Diego Luna Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

I received a phone call, it was the director of

Rogue One, wants to meet with you, he's in town

So I was like, well, I don't know, let's go have

lunch with him and when I sat down, he opens his computer

and starts showing me stuff and tells me the

whole story, and then this character and then

this character and I was waiting to hear

who was gonna play that character, you know?

And at the end, I realized, oh, he's he's telling

me to play that role? What?

This guy must be crazy.

[rock music]

[Diego] Y Tu Mamá También

The beginning of everything in Y Tu Mamá También

it was in '99 for me, at least.

I had a callback, they casted Gael first.

I remember that day because he was very special.

I mean, we were friends, Gael and I, since kids.

Something happened magically on that callback, you know,

the chemistry we had, our friendship, was suddenly

in front of a camera and you could see it,

you could see the dynamic, that there was

history behind, you know?

It was the first time I went through a casting session

that was so long, so professional in many ways, you know,

normally, you're in a room like this, pretending

you have a gun in your hand and you're

talking to a dot in front of you.

Alfonso did a whole kind of like a half-day

of shooting a film. We were in a hotel, in a room,

shooting it from different angles, then we

shot in the car, they edited that and

that's how they decided we were gonna be

'Los Charolastras'.

I have a friend that is 'Tenoch',

I know 'Tenoch' basically, and I just had to

think about him. I grew up really close to him.

So I had him as a reference.

What I remember is I didn't want the film to end.

I remember we had a break for a week, a holiday,

they were gonna do like, B-roll stuff and like,

second unit stuff, I stayed pretending I was

assisting Alfonso and Gael was pretending he was

assisting El Chivo, the D.P.

That was a good example of

how happy we were and

how much we cared about this film.

We wanted to be part of everything, you know?

And also because we were kind of like,

living the journey, the characters we're living,

we had to get to the beach,

we obviously partied crazily the first weekend

on the beach and stories like the one that

happens to these two friends happened to

the whole crew.

It was like we were all

charolastras through the process.

There's a scene where Tenoch is watching TV

and the phone is ringing and

the woman that works in the house of Tenoch

she comes with a sandwich, she goes all the way up,

she gets to him, gives him the sandwich and

then answers the phone and it's for him and

just passes the phone to him and he doesn't move.

That woman is Libo, who worked in

Alfonso's house forever and

Roma is dedicated to Libo.

We were talking about the Mexico

we grew up in.

We were talking about the contradictions of

the country we love, the class issues that we

had to deal with our whole lives, you know?

The film is very personal in many ways.

[rock music]

[Diego] Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights

I'm not a great dancer and I, uh

went to Puerto Rico for like two months and a half

and I had to train there and it was amazing

to see what they were capable of doing

and I felt like I was a joke compared to anyone

in Puerto Rico.

But gladly, in film, you can lie a lot, and also

I try not to do it anymore because

then you'll see that it's all a trick, you know?

So now I cannot even dance, not even when I want to,

because people is expecting something that I'm not.

But I had fun, I have to say, in the whole process.

It was really cool the amount of time

we dedicated to just dancing and obviously

dancing in Puerto Rico means going out at night.

So it was great to be able to go partying and

say you were working.

I was in a beautiful place for many months

I can't complain.

[rock music]

[Diego] The Terminal

I got a call from my agent and I go like,

Really? You're asking me?

I mean, I said, If I was gonna say no, no,

I don't think so, who's the director?

It was a beautiful thing to realize that

he watched Tu Mamá También because that was

the message I got,

I saw you in Y Tu Mamá También and I

really wanna work with you and

I wrote this for you kind of thing

and when he says that, it just happens.

He has like, that kind of magical touch

where whatever he wants to do, he can.

From my perspective, I was in front of

someone that has complete freedom.

I come from an industry that

when you have an idea, normally tells you,

no, that's impossible, and you have to find

another way. Here, it's the opposite.

What do you wanna see and

that's what you get to see.

I was suddenly on this set that is at the airport.

Everything worked, the food court worked

as a food court.

You could go and sit down and eat there.

The place for pizza was actually doing pizza.

The bookstore had tons of books and it was

a bookstore.

On a set with Spielberg, you feel that, you know?

Complete freedom.

He said to me once, You like football?

and he suddenly organized a scene where

I was playing football against the

national team of Brazil and

he had that idea and that happened and

the prejudice I had for that thing called Hollywood,

that it's a monster and it's wanting to consume,

suddenly I realized it wasn't.

There's many Hollywoods and there's one that

I can learn a lot from, you know?

So, it was fantastic.

[rock music]

[Diego] Frida

Playing this story, not just the character but

the story.

