Roberto Valdés: Which would be your
maximum aspiration or your dream, to play a role or take part in a
movie?
Diego Luna: I
would like to be able to work some day with the Cohen brothers, I
love their movies. I always find something interesting in the cinema
that they do. I even like the worst, no? They have something and I
would love working with them, but there are many. I would love
repeating with Alfonso, some day to do the character of some Mexican
politician, this, I only have to age more because what it is absent
in Mexican politics is new blood, no? Then I am still very young, at
least somebody of the green party, I am still very young, no?
RV: A video
scandal?
DL: But any movie on politics in
Mexico the level of cynicism that they handle seems really
incredible to me, no? And as an actor I believe that I would give a
great work tool, no? If it is possible to rescue some pathetic thing
that is politics in this country, since if you want to make fun of
her there is always cloth to cut from, no? I suppose the
caricaturists of the newspapers since I already do not believe that
they worry very much because on any page you open in the newspaper
there is something they make fun or, they are, they are assholes.
RV: In an
interview you did in an English magazine it’s been a couple of
months you mentioned that the scene with Gael had followed you
during all your career. That from here on (has) followed you, the
way it has followed you, and has it affected your work as actor or
as a person?
DL: No, no it has
affected my work, I was saying it in a joking tone, it’s like those
things that everybody remembers about you, no? Well, you don’t
always enjoy everything you do in the movies, no? That one
especially was very difficult because I was doing it with a very
good friend, so it was more complicated but I was not going by that.
On the contrary it gives me great pride to see it, suddenly they
gave us an award in a gay magazine and you say that it is amazing
that they believed the whole thing, no? They believed that there was
love between these two guys, no? That gives pride, like when you
kill someone, since you are not killing anybody, it’s your
character.
RV:Would
you like your career at this moment to return to Mexico and
spotlight merely independent films with unknown actors, perhaps
unknown directors, but with an interesting script?
DL: Well yes, I have just done a
movie, I believe that every project in Mexico is independent. There
are not even studies the government supports to the cinema as they
say they do, then every project that you raise in this country is
completely independent because you have to contribute instead of
them giving to you, no? Nobody hires you and says to see you do your
movie and bring it to me, one must go obtain the money. You end up
selling your car or stop paying rent for 5 months. I have just done
a movie called “Only God Knows”, a film that’s a Mexico-Brazil
co-production, where I was feeling like doing a small movie with the
resources that we had to try to obtain and tell the story that we
wanted, with a Mexican director that I would love seeing direct more
because he deserves it, he is Carlos Boldo. Those projects I want
to keep doing. If cinema was doing more in this country I would live
more time here. The truth is for me, if there were options here I
stayed here. It is where I decided to be an actor.
RV: The serious
question, if there are invitations?
DL: There are
invitations but there is no project yet. I no longer want to make
concessions that I don’t want when I accept a project that I like,
and to have the conviction to throw myself in with the project and
say good, I’m leaving how I’m leaving. I believe in this. That does
not always happen. Then there are some scripts and others arrive,
but none have convinced me completely. There are stories I want to
tell, that of Poppy, that I hope rises and is well armed, but there
is little I hoped was more.
RV:What kind of
concessions?
DL: Well, one does not have 5 years
in movies due to the fact that they offered them you said “oh cool,
they offered me a movie” you tried to find the positive side, that
cool character. This does not beat me so much, but the director is
worth while or you were doing them because you did not know if they
were going to offer you anything more in the next 5 or 6 years of
your life, no. Then you were accepting only for the fact to be doing
cinema and I believe that is not sufficient to accept a project, no.
You have to really want the story and be sure that it is necessary
to tell it.
RV: Is there
some error in some movie that you have done or that you regret?
DL: NO! I do not
regret because in addition you learn from failures, no? When things
go badly for you, you oblige the reflection to grow and change and
make an effort, then I believe that everything I have done has me
where I am. Also there are many things I would not do again, but one
cannot regret because that makes me quite the fool. Besides, this
work is a conviction. In general, all the projects I’ve accepted are
because I believed it was what I had to do, what was convenient for
me, no? This way I have been wrong.
RV: Have you
lost ground some time along your career?
DL: Well, you feel sick (dizzy,
confused) all of a sudden, so if you say ‘wow’ this is happening to
me, suddenly you feel that you already did it. But there when one
must learn to breathe, to think, to speak with friends, family, that
lower you and remind you that you are nobody and they remind to you
all your faults and you say if it is true. They ??? me much, friends
are, there was a phrase by David Trueba where he was saying “I do
not tell my sorrow to my friends, that entertain them their whore
mother” because he has every reason, friends are those who can laugh
the most at your misfortunes, no? They remind you all the time and
it is good to listen to them.
RV: What kind of
preparation do you have as an actor before a film?
DL: Well, it
depends on the character, no. For example, with Criminal,
since I went away to play a role in east of Los Angeles going to all
the places where my character would go, eating tacos, to where I
ate, to the mechanical workshop, every character demands something
different. It was really cool because I knew this part of Los
Angeles that is not seen in the movie. It is a city of 18 million
inhabitants and half of the movies that happen there, happen in
Hollywood, on Sunset Boulevard and in the studios. This movie was
speaking more of the city and the differences of the city from west
to east. I realized how the Mexicans who have gone away there do not
leave Mexico, if they do not take Mexico with them the routines of
life are very similar to those of any city of our country.
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