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Proceso Magazine Living with fame...
Informal, sharp, but especially skeptic, actors Diego Luna and Gael García prove to be when they personify themselves in this interview with writers Juan Villoro and Fabrizio Mejía. They speak as much about what they are not (politics, show business, fame) as of what they are and want to be (cinema, social causes and more cinema). Although they are sarcastic about those that announce them as “a package,” in this case they decided to speak together for Proceso [magazine].
We believe in good actors so much that sometimes we think that they are what they represent. One is consulted by those in the street that appear to be doctors, one is insulted in the line at the bank by those who appear as villains.
Gael García Bernal has played Che Guevara on two occasions, Fidel and The Motorcycle Diaries, and he can be seen as a volunteer of the just causes to which the charismatic face decorates millions of T-shirts. A versatile actor, the new Latin sex symbol played a transvestite in Bad Education and took holy orders in The Crime of the Father Amaro, the most popular Mexican movie in history.
For his part, Diego Luna has provided of a perplex personality (a witness amazed before what he sees) such diverse characters as a Chicano immigrant in The Terminal, a computer nerd in Nicotina, and a notable person of university autonomy, Alejandro Gómez Arias, in Frida. But the roles with which most associate them with are undoubtedly the “charolastras” of Y tu mamá también. What is there in them of these characters? They preserve self-assurance, but avoid excess at any cost.
According to Martin Amis, the ego of an actor is a supernova that explodes in every beat of his satisfied heart. The first meeting with Diego and Gael disconcerts: it gives the impression that only a part of them has come and that their conceit will come later. Nothing more logical, after all, the ego of Latin symbols is unpunctual. But the suspicious chronicler continues waiting conceit in vain. Is it possible to act straightforward? Diego and Gael wear their worn T-shirts like a second skin and in every phrase they declare war on arrogance, the possessive lady that controls so many artists.
Although they sometimes walk on red carpets, they prefer other trip destinations. Theatre, ecology, the Pumas of UNAM, boxing, and articles are some of their passions. They do not discuss wine, labels, gastronomy, hotels or odd sports. When they mention an actress they do it as fans of cinema who would want to know her. They are sure that their lives are more entertaining than ours (“there is nothing more boring than to tell how you write a book,” mentions Diego), but they only bear the dead hours of the filming if they have something to read.
When we enter the house where they were waiting for us for this interview, we find them engrossed on their laptops, in company with Pablo Cruz, their associate in the production company Canana. If Maria Félix was the same inside and out as Mrs Bárbara [Bush], Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal are part-time “charolastras”: they celebrate jokes with loud laughs, but they have a work discipline capable of satisfying an oriental teacher.
Their presence in the Guadalajara International Book Fair provoked a tumultuous stampede of secondary students and their appearance in the Pumas [soccer] box deserves more comments than the match, but this is not the script that they prefer for their personal life. In a certain way, they fight to be unknown. Only a part of them emerges before the spotlights. Fame is the side effect or the collateral damage of their work. We met a cold January afternoon to speak with them about the use and abuse of the media culture.
“Your fame belongs to me”
Gael: In my case it is a question of fame that nobody looked for, nor even asked for. If you saw how Mexican cinema was, it wasn’t possible to think about this. On the contrary, the relative invisibility gave us freedom. It is a very different path from people who make careers to be famous, like Paris Hilton.
Diego: The public and press feel they are in charge of generating points of reference about you that can compare with those in the United States. There is a sensation of ownership, of saying: “your fame belongs to me because I bought all these magazines that talk about your life, because I followed you in the restaurant and asked the waiter what you ate…”. I believe that the phenomenon is another one: the cinema, like any thing that lives from selling tickets, one must publicize. With Sexo, pudor y lágrimas (Sex, Shame & Tears) and Amores perros Mexican cinema began to have more viewers and it was understood that it was necessary to promote it in another way.
Gael: So it was necessary to request the resources. What we wanted was that people were going to the cinema.
Diego: In the
United States cinema makes use
of celebrities’ fame. Michael Jordan has his movie for being famous.
In our case it was exactly the other way around. Here, fame does not
come before your work. First you have to act and then they want to
know who you go to bed with. Once this is done, there are people who
believe it is possible to come to fame first and go sell their
weddings and their children’s baptism…
Juan Villoro (JV): There are actors who sell marketing and base everything on their appearance, and actors that bet on content. Sometimes they confuse both things.
Gael: Nobody exists that can guarantee the box office. There are movies by very famous people that have tanked.
JV: You founded the production company Canana, that from its name has Zapatistas resonances, to launch foreign projects to the market?
Diego: The need to do things doesn’t come from fame, but the resources to do them yes. When we were promoting Y tu mamá también, we were saying: “it is necessary to have our theatre company, it would be a fantastic to do independent movies, to construct a little forum...”. Before fame we realized that we had a very useful set of tools for our mental jackets. When I was doing soap operas, I had a reputation that was serving me to sign autographs, but I could not live on that.
JV: The Oscar nominations are now seen almost like the re-conquest of California.
