'Diamond In The Rough'

G Q Magazine - March 1990

Lou Diamond Phillips may have found fame as a rocking cantante in La Bamba and as an East L.A. cholo in Stand and Deliver, but he says his days on the Latin beat are numbered: "People are taking me much more as an actor than as an ethnic commodity." He took his first stab at comedy in last spring's Disorganized Crime. And in the can or in the works: the upcoming A Show of Force, with Robert Duvall and Amy Irving, and a possible sequel to the original Brats Pack Pistols flick, Young Guns.

Phillips also snared a role in The First Power, a soon-to-be-released thriller he describes as " The French Connection meets The Shining." Which still left one type to cast off: the jeans-T -shirt-cowboy-boot look he'd worn since his childhood days in Corpus Christi, Texas. It's not that Lou, who turned 28 last month, was sartorially naive, he's had a say in nearly all his characters' outfits, right down to the number of cuff rolls on his cholo chinos. It's just that, as he puts it, "I can actually afford to buy clothes now."

And while he remains a fan of denim, he's taken to buying hip suits and easy shirts, topped with the occasional bolo tie. Of his role in The First Power, Phillips says, "I play a cop who specializes in serial killers. I capture [one] and send him to the gas cham- ber. Unfortunately, he comes back to haunt me." Off the set, at least, he needn't worry that one day his clothes will.

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