Andy Garcia's 'Lost' Dream Comes True

April 26, 2006 — -- It's taken 16 years for Andy Garcia to realize his dream of making an epic film about his homeland, Cuba.

That's 16 years from the time the Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante finished the script until the movie "The Lost City" was shot and appeared on the big screen. That's 16 years of composing the music, assembling a star-studded cast -- including Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Nestor Carbonell, Enrique Murciano and the supermodel Ines Sastre -- and getting the backing to bring his labor of love to life.

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Garcia has been passionate about telling the story of family, love and loss set against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution. During an interview on the veranda of his home in Miami, Garcia says the film is autobiographical in at least one way.

"Emotionally -- completely autobiographical. When I say autobiographical, I mean not necessarily my autobiography, but the journey of many people I have grown up with," he says. "This is our story as an exile community, specifically. But at the same time, it's a universal story of all immigrants in exile, I believe. I think that the idea of impossible love, of having to leave the thing that you most cherish is a universal story."

The Garcias left Cuba when Andy was 5 years old. It was 1961, after the revolution that put Fidel Castro in power. Midway through 1961, Garcia says, "There was a law passed where you lost control over the rights to your children." That's when his parents decided they'd had enough.

"I think my mother tells the story where they saw me marching. My house was directly in front of an old police headquarters that had been taken over by the new rebel army and I was marching and humming the Internationale. And my mother says to my father, 'Look at your son. We have got to get out of here,'" Garcia says.

The family left for Miami with $300 and a box of cigars.

Now, 45 years later, Andy Garcia has more than 40 films under his belt, including "The Godfather III" and "Oceans 11" and "12." He begins work on "Oceans 13" this summer.