Diego: In a completely exaggerated way. These people were already doing good cinema before. I don’t believe that the public has gone to see Los niños del hombre (The Children of Man) as an emblem to re-conquer California. If they re-release it, probably more people would have this idea.
FMM: In the United States celebrities are making use of their position to attract attention on the poverty in Africa, adopting a child, like Madonna, or speaking with politicians, like Bono. It seems to me that they are very powerful at the time for attracting attention but very less effective for real help.
Gael: That is charity. In rich countries you serve with your social spirit and then you see a movie by Almodóvar. In a poor country they change the rules. Every decision that’s made has other political repercussions. In charity everything is more distant. Madonna lives in a castle in England and gives a charity concert with the same impetus with which she sings in a TV/radio commercial.
JV: Many artists use social causes as part of their promotion. It is better publicity to say that they fight to save the Amazon than to advertise sweaters?
Diego: The day I felt the worst about this matter was when I saw U2 in Los Angeles. In one point in the concert everyone raised their ipods to lift a light against poverty, but this light was from a luxurious device! The truth is that to us it costs us much more work to do all this. We did not create Canana in order to help, except to help ourselves. We do not have a limitless account and the company is in the red. We want to generate things, to support doing the documentaries that we want to see.
Gael: Before actors we are spectators.
Diego: The theaters are full of movies that we do not identify with.
“In what country does Mexico stay?” FMM: There are two interpretations for the Oscar nominations: one patriotic and other that thinks it is not a question of Mexican cinema after all.
Diego: It makes me a little sad that we have started to feel that we are doing things well. We have great directors who have to go away to film in other places. We can’t say that our industry is strengthened by these nominations. In fact, the complete opposite happens: our industry has prevented those people from working where they wanted to work. Alfonso Cuarón says: “we are luxurious laborers”. It doesn’t bother me that president Fox did not speak to Guillermo Arriaga when he won the award in Cannes for best scriptwriter: I would worry if he did speak to him! With what face is he going to say to him: “we are doing things well, congratulations.”? Thanks to the political cultural of Mexico all these directors live in another country. They direct for foreign companies and fortunately, they are the people with the common sense to return things to Mexico, because half of Babel was filmed here, which brought in a lot of money.
Gael: It would also be unjust to think Babel is American cinema. It is least Hollywood thing that exists. In Morocco, Japan and Mexico most of the team was from here [Mexico]. On the other hand, The Children of Men it is the most English movie that can exist, much more than The Queen.
Diego: When they ask me how I feel that Mexico is triumphing in Hollywood, I answer: “No, there are some Mexicans that have balls and overcome being able to do cinema in their country.”
Gael: What’s more, I don’t believe that the goal is to win awards. That’s not what is important.
JV: For a couple of years
Hollywood tried to repair a pending subject rewarding black artists.
Now it seems that the spring of the Latin has come. Up to what point
is a politically correct gesture? The
Hollywood liberals
want to compensate for the maltreatment of the countrymen or is it a
lasting interest in cinema that can come from this?
Gael: If you go to Puerto Escondido you find a Norwegian that says, “Here is where they filmed Y tu mamá también.
“Mexicans out of the kitchen and into the closet” Gael: There are subjects that propper yankies start working, like the border. It is a debt of the United States cinema: it has not documented what happens there with Chicanos. There is a change about how Mexicans' stories are thought about in the United States. Before it was sort of a punitive trip; the Mexican was going so far as to excel oneself, his story was only interesting if it was told in adapted form and ending with a blonde. With his hair color the only thing remaining. Now it’s not needed to weaken the identiy of those who go there.
JV: I remember the robbery in the coffee shop in Pulp Fiction. One of the criminals shouts: “Bring out the Mexicans from the kitchen!”. He hasn’t seen them, but he supposes that the cooks can only be Mexican. In the new stories the Mexicans already left the kitchen.
Diego: Furthermore, if the movies speak of those who are in the kitchen, they don’t treat them like those who’d want to go sit in a lawers’ office. They talk about the life of a guy that is there and that’s all, the real life of a dishwasher. The person is interesting for what he is, not for his aspiration of being something else.
Gael: In Independent Cimena moulds have been breaking:
first two girls kissing, then homosexuality, now the reality of
Mexicans in the
United States
…
Gael: In the case of
Babel
I don’t think of Mexican cinema, but of cinema done by Mexicans, but
in the rest of the world, yes they see it as Mexican cinema.
JV: Censorship wants to be preventive. They do not need
to find out in order to prohibit. The Ayatola condemned Rushdie
without reading him. Diego: The movie is precisely about that double moral, of how can we accommodate things to see them in a different way. You might say: “these two dudes did not turn back to see because they gave each other a kiss,” or or you can think that they did not turn to see because from day one each one was screwing the others’ girlfriend and they spent seven years lying. You can accommodate everything so that your moral side rests and think that someone was sick because he kissed his friend. For me, he was sick because of two bottles of mezcal, and they did not turn to see because one had fucked the other’s mother.
