Slowly but surely, Michael Peña has become a bona fide movie star. On Thursday, NUVOtv will air an exclusive interview with the actor on "Mario Lopez: One-on-One" where he discusses his rise from high school dropout, to actor, to appearing in mega hits like "Babel," "Crash" and "American Hustle," to name a few.

This year, Peña made a name for himself by starring in the first feature film on the life of César Chávez, the American farm workers' rights leader and co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association.

Despite the important mark Chávez made in American history, getting his story told did not have the same appeal as the likes of other activists like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.

"It was a debate," Peña said to Lopez. "We did this for the people, you know what I mean, and if you don't know about Chicano studies, so that you can enjoy it as well. Gandhi and Malcolm X, they all had these great speeches and were very passionate, and they very much were very charismatic. César did it because he had to. He was a great organizer, and he wasn't the most charismatic guy. It's tough to make a movie on somebody like that, so we focus on the movement."

Embodying a man with less dynamic of a personality than other leading roles was a challenge for Peña, but he found excitement in other aspects of Chávez's character.

"I thought it was more interesting that here's a guy who wasn't a politician ... he chose to be in poverty," he explained. "And so it takes a lot more balls for a person who's not meant to do this to actually be the face of a movement."

Although playing the lead in "Cesar Chavez" was a groundbreaking move for Peña, the 38-year-old actor is used to getting parts in landmark movies. He has appeared in two Academy Award winners for Best Picture: 2004's "Million Dollar Baby" and 2004's "Crash." Peña has also had roles in other monstrous films, including 2006's "Babel" and 2013's "American Hustle," both of which were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture.

"I'll do small parts in movies just because it's a great script, so I did that for 'Babel,'" Peña said. "It was easy for 'American Hustle.' If the movie is what I think is special, I just want to be a part of it."

"American Hustle," which also starred Bradley Cooper ("The Hangover"), Jennifer Lawrence ("The Hunger Games") and Amy Adams ("Man of Steel"), did indeed have something special: an iconic scene with Robert De Niro, someone Peña admires.

"Thery're all Oscar nominated actors, and I'm like wow man; I'm still like a fan," Peña shared. "[De Niro's] like, 'Hey, how you doing? Bob.' And I'm like, 'Robert De Niro?' And he's says, 'Just call me Bob.' And I'm like, 'I can't call you Bob. There's no way I'm gonna call you Bob. You're Mr. Robert De Niro, sir."

Peña is just starting to reach the peak of a fascinating career. His next film "Frontera," which also stars Ed Harris and Eva Longoria, hits theaters on Friday, Sept. 5.

Despite excelling in acting from the beginning, Peña, who is a Chicago native of Mexican descent according IMDb, said he wasn't always interested in the career. In fact, in Thursday's episode of "Mario Lopez: One-on-One," Peña revealed that he first started acting "for the money."

"I was like, this'll be a nice thing to make money off of," he said. "Then, the dream kept growing the more I started acting."

Watch Peña describe his very first audition in the exclusive preview from Thursday's episode below:


Peña's interview with Lopez can be seen on "Mario Lopez: One-on-One on NUVOtv on Thursday at 10 p.m.

Lopez also has much more in store for the rest of the September.

"From Michael Peña and Ice T and Coco, to Paul Rodriguez and Oscar de la Hoya, Mario brought the best out of them with serious topics to pure hilarity," Lynette Ramirez, NUVOtv senior vice president of Programming, said in a statement to LatinPost.

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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