Biography

Was nominated for Broadway's 1996 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for playing one of the title roles, the King, in a revival of "The King and I."

Lou's father, Gerald Amon Upchurch, was an American, from Georgia, and had English and Scots-Irish ancestry. Lou's mother, Lucita Umayam Araña, was Filipino, from Candelaria.

Named by his father for highly decorated Gunnery Sergeant Leland "Lou" Diamond, USMC, who enlisted in the Marines at age 27 in 1917, and saw action in both world wars. To this day "Lou" Diamond is considered one of the finest Marines of all time, and is known as "Mr. Leatherneck".

Is 1/8 Cherokee.

Grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas

The only power an actor has is the ability to say, "No".

[on getting his part in 24 (2001)] That was a funny situation, because Kiefer [Kiefer Sutherland] and I are still very tight. We've done something like five projects together over the years, and we see each other socially every so often since Young Guns (1988). We got the call from the people at "24", saying, "Listen, we don't have a script yet, but the episodes are going to revolve around Kiefer, Dennis Hopper and a role that we'd like you to do". That's really all I needed to hear. So I made one phone call -- to Kiefer's cell phone on the set -- and said, "Listen, man, they want me to come on the show. Is that cool with you?" And he said, "Yeah, c'mon, let's go!"

[on working with Harrison Ford] I've got to say, Harrison is probably the most relaxed actor I've worked with in my life. He's truly amazing. They say "Action!"--boom! There's Harrison Ford. I was doing a scene, I'm sitting across a table from him, and between takes I kind of looked over, and I had one of those moments where the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I went, "Oh my God, that's Harrison Ford!" When you're working, you don't really think about those things, but I just had one of those starstruck moments where it's just like, "Look where I'm at".

[on his success] I felt I was the luckiest guy in the world when I landed La Bamba (1987), and I still feel the same way. I feel fortunate to be employed in the film business, and still be standing. There's a lot of guys that were around when I made "La Bamba" who aren't as fortunate - and it's not a matter of talent or hard work, it's just the breaks sometimes, you know? I've been fortunate that the right film has come along for me every couple of years. I've been lucky, I think.

[on selecting roles] There's very few things that I'll turn my nose up at, because some of my biggest successes have been ones totally out of left field. Stand and Deliver (1988) was a tiny little film made for less than $1 million. If I can find something in the script or the character, or even in the cast, that I go, "All right, this is worth doing", then I'll do it. Unfortunately, there was a time in my career when I felt responsible for how a film came out, and I'm just now starting to grasp the concept that there's only so much you can do. You can only show up and do the best work that you can do, be responsible for your character, and be as giving and supportive of the cast and the crew as you can. But when all is said and done, did they have enough money to make the movie? Did the director have a clear vision of it? And even if it turned out to be not a bad film, is it going to be seen, or is it going to fall between the cracks? There's some little films of mine that didn't see the light of day, and yet I still think they were good movies. I think there's this philosophy in Hollywood that if it doesn't make $100 million, it's not a success. And unfortunately, there's quite a few $100-million films that just aren't that good.