In reality there was no friendship, but a relationship corrupted by a tremendous quantity of lies. I remember another movie that goes slightly similar, although for political reasons: Herods Law. We were in Acapulco waiting for the premiere and the copy was not coming. It was election time, it seemed that something was going to change and that the movie could influence. It is strange that all that did not come to an end at once. We have lived through an incredible quantity of frauds, but on any side the ruling comes and the whole world stands at attention. The church comes and the same happens. We have learned to live with indifference, not listening when it is convenient for us. We complain about the level of corruption, but if they ask us if we want examination, we prefer that they don’t do it to us. We have learned to be very sanctimonious.
JV: Sanctimonious in what sense?
“The Publicity of Censurship”
Diego: And what happens is that, without classification,
the big chains won’t distrubute you. In the
United States they denied us
classification with Y tu mamá también.
Gael: Here a movie cannot go out without classification
[a rating], it is needed in order to be shown. In the
United States it is a
recommendation of different circles of society, not by a government
committee. Here it is a censoring from
RTC (General
direction of Radio, Television and Cinematography) by the Government
Secretary.
Gael: In Y tu mamá también the Government put,
because of fucking, inspectors in theatres in order to check the age
of the spectators.
Diego: There is also a part of censoring that derives
from impunity. Like the stories of drug traffickers. Meanwhile, the
drug traffickers are noisy, they have their small hearts and do not
kill children. We can speak about them, but making a movie about
drug traffickers as they are, after leaving heads of police officers
in the streets, you can’t do. That reflects the power that has a
threat in
Mexico. Here they call you by phone: “don’t touch this topic”, they
tell you, and you don’t touch it again. In the United States a call like that
gives you the power to do five more movies on the subject.
JV: Another face of the power would be the politicians
who approach actors for the popularity that they have with the
public. Who has approchexd you from politics?
Gael: PAN and PRD brought us over. The PRI, no.
Gael, Yes, it’s the party that nobody wants to answer the
phone for.
Diego: Afterwards one is very idiotic because you say:
“They invited me to speak about culture, how cool, and I am going to
be able tell them what I think.” You arrive, the candidate takes the
photo with you and at the hour that he refers you to speak he is in
Guamúchil taking a photo with the mariachi there. He leaves you with
the resources, but you already took the photo. They are so removed
from the people that they resort to things as coarse as taking a
photo with you.
Gael: That's why we did
not do commercials. The question was if we were really sure. If I do
not give my face to a TV/radio commercial, can I give it for a
political campaign that I’m not sure of?
Gael: Yes, of course. I am with the ONG [for just
commerce] Oxfam and I go to
Hong Kong
with them.
Diego: Politicians do not approach us personally. They
are not interested in your position. Many “are very smart”: they
look for Gael and me in bloc. And the political position is a very
personal thing. I can believe that such a candidate is the solution
and Gael can be in entire disagreement. But the invitations arrive
like “come dressed from Y tú mamá también and they gave you a
kiss at the end.”
Diego: One thing is to vote and the other is what you do
with the word. To support a cause is having the balls, six years
later, maintaining. It is difficult not to find the chinks and
humidity in a polotician when he has a time in power.
Gael: The myth exists that actors earn a lot of money.
The Hacienda auditors saw my accounts and did not believe it. In
The Motorocycle Diaries I earned much less than in Bad
Education. But, despite the lack of money, making a comercial
for me is very difficult because it means breaking the spiritual
contract of acting, the idea of change and converting your
character, the credibility of your work. Madonna promotes to
erradicate poverty in the world and and advertises Motorola the
same. There is a point of inconsistency. I wouldn’t sleep peacefully
doing that because I would feel that my work capitalizes a brand.
Diego: Me, yeah I’ve done advertisements; I can tell the
other side. The priciple is an economic relationship in order to
obtain the peace that cinema does not give you. I did soap operas
until I was 19 and and it is more wearing than makeing an American
Express or Ermenegildo Zegna ad in order to give me the chance to
live where I make it and to work in the National Theatre Company,
where they paid me one thousand pesos (like $100) per function when
I’d rehearsed for 3 months. I believe that it is my work as an actor
that gives me credibility so that these companies allow me to take
part in the contents of their advertisements.
Diego: Yes, because you are going to go out with an open
shirt announcing a resort to which you can’t go back to because it
is not enough in order for you to pay for it. In Zegna I intervened
to decide where I was doing it, what photos with what director. And
it was not only that. A percentage of what they paid me went to the
Casa de la Sal and they promised to do three charity events.
American Express was the first sponser for Ambulante. They gave 150
thousand dollars to support the price of the ticket by 15 pesos.
FMM: There is a paradox of celebrities: they represent a
role, but the audiance demands to see “your real self”, when the
definition of an actor is not to have a real self.
Diego: Somehow fame forces you to create a third person,
if you are interested in perserving yourself far from the scrutiny
and the exploitation of your privacy. Ones life always turns out to
be more boring than what the media says. If I had gone to bed with
all the girls that they say I slept with, I would never have had
time to have my first sexual relationship. Fame forces you to create
a public person; that is the third one in which you shield yourself
in order to maintain being yourself.
Translated by Heather Source: http://www.proceso.com.mx/impreso_nota.html?nta=140151&sec=11
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