Andy Garcia had to battle the elements in his latest movie, A Dark Truth.

The actor plays Jack Begosian, a former CIA agent turned radio show host called back to duty by a woman (Deborah Kara Unger) who fears her family’s water company is up to no good.

Shooting took the cast and crew to the Dominican Republic — standing in for Ecuador — in the middle of August.

“Oh, it was hot; you had to drink a lot of water,” explained Garcia from his South Florida vacation home. “But you’re running a lot, and you don’t get cramped up.”

The weather changed drastically when they moved operations over to Canada in 2011.

“It was hard to keep your muscles functioning,” said the native Cuban, 56. “You can pull something very easily.”

Though the fact-based flick features major gunplay, a massacre and torture, Garcia (who also produced) says he tried to keep the violence realistic and within their means.

“This is not a James Bond movie; this is no Skyfall,” says the Ocean’s 11 star. “We’re not going to have cars flying through the air, burning buildings, people jumping out of helicopters.”

Garcia also kept it real with the cast, which included close friends and colleagues. He costarred with Eva Longoria in For Greater Glory and with Oscar winner Forest Whitaker (“a beautiful actor and a very special human being”) in 2008’s The Air I Breathe.

South Floridians might notice some other familiar faces: Steven Bauer as a doomed journalist as well as Garcia’s fellow FIU alumni Julio Oscar Mechoso, who portrays a guide, and Alfredo Alvarez-Calderon, a corrupt general.

You can tell the father of four had fun gathering up the old gang and playing the trigger happy Begosian, but there were other intriguing parts of the character.

“This person has done things that are unforgettable and unforgivable. How do you make amends for that? What do you do with the rest of your life?” Garcia says. “He has the opportunity to right a wrong. But to do that he has to become the man he hates again. He’s a guy in turmoil, and I found that to be really interesting.”