As the red carpet prepares to roll out at the TCL Chinese Theatre this Sunday evening, June 28, 2026, for the World Premiere of the slow-burn psychological thriller Tender at Dances With Films: LA, Jesse Garcia stands at the center of the excitement. The versatile actor—known for powerhouse turns in The Odyssey, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, and Narcos: Mexico—opens up about the film’s magnetic pull, his decades-long friendship with co-star Jess Weixler, and the very real “Hail Mary” moments in his own life that echo the story’s raw exploration of love, debt, and psychological collapse. Directed by Adam Hoelzel in his feature debut and produced by Sonja O’Hara, Tender follows a cash-strapped couple whose discovery inside their inherited home spirals into obsession, paranoia, and the terrifying realization that the person beside them may be their greatest threat. Garcia’s journey from dropping a full-ride scholarship with just $500 in his pocket to this high-stakes premiere offers aspiring filmmakers a masterclass in creating your own path—and never losing the fire.
In a candid conversation ahead of the premiere, Garcia revealed how Tender came together with remarkable speed and creative chemistry. His longtime friend Sonia—producer Sonja O’Hara—called with a tantalizing offer that was technically still out to another actor. “Would you be interested in talking to them?” she asked. Garcia didn’t hesitate. He sat down for an hour-long meeting with writer/director Adam Hoelzel and producer Sofia Rovaletti. “We seemed to mesh really well about the story ideas and ideas that I had and the stuff that they already had that was really great.” A couple of weeks later the phone rang again: they wanted him, and cameras were rolling the following Tuesday. It was that fast—and that collaborative.
One of Garcia’s first moves was championing Jess Weixler for the pivotal role of his on-screen wife. The two had history stretching back nearly 20 years to an unreleased indie they made together with Tessa Thompson and Stephen Graham. “Jess and I have been friends for a very long time,” Garcia shared. When producers mentioned they were still searching for the love interest, he immediately thought of her. “I hit up Jess and I go, would you be interested in reading the script? And she read it and she goes, I absolutely love it.” She met with the team, and the old friends dove into the material together, trading ideas with Hoelzel and O’Hara to deepen the characters in this low-budget, high-passion indie where “everyone comes to work, wants to work… donation of time and energy.”
The result is a claustrophobic descent into marital dread that feels painfully authentic. After inheriting a modest house in a dying town, Billie (Weixler) and Mick (Garcia) believe they’ve finally found stability—until crushing debt, old resentments, and a shocking discovery buried within their walls threaten to tear them apart. What begins as salvation quickly curdles into obsession, forcing the couple into a dangerous alliance where love, money, and survival blur into something grotesque. Hoelzel describes the film as an exploration of “how desperation can rot a relationship from the inside out… the way fear and greed distort perception until love starts to feel like a trap.”
Garcia’s own life has been shaped by bold risks that mirror the film’s themes of going all-in when everything is on the line. His first major Hail Mary came during college at the University of Nebraska, where he had a cheerleading scholarship and was studying exercise science with dreams of becoming a personal trainer or sports trainer. A friend convinced him to drop everything and move to Atlanta to study acting with Judson Vaughn. “I literally had like 500 bucks in my pocket. I didn’t have anything… So that was my first Hail Mary.” He drove south and never looked back.
Years later, after three memorable seasons on Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, Garcia hit a brutal dry spell. “I really wasn’t working, and it was an odd thing… I was depressed about it… Am I done with this career?” In a pivotal moment of self-reflection, he asked what his 21-year-old self—the wide-eyed newcomer excited about every audition and opportunity—would think of the more jaded version of him. The answer was clear: that younger version would be proud of what he’d achieved but would simply say, “Just keep going.” Garcia got a coach, reconnected with that hungry energy, and soon booked Narcos: Mexico. “Things just start turning around… I got myself out of those weights that lifted off my shoulders.”
Today, Garcia continues building momentum. The Odyssey drops next month, multiple festival films are hitting the circuit (including screenings at Dances With Films), he’s developing a big action Western he hopes to direct, and he’s awaiting word on a potential HBO series that could take him to Chicago. Through it all, he anchors himself with daily workouts—“that’s his anchor”—and a deliberate mindset: “I try not to panic… I’ve learned a long time ago not to be triggered about anything, because it rarely has anything to do with you… I surround myself with good people… This is my career. It’s not my life.”
For aspiring filmmakers flooding festivals like Dances With Films, Garcia offers no-nonsense wisdom: “You have to create your own path… everyone has a camera in their pocket. Like there’s really zero excuses… You can write a script on notes. It’s not the correct format, but you don’t need it to make a movie… You just have to want. You can’t depend on somebody handing you your dream.” Team up with like-minded creatives—writers, directors, even catering—and just start shooting.
As audiences file into the TCL Chinese Theatre for the 7:30 pm premiere (red carpet shortly before), Garcia hopes viewers walk away entertained first and foremost—“I want to be able to kind of like, unplug… sit and enjoy and watch a movie about all these people going through really crazy shit… cringey stuff and beautiful moments and messy chaos.” If they find something relatable or meaningful in the unraveling of Mick and Billie’s world, that’s the bonus. Given his own battles with career uncertainty and the relentless hustle, Garcia brings hard-won authenticity to every frame.
Tender (95 minutes, USA) stars Jesse Garcia, Jess Weixler, Robert Longstreet, David Koechner, Sonja O’Hara, Shakira Barrera, Mark St. Cyr, Stephen Ellis, Robert Peters, Alexander Cubis, Keli Price, and more. Produced by Sonja O’Hara, Sofia Rovaletti, Farrell Ingle, Theo Bucksey, Roy Hsu, Grayson Hay, Corey Moosa, David Hopwood, and others. Reviews are embargoed until the premiere. Streaming links are available for consideration. Interview opportunities with attending cast and filmmakers are available through the film’s press team.
Don’t miss this one—it’s the kind of fearless indie that reminds us why we fell in love with cinema in the first place.