I live in Coyoacán, still today, I'm

really close to the studio of

Diego Rivera, the one with the bridge.

The house of Frida and her family is

blocks away from my father's.

The Mexico my father grew up in was basically

that Mexico that the film talks about.

So yes, it's a story that I've heard my whole life

and that matters to me.

It was definitely my work in Y Tu Mamá También

what got me close to Julie Taymor and Salma and

I remember I did the casting session in Mexico and

I never thought I was gonna get it and

I did and it was amazing because I come from the

world of theater. My father is a set designer

and I connected with Julie Taymor instantly and

I think it's a lot because of that because

our love for theater and the way she

approaches like a set.

[door creaking]

Hello, Ugly.

[footsteps]

They're beautiful.

[Diego] I met Salma before and we had

many friends in common and everything.

But obviously the Y Tu Mamá También,

something happens right?

If you see a film where two young kids are

masturbating thinking of you,

that's like a compliment, I guess.

Definitely it was something we laughed about

so many times.

[rock music]

[Diego] Case de mi Padre

We wish Mexico was doing more comedy like

the one gets done in the States, you know?

We don't.

I don't know what's the issue but most of the

comedy in Mexico, we call it the 'pastelazo', like

you know, a cake is thrown in your face and

you are like, ahh, and people laugh but

this comedy that has an edge,

we don't have much of that.

When we got the call, I was talking to Gael.

We were so excited because

who doesn't wanna do comedy like Will does, you know?

It's a gift to make people laugh.

It must be a beautiful feeling to have that capacity.

And again it was a way to make a comment also

on something that mattered to us.

All this violence and the war on drugs

on a film that was gonna be seen in

both sides of the border and

as actors just be there and have fun.

I remember the first day,

I couldn't stop laughing.

It was delicious just to be able to go

further and further and further.

If you see something funny and that you have

an idea, you put it out there and it's not

this thing of like, this is my joke and

this is your joke.

No, if comedy happens, it's because

everyone is open to let the other one be funny.

[Diego] I just suffered a lot for Will

because he had to speak in Spanish through

the whole film and he didn't speak Spanish before.

So, it was like when I did my

first film in English, you know?

It's painful, it's a horrible feeling.

You're just like, worrying, worry about the words

all day long.

So he would sit down, it was like seeing a

method actor, you know?

In his world, in his bubble and

we were having so much fun around him.

[rock music]

[Diego] Mister Lonely

It was a very important experience for me

because I had to become Mister Lonely and

with Harmony, he was putting everything together

so we could actually explore being the characters.

You were even allowed to stay in the house

on the set if you wanted it.

We decided I had to stay by myself, obviously,

because I was playing Mister Lonely.

There was a pub and had a few rooms on top

and I had the one on the top and I was

far from everyone else.

No one was staying there.

Harmony stayed there for a week and he decided to

move because he hated it.

That bad it was.

It was interesting for me for many reasons.

First of all, my grandfather is from Scotland and

half of my family lives in England.

My mom was British so I somehow reconnected with

that part of my life.

Harmony showed me that to be a director,

you can come from anywhere.

One day on set, I arrived and he has his earphones on,

and he says, Look, listen to this and

it's the weirdest thing ever.

Someone like, shouting, it's like

like someone going through extreme pain and

a horrible sound and I go like,

Whoa, okay, that's cool and he says like,

I want people to feel what you felt when

they see this scene, let's do it and

I go like, Okay, all right.

How does that translate to this moment where

I'm playing ping pong with Charles Chaplin?

But it works, somehow it works.

I remember because I had to learn these moves, right?

So I went out of the Georges-Pompidou Museum

with the character on and started

dancing in the street.

I made 20 euros in like an hour or two but

then there was this little kid that stayed there

a little too long and he realized I just had

one minute of moves and then I repeated it and

repeated it and repeated it and

he started telling everyone like,

Oh no, he's a joke, he just knows,

look, put more money, he doesn't have another move

and I was like, You!

and then the other performers came to me saying,

Hey, what are you doing here? and suddenly,

I realized there was a mafia and that I

didn't belong.

I had to give my money to someone else that was

doing some show there and I said,

No, no, I'm not doing this for the money,

sorry, sorry and I left.

It was a very interesting challenge to

play an impersonator of Michael Jackson and

while playing an impersonator, it's impossible not to

reflect on who you are as an actor.

I remember the World Cup was happening and

all my friends were in Germany following Mexico and

having the most fun and I remember

watching the games in the pub and I was there

by myself looking like Michael Jackson watching the

World Cup alone.

It was, it was intense.

[rock music]

[Diego] The Book of Life

What I did a few times in Mexico is,

when the films come to Mexico or Latin America,

they do a version for Latin America in Spanish.

