its belt, as well as 56 Emmy Award nominations and seven wins. On September 14, the will compete in seven Emmy categories including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Short.<\/p>\n
The first three episodes of Only Murders in the Building Season 5 are available to stream now via Hulu.<\/p>\n
Best of Deadline<\/p>\n
Sign up for Deadline’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: The following reveals plot points from Hulu\u2019s Only Murders in the Building\u2018s Season 5 premiere and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[72505,49,48,57758,75,72503,72504,5835,47538,41392,27667,72502,348],"class_list":["post-133209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-alfonso-arau","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chevy-chase","tag-entertainment","tag-john-hoffman","tag-john-landis","tag-martin","tag-martin-short","tag-only-murders-in-the-building","tag-steve-martin","tag-tony-plana","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}