Posted on Sun, May. 18, 2008

Steven Bauer, the strapping and goofy Joe from that other 1970s show, ¿Qué Pasa, USA?, has just returned with a second plate of food -- pasta and roast beef -- from the buffet at the Doral Golf Resort, and Elizabeth Peña, his co-star in How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer, is rolling her eyes.

He's talking about something or another when Peña screams.

''¡No le pongas tanta sal!'' (Don't put so much salt in it!)

''It's pepper. It's pepper,'' Bauer says. But he still puts down the shaker.

It's a good thing these two are so tight. During the filming of the independently produced Garcia Girls, about three generations of Mexican-American women breaking dry spells in a dusty Arizona border town, Bauer pulled a fast one on Peña. No one else would have gotten away with it, she says.

Peña plays Lolita Garcia, a lonely, middle-aged woman whose virgin daughter (America Ferrera) is stepping out with a bad boy and whose elderly mother (Lucy Gallardo) has taken up with the gardener who is teaching her how to drive the jalopy she has just bought.

Bauer plays the philandering owner of a video store across the street from the butcher stop where Lolita works. He's always leering, and Lolita is almost desperate enough to give in.

There's a moment in the back seat of his pickup truck. Peña and Bauer rehearsed it to make sure they got the scene right. But while the camera was rolling, and Bauer was on top of Peña, he decided to go beyond the script, pulling his pants down to reveal his naked bottom.

''He wasn't wearing any underwear! I opened the door and fell out of the truck, which is still in the film,'' Peña says. 'Had it been another actor, you know, where you meet them, there's a handshake and then you get into the car, and he did that to me, I would have done like this to his chin and like this to his ba - - -, and I would have gone, `I hope you got that, because there ain't no second take.' But he's a very large baby. And you kind of indulge the baby.''

''It was improvisational,'' Bauer, 51, says with a shrug. ``I thought it would be fun on screen.''

Actors always say sex scenes are too choreographed to be a turn-on. You ask this pair if that's true.

Says Peña: 'I have had situations where a guy gets, you know. And I have yelled, `Cut!' The actors will say, 'But I'm supposed to be aroused right now.' And I always say, 'Well, act!' ''

Bauer: 'I had to do one movie where there was a love scene with the producer's girlfriend. In the script she was supposed to be one of those girls where all the men would say, `Wow, how can you live in the same house with her?' But she was pale and really thin, poor thing. She was not hot. She would say, 'It's OK if you get aroused.' But I wasn't. Sean Connery would tell actresses, 'Pardon me if I get aroused. And pardon me if I don't.' ''

Garcia Girls, written and directed by Mexican-American Georgina Garcia Riedel, played the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and won awards at Paris, Moscow and San Sebastian festivals but only recently found a distributor (Maya Releasing). It opened in South Florida this weekend.

''It was perceived as a chick flick,'' says Peña, 46, the New Jersey-born Cuban-American actress whose credits include Resurrection Boulevard, Transamerica, Rush Hour and Down and Out in Beverly Hills. ``It also has a deliberately slow pace. And it has sex in it, but it's not sensationalized sex.''

The movie's power is its honest exploration of women's sexuality. There is a moving scene in which Grandma reconnects with her sensuality in the bathtub and later gets it on with the scruffy, old gardener. Daughter Lolita gives her battery-operated toy a break when she finds happiness with a big-bellied, one-handed butcher. Lolita's daughter experiences a typical is-that-all-there-is? coming of age but has the grit to move on.

''To me this movie is exciting because you never see something like this in American cinema, probably with the exception of Desperate Housewives,'' Peña says. ``Women over 35 don't exist, and if they do, they have two minutes on screen, and they are non-sexual.''

Well, there are several women on The L Word who are middle-aged and getting busy, you remind Peña.

'Right. You have to be a lesbian. Or you have to be `desperate.' And even those women are all Barbies,'' Peña says. ``In this film, the women all look like normal women. Even the lighting is there to give you a sense of reality. Nobody is glamorized.''

Not even Bauer.

''His butt was not lit right for that scene in the pickup,'' Peña jokes.

Born in Cuba and raised in Miami, Bauer was one of this town's top hunks back in the ¿Qué Pasa, USA? days. He played the tall, dark and chiseled (but ultimately good Cuban boy) Joesito in the PBS bilingual sitcom about an acculturating Cuban family in Little Havana. The series ran from 1977-1980 but continues to live in reruns.

So, did Bauer ever have a romance with any of the girls on the show?

``That's a good question. Surprisingly, no. Because I am a guy, you know. And I am also kind of a dog. Only a little bit. Not as much as some of my friends. I mean, in college, oh my God, I was on the hunt. But I'm very picky, too. And none of those girls appealed to me. One for one reason and another for a different reason.''

Bauer, who lives mostly in Los Angeles, doesn't keep up with much of the old cast, though he did recently see Barbara Martin (Sharon, the American best friend of Joe's sister Carmencita) and Manolo Villaverde, who played his dad.

''I really loved the grandparents. But they passed away. And Villaverde was always just a great guy. Now when I see the show I cringe a little. But not as much as I think I'm going to, because, in terms of being self-critical, you would think it would make me throw up,'' says Bauer, whose film credits include Traffic, Thief of Hearts and Scarface.

'But I was 18 or 19 literally. It was my first acting. I watch it, and I go, `I had pretty good instincts.' I'm actually more critical of other performances.''

Any behind-the-scenes drama?

''No, we were like a family. A dysfunctional family -- but a family. We all got paid nothing, so there was no competing,'' Bauer says.

``We each got $300 an episode. And that's it. Forever. So after all of these airings, there was never any more money for us. But the show lives on. It's iconic. It influenced thousands of kids. I still meet people every day who say they learned English, or Spanish, watching ¿Qué Pasa, USA?''