Unlike the American movies he participated in, Russell was the bona fide star of the pictures he made in Mexico. He wound up making only five films. These movies were of the light-hearted, comedic, and musical-variety kind, where he had a fair amount of dialogue and singing duties to perform. Since they were being marketed not just for Mexico and Latino communities in the United States, but for all of Latin America and Spain, Russell was paired up with a diverse cast of Latin American movie stars, along with established and popular Mexican actors like Evangelina Elizondo, who appeared with him in three of his motion pictures. In these Mexican productions, Russell's roles were spoken in Spanish and peppered with some English phrases; in contrast, the roles in his American movies were spoken only in English; however, he sang bilingually in both. Russell had to learn "enough Spanish to star in film in Mexico and in Spain. His first director cast him as a Mexican reared in the United States (the case, again, of Russell playing himself), but after that his accent was convincing and he became entirely bilingual."