FREDDIE PRINZE, JR. RELEASED FROM GANG LIFE

Freddie Prinze, Jr. who grew up with gangs related to his character’s desire to get out of Brooklyn in Brooklyn Rules.

In Brooklyn Rules all Freddie Prinze, Jr. can think of is to get out of Brooklyn and make something of himself instead of getting trapped in the life of the mob. His character hustles and scams knowing nothing good will come of his life if he stays there.

Freddie knew something about wanting to escape a bad news life as he grew up surrounded by gangs.

“I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico which seems like this quaint peaceful town and was actually number one in the country in gang-related murder per capita. People that you knew were just gone, like that. There was this group of four of us and one of us his name was Berto was taken away from us our senior year of high school and all everybody wanted to do was get out. New Mexico is the Land of Enchantment but we used to call it the Land of Entrapment because you couldn’t get out.”

Luckily Freddie had proper morals growing up as the gangs were always trying to recruit him.

“No I stayed out of gangs. There was this whole pachuco that lived which is a Spanish term for old time gangster who lived on my block and I would cut his grass for him. These guys would always try to rank me in the gang and I was just trying to stay out of trouble. I was doing three jobs and paying a lot of my family’s bills because they weren’t able to work at the time. I asked them. I said, ‘look I’m just trying to stay out of trouble and I never asked you for anything but these guys are trying to rank me in and I’m fighting for my life every single day. I’m not trying to join a gang. My mom’ll kill me!’ And those guys never bothered me ever again after that. I don’t know what I did but they never talked me again, they never even looked at me and they didn’t even do anything. His name was Kirk Martinez and he was an old school guy who took good care of me.”

Freddie hasn’t abandoned his roots completely. He still goes home often to visit his mother and grandmother who still live in New Mexico.