Although he was provided with special training, one of the challenges for Diego Luna to give life to [his character] Gabriel, a Mexican mobster in the film Sólo Quiero Caminar, was the handling of weapons.
“It is complicated, it is necessary to break the ice. I don’t know, I don’t like shooting, I don’t enjoy it, and it took awhile to lose the fear and to stop closing my eyes. And then I turned around to see Chema (Yazpik), and he is a natural killer! I turned around and wondered who I was sharing so many moments of my life, who are my friends, because you give him a weapon and he throws himself to the floor, turns over twice, jumps like a tiger and shoots, and I still haven’t dared to charge, because hearing the 'click' scared me,” said the actor between laughs.
“We were going to shoot in the US, where one who wants to can go, yield a weapon and play being a police officer or a killer. I remained a little horror-stricken, truthfully, for the ease with which you can rent a weapon in this country. It is impressive! You go with a diver’s license, they rent you a weapon, and you go to a shooting place and start shooting. Chema (Yazpik) and I were going to train there with a guy that devotes himself to that in Los Angeles.”
In the
phone interview from Cádiz, Spain, the actor added that he feels very
thrilled filming in this country, where the Sólo Quiero Caminar
project was conceived.
“The experience has been, up till now, very positive. It was incredible
to meet Tano (the director) and to finish the movie here also; somehow,
to come to Tano’s areas to finish, he had his pleasantry (joke). It is a
very Mexican movie, for those who did it and where it happens, but
Tano’s heart is here and somehow, it is to come to the place where
everything started, where everything occurred to him, where he decided
to direct and where he wrote this script.”
The actor
described the place where he is presently filming, together with the
movie production team, as very interesting, he is just on the border
with Africa.
“From where we
are sleeping we can see Morocco and it has much to see with Mexico.
Somehow it reminded me very much of Tijuana, and this question of being
in a place in which all the people are on leave, in a process of change,
it is very cinematographic and the people that you find on a border are
always very rich.”
Luna will remain in Spain one more week to film some scenes of
Sólo Quiero Caminar.
Translated by Heather~