Hulu’s new movie Flamin’ Hot tells the story of Richard Montañez, who went from being a janitor at a Frito-Lay plant in California to one of the top executives at the conglomerate after he invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. He brought his Latin heritage to the brand and helped turn things around and make the company billions.
Now, movies like Flamin’ Hot aren’t usually seen as Oscar bait, but from the get-go, this picture is already in the very-early conversation because of one factor. Diane Warren penned a song for Flamin’ Hot, and anytime she’s involved in any movie, it is already in contention for the Best Original Song Oscar. It seems that no matter how early in the year it arrives or what it’s about, it has a real shot at earning a nod if she’s involved.
Warren has been nominated for the Best Original Song trophy an incredible 14 times without ever taking home a competitive prize, though she did earn the Academy Honorary Award earlier this year. The hitmaker has a proven track record of producing great music for films, and she’s snagged nominations for very unlikely projects recently, so there’s no reason to count Flamin’ Hot out.
The producer and songwriter first heard about Flamin’ Hot from producer DeVon Franklin. The two worked together on the movie Breakthrough, which earned Warren another Oscar nomination for the song “I’m Standing with You.” The songwriter says that she saw an early cut of the film and wrote the main theme song, “The Fire Within” the very next day. In a recent interview, Warren explained that she “really related to Richard’s character because throughout her life, everybody’s kind of telling me, I can’t do this or, basically slamming doors on me.”
Warren knew immediately that if she was going to write a song for Flamin’ Hot, “musically, it wasn’t going to be a ballad,” which was a shift for her. She has produced some of the most memorable ballads from movies of the past few decades—such as “Because You Loved Me” from Up Close & Personal, “How Do I Live” from Con Air and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” from Armageddon—to name just a few of her nominated productions. But Flamin’ Hot required something different.
“I wanted it to sound like this hit song that fits the movie, and it turned out to be that,” Warren explained. If she was going a different route for “The Fire Inside,” she needed something special and unlike what the industry has come to know her for. The Emmy and Grammy winner explained that she came up with the title first, and she loved the double entendre so much, she decided to work backward. “I remember coming up with the chorus and going, ‘Oh, this is so fucking cool!’”
While Warren is a celebrated musician, songwriter, and producer, she’s not a singer, and she hasn’t performed any of her hits. This time around, Latin/pop star Becky G stepped in to take on the task. The musician explained in a recent call that her journey to this track began when she bumped into (literally) Flamin’ Hot director Eva Longoria at LAX. The two talked, and months later, Longoria reached out and said that she had a song written specially for her directorial debut and she wanted Becky to hear it.
Becky says she watched Flamin’ Hot twice in a row and showed her family before saying yes…but it was an easy yes. The chart-topper called the tune, “What our community needs to hear, our youth needs to hear.” When asked why she felt so moved to record this particular song for this particular movie, Becky stated, “It’s not just a typical underdog story. It’s about [how] you can be your own hero. And you can be a hero that doesn’t necessarily wear a cape but can follow their dreams and walk through doors that people don’t necessarily think you should be walking through.”
She was joined via Zoom by Longoria when making the track, and even though Warren showed up to the recording session, Becky insists she wasn’t intimidated by the many-time Oscar nominee. She described the songwriter as one who doesn’t hold back and demands realness from the performers she works with. “She pops your bubbles so quickly that you’re just like, ‘Man, you really don’t give anybody any room to be anything other than their true authentic self,’” Becky said with a laugh.
Teaming up with Warren to write a song for a movie is not a controversial choice by almost anyone for almost any production. But her inclusion in this picture was somewhat odd. Flamin’ Hot’s music supervisor Vanessa Perry explained during a Zoom conversation that when Longoria was putting the film together, she wanted it to be a Latin production all the way through. She worked with Perry to find only Chicano tunes to put into the movie. But Warren is so talented–and persistent–she was selected in the end.
According to Perry, Warren has been campaigning to work on this film since before it even existed. She recollects that the songwriter worked in the same building as Longoria years ago, and every time they saw one another, Warren would tell the actress and director, “I could do a song for your film whenever you’re ready” to which Longoria could only reply that she didn’t have anything in the works at the moment. It’s that kind of determination that links Warren and the central character of the movie and which makes her a great choice to tell a small part of his story with a song.
“The Fire Inside” is actually one of several songs Warren has written and produced for movies that have come out this year. She also penned the theme for 80 For Brady, titled “Gonna Be You,” which was performed by Belinda Carlisle, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, and Dolly Parton. And it’s still early in the year, so she could release more music via films, thus adding to her growing list of eligible tunes.
When asked which track she’ll submit for consideration for the Best Original Song Oscar, Warren seemed to not have decided, commenting that she might submit them all. Even if that’s not the strategic move—something she conceded as well—either way, “The Fire Inside” should already be on shortlists for possible nominations. As when Warren delivers, she often ends up a nominee, no matter the circumstances.
Throughout the interview, Warren kept going back to how she relates to the song. Her story is not the same as Montañez’s, but they share something in common: “The Fire Inside.” “That fire inside, when you have it, nothing can put it out,” the songwriter affirmed during our call. “When you really believe in something with all your heart and your soul and your gut, nothing can really put the fire out.”
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