to be snarky. We really wanted to respect the people and the culture, and I think we achieved that goal. I feel lucky that we had the idea and the team to pull it off,” O’Brien revealed on a recent online chat. “All the moments were real with people who were funny and comfortable in their own skins. We couldn’t set this up. We didn’t use stock footage. We had these huge cameras we used. We pretty much shot around the clock. Cuba is a visually stunning place to shoot and we wanted to capture it. It was magical. It was a perfect snapshot in time to go there.” On his stay in Cuba, O’Brien filmed all over Havana, including inside a cigar factory, dance studio, nightclub, rum factory
and among locals at a popular promenade. The euphoria that was building in Team Coco for accomplishing what had been impossible just weeks earlier was stopped in its tracks, however, as they began to make plans to go home. “It started with less than 24 hours before we were supposed to return home. Our executive producer Jeff Ross was notified that a news outlet had heard probably by tourists that we were there, and they were going with the story.” O’Brien admitted. “We asked them to hold it until we at least got off the island with the footage, but they said they were afraid someone else had it, so they were going to go with it. And we were nervous. We decided to make multiple copies of what we shot on drives and tablets and laptops. We figured if
Photo courtesy of TBS Photo by Joe Pugliese
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