Spreading his wings in cinema

Growing up in Tomé, Kiko Sanchez said becoming an actor was the last thing on his mind — but he was a big Adam Sandler fan.

That affinity for the former “Saturday Night Live” actor would come back around when Sanchez finally did decide to step in front of the camera in 2004.

Sanchez, who is now 46, is based in Albuquerque now and has seen his career develop in ways he never imagined. His biggest role to date came as a featured extra in the recently released film “She Rides Shotgun,” directed by Nick Rowland (who directed 2019’s “Calm with Horses”) and staring Tarib Egerton (who stared as Eldton John in the bio pic “Rocketman,”) and Ana Sophia Heger, a child actor who starred in the long-running TV series “Life in Pieces.”

The action-thriller follows newly-released ex-con Nate (Egerton), who must protect his estranged 11-year-old daughter, Polly (Heger) from his enemies at all costs in this intense, moving film about loyalty, strength and redemption. Sanchez portrays a motel worker alongside another up-and-coming New Mexico actor, Loren Anthony (who has appeared in “Dark Winds” and “Dexter: New Blood.”) He is also an associate producer and has a part in the upcoming indie film “Rescued” by writer/actor/director D.J. Hale.

All this is a long way from when Kiko went to an open casting call for Adam Sandler’s remake of the 1970s sports movie “The Longest Yard.”

“My brother called me up and said, ‘Hey, let’s go try for this,’” he recalled. “I got called back, but he didn’t. So I got called to work on that, took off a week of work and went and played. It was just a background extra, but I was there for a week.

“That was when I first was like, ‘Is this their job? Is this their life? This is cool.’”

At that point, Sanchez had hit something of a dead end with his original calling, graphic design. Graduating from Belen High School in 1997, he went east to Portales to studying graphic design at Eastern New Mexico University. While studying at ENMU, he interned at Sandia National Laboratory, where his dad had worked for several years.

After college graduation, he was hired as a graphic designer at the labs, But that only lasted two years. He found himself a part of the periodic layoffs Sandia employees have suffered over the decades. Sanchez started his own design business after getting his pink slip, but soon, he found himself “doing a lot of background acting work.”

After a positive experience on the set of the Adam Sandler football flick “The Longest Yard" (2004), he began exploring the world of filmmaking.

“It was, like, my first taste of being on set,” Sanchez said. “It’s nine hours. You’re waiting around most of the time, but I got to see everyone working, like watching Adam Sandler. I didn’t get to meet him then, but Burt Reynolds was on that. I got to see them all and do my scenes. It was fun. I was like, ‘This is a job. Maybe I can do this.’”

So he did. Sanchez began taking on more extra work and soaking everything in when he was on set. Then he got booked as an extra on “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” which starred Seth MacFarlane, creator of TV’s “Family Guy.” He was one of hundreds of extras brought in for a scene set at a county fair.

“On the first day, we get up in the wardrobe and they start placing people (for the scene),” he said. “I was kind of first in line, just waiting, but I was watching everything. I saw two guys who looked important, and they were like scoping out all of us.

“I stood in front of them and I was like, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ And they say, ‘Hey, do you want to be the meat guy?’ And I knew enough to say yes.”

What Sanchez didn’t know was that his quick, friendly interaction would get him a speaking part in the movie. At first, he was just going to walk up to the two stars. Rehearsals for the scene went forward, and Kiko followed directions and took it all in.

“We did a few takes and then we broke for lunch, and I was like, ‘They’re either going to cut me from this scene or I’m going to get a line.’ And sure enough, they came back and gave me a line and it’s funny.”

The line? One word: “Meat?”

“It was a background of walking around with meat,” he said. “But after that, everyone was like, ‘Hey, it’s the meat guy. It’s the meat guy.’”

Not only did the scene stay in the movie, but it also led to Kiko being named a featured extra, which made him eligible for the Screen Actors Guild. Getting his SAG card led him to more extra work and a desire to learn more about acting and film-making.

After the extra work, he eventually landed a speaking role in the movie “Staying Vigilant” (2015). He got bitten harder by the acting bug and started taking acting classes. He took in everything he could while on set.

“I was very curious about the chemistry, what people did,” Sanchez remembered. “There’s tons of people, and I would always just talk to people and learn. I would have some amazing conversations.”

Sanchez said things came full circle when he got to work as a feature extra on the Adam Sandler film “The Ridiculous 6,” which was directed by longtime Sandler collaborator Frank Coraci. During filming, he made such an impression that he was asked to stand in during blocking for a slew of actors, ranging from Rob Schneider to Chris Parnell, Nick Nolte and Danny Trejo. He compared the experience to an “internship to acting,” which provided him valuable on-set training.

“They called me to be a utility stand-in, so I was like, ‘Cool,’" he said earnestly. “By the end of the movie, I had stood in for like 13 actors. What’s funny is they want you to be the same height, build, maybe even skin tone. I started off that way, but by the end, I was standing in for Vanilla Ice, who’s, like, 6-feet 5-inches or whatever.

“They’d set up the lights, and they’re like, ‘Kiko, where was the actor standing when he said this line?’ So you have to watch it very carefully,” he said. “Sometimes they would let us read the lines because the sound guys wanted to do this. So that was a lot of work. That’s why I tell people it’s like an internship because I learned a lot.”

Sanchez credits Lori Latham, who works in extra casting, for helping him at the juncture in his career.

“I had worked with her on a lot of projects in the background, and she asked me to be a stand-in on (Ridiculous 6),” he said. “She told me afterwards that the director (Coraci) really liked me, and he kept wanting me, asking her, ‘Can you bring back Kiko?’”

That professional connection led to commercial work, including a Super Bowl spot for NBC featuring MMA champion Conor McGregor and comedian John Lovitz, with Sanchez playing a horse jockey.

“Frank Coraci was directing that, and he called me out of the blue. I don’t even know how he got my number,” he said. “He called me, and he’s like, “Hey, this is your favorite director, Frank Coraci! And I’m like, ‘OK, is this a joke?’ But it was really him.”

Sanchez said he recently worked with his wife, Katrina Sanchez, who works professionally as Katrina Muldoon, on a play and screenwriting projects. His 15-month-old son is already in on the family business, having appeared in a few commercials.

For aspiring actors out there, he advises them to be open to opportunities as he was, whether it be acting, set design or other behind-the-scenes roles on film sets. He also advises hopefuls to “give your all,” and most importantly, pay attention when you’re on set.

Sanchez said he recently got a manager in Los Angeles, and his focus now is more on acting and aiming for better roles.

“I like being on set; it’s fun and just people are all working together,” he said. “With ‘Rescued,’ we all had the same goal of trying to get the movie made. Now, I do I think I’ve gotten more to where I mainly want to do acting and getting better at that.”