They would hire me so you would

become the role in Spanish.

Things come already animated, right?

So you have to make a way to fit in the

lip sync of someone speaking in English and

everything is animated for someone

speaking in English and you're not part of the

process of the design of the character, so

when I did Book of Life, I felt so much

freedom, you know, this idea of being recorded.

Not just the audio but your face.

They have two video cameras on you

when you're recording and then when they

animate, they are seeing you, how your face moves, and

what are you doing, so then the acting becomes

really important and it happens there in a room

in front of the director.

No retreat!

No retreat!

[Diego] No surrender!

They're gonna do it now!

[Diego] I was introduced to Jorge by Guillermo del Toro.

I arrived to the place where they were gonna

show me all the concept drawings and

he was gonna tell me the story and

Guillermo makes me sit in the first row.

By then I was already in the project, like

Guillermo has that power on me.

When he says, Come here, I, Yes, yes, yes.

I end up there no matter what.

But he said to me like,

You're gonna hear this guy, he's a genius.

If he says he's a genius, I cannot go like,

Well, no, I don't think so, Guillermo,

you have a lot to learn and

Guillermo made Jorge listen to that so,

he made Jorge very, very nervous and Jorge was

looking at me like, Holy crap,

now I have to be a genius.

But then the meeting went great and

he started explaining and you could realize

he had, he thought about this story for

years and years and that Jorge got

all the freedom he needed because

Guillermo was there and

I loved the film for many reasons.

I worked with Gustavo Santaolalla.

If I'm a bad dancer, I'm a worse singer and

I sang seven songs.

He made it work in his studio and I spent

weeks working for that.

[soft guitar]

♪ I know I belong ♪

♪ When I sing this song ♪

[Diego] And then, it was the first thing

I could actually share with my kids.

I brought my daughter and my son

to the recording session.

It's a beautiful thing to see that they can

actually experience something that has to do

with my work.

[rock music]

[Diego] Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

The first time I received the phone call,

it was, The director of Rogue One wants to

meet with you, he's in town and I was like,

Wow, okay, I mean, he might want like,

directions to get to the beach of

Y Tu Mamá También or something and

when I sat down, he said like,

I wanna do this film with you but

you can't tell anyone, no one can know.

I teach my kids never to trust people that

start like that, right?

You can't tell anyone this.

It's like, Then don't tell me.

Rogue One is a film about when there's no

Jedis and the people have to take control.

The people have to come out and fight.

So for him, he said like,

We cannot represent that if we see

the people we always see in the movies.

If you're big, if you're blonde,

if you have blue eyes, if you're strong,

you're probably gonna save the world.

But if you see the guy from Y Tu Mamá También,

he's not gonna save the world.

He's probably there to help someone save the world.

So in this case, they're gonna be the ones

saving the galaxy and

I love that idea.

He went for his favorite films, tiny films,

where he saw Felicity or my works.

It's a cast you would never imagine in a

Star Wars film and

also it's a homage to the genesis of Star Wars.

Of the way they shot in the 70's.

It felt like theater.

They constructed every set. The stuff works.

If you sit down and you start piloting,

you push things and things happen.

It's like a dream, you know, for a Star Wars fan.

[rock music]

[Diego] Narcos: Mexico

This is not TV. You cannot say TV because

it's not TV anymore.

It reminds me what happens in theater

in terms of the time you have to understand

who you're playing to a point where it's

almost painful when you have to play a drug dealer.

You wanna just get the character out of you and

go somewhere else and you can't, right?

Because it's seven months of shooting this.

To see your character actually transform is

something amazing.

For a Mexican audience, there's no spoilers, right?

It's impossible to spoil it.

But in the States, it's different, because

this character I'm playing,

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo,

he was a very discreet man.

He understood the power of discretion.

The power of being under the radar.

It's really difficult to find stuff where

you can see the way he talks or moves.

There's obviously pictures and a few interviews

but not from the first years and

the story is getting really close,

really close to the present.

To the world you and I live in.

I go back to Mexico and so many of

those politicians are still in power somehow.

It can't be true.

Like, how easy we forget?

So, I think the show is important because

it's creating a debate that needs to be happening.

[Diego in Spanish]

[suspenseful music]

[rock music]

As an actor, to be honest, if I'm gonna

join a project, it's because I need to feel a

very strong connection with the story.

I need to understand the point of view.

So, whoever is the lead, the director,

I have to understand why they wanna tell the story.

And more since I started directing, I realized

being an actor is being a tool for someone else's

point of view and you have to be

humble enough to be there to give anything

that's needed from you so that person can

tell the story they wanna tell.