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Chilango Magazine |
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December 2003 |
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Diego Luna ~ Actor 29 December 1979, Mexico City, native 2003 is definitively his year, but he – modest as he is – does not believe so. Nevertheless, another chilango has become an actor of Spielberg… At 23 he has conquered the screens of national and American cinema. He has talent, is ingenious, and creative. After the success of Y tu mamá también, his presence has flooded the big screens. In 2003 alone he released three movies: Nicotina, directed by Hugo Rodriguez, Open Range, by Kevin Costner and Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights, under the direction of Guy Ferland. For 2004 Criminal will premiere, a remake of the Argentinean film Nine Queens by Fabian Bielinsky, with an adapted script by Steven Soderbergh. And The Terminal, where he hobnobs with actors Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones, directed by none other than Steven Spielberg. We insist: this is his year, and to outbursts of laughter we again insist that no, it’s not that bad. His sense of humor and critical capacity amaze us. We are contagious to his laugh and in the middle of the photo session, before interviewing him, he suggests to us his candidates for “Chilangos of the Year”: photographer Emmanuel Lubezki and directors Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón. “I am not even half as cool as they are,” he comments. He suggests that, instead of the classic interview, we give him the sovereign word. This way, without means of intermediaries, we allow him to speak. And since he is our favorite “Chilango of the Year”, we do not even doubt him a second. Diego Luna has the word. The City [Mexico City] “The people I love are here. I have no interest in being from somewhere else. I like (the city) because it grows like a plague. I miss it, it always surprises you. You’re walking and there is a horrible building next to a gorgeous one. You coexist with chaos every day and it ends up being enjoyable. The clean one complains very much about transportation or smog, but we don’t leave because in the end there is something that maintains you there. I like the controlled anarchy of the city: I don’t know how, but it works. You suddenly encounter car in reverse for five blocks and nothing happens, or you unexpectedly go with your friend to his house to chat whilst he clears up the Peripheral (el Periférico) and there is no fuss. You don’t have to plan life all the time. You can improvise in any moment. Parks and green areas are absent in the city. And a feeling of ‘I clean my neighborhood because it is mine,’ is absent. It gives me the sensation that we live in waste and destroy the city little by little. The government does not do anything and the truth is that neither do many of us. We lack assuming responsibility of our city.” Caffeine [bar Diego is a co-owner of] “What I like most about having the restaurant bar Caffeine (cavern or dive in the colony Condesa) is to have a place to write out the bills. I come with my friends, sit down awhile, and spend hours chatting. Everything I earn from Caffeine I spend with my friends too. The place is amazing. I enjoy doing business with my friends a lot.” The Best of 2003 “I like coming to the city and being able to join The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. The team is a super professional. It is delightful to feel the public every night. I could not do it too many times this year. I was in ten performances, but it was very cool. Another cool thing this year was to do three movies in English, which was a challenge. To work along side Clooney and John C. Reilly, people who I always dreamed of working with because I respect their work, was an enormous experience. I am barely filming with Spielberg and I am sure it’s going to be an impressive experience. He has a brutal energy. He’s like a guy with absolute dedication to his projects. He does not have to claim he is cool; he is cool. He comes to the set and knows his work, knows exactly what he wants. He listens to you and respects you as an actor, but also knows what he wants of you and what you can give. With Havana Nights they gave me the part because of casting, the same with Spielberg, although with him I did a horrible casting. I believe I seized it well. I met Costner at a meal and we liked each other, that’s why the project came up. But the real one, the real one, I owe to Y tu mamá también.” Mexico “The more I travel, the more I like Mexico. We don’t remove the flavor from things. In the United States everything tastes the same, the food tastes like another thing. I love coming to Mexico and driving down to the taco shop on Revolution Avenue, El Borrego Viudo, and eating some taquitos. While I was in the theater I used to go out every night and eat my tacos. It’s not import if the taco maker washes his hands or not, they know everybody’s mother! I love returning to Mexico, going out to eat with friends, and having 3-hour meals. I’m delighted that the meals last for hours, that they become dinners. Each time I anticipate more going to a friend’s house to eat because I find a bit of intimacy and anonymity there. I can also tell them not to play Gloria Estefan music. Something also very cool are the hidden places, like the bars that open if the proprietor decides it, if he is in a good mood. I hate the over-produced thing, the non-authentic thing. In Mexico each community has their seafood restaurant, their neighborhood taco-shop. There is not this massive vibe that everything is equal. In Mexico you distinguish your neighborhood and your favorite taco place and you defend it.” The Fictitious Life “I take a two and a half year project somewhere; my passport has been filling with stamps. Y tu mamá también is to blame for giving me security and has opened doors for many projects for me. It is strange, when you sign a contract they give you a fictitious life; they take charge of your life the whole day. You spend the day dressed as another person, with another person’s car and living in a house or hotel. They even choose your friends because they’re those who are going to be working on the movie. When the project is finished they take your whole fictitious life from you. One has to preserve the nucleus of your life, always; your friends, your city. The worst thing that you can do is to get comfortable. I cannot make plans for a year. I am ready for new projects; there are thousands! They send me scripts, but I wait for a good story that I want to tell. I know very well what I want to do. I am now in school in my professional life. I like to learn and take on new challenges. One must take on challenges constantly: I am always waiting for a story that I want to film.” The Future “I want to travel to places that I don’t know; I want to do cinema in countries like Argentina and Spain. I would like to repeat (work) with the Coen brothers because I learned loads. It thrills me to think that I am going to be able to work with directors and scriptwriters who are still in film school. In ten years, when I am 33, I am going to be able to work with young guys that see movies today, and who know what type of cinema and stories they are going to film. These possibilities excite me very much.” Football [Soccer] “I am a Pumas fanatic. I hate Ámerica [Club America, a Mexico City soccer team] because it’s a team that, with so much money for the payroll, never manages to play Boca Juniors or Real Madrid. I play in a local league. The times I’m in Mexico I love going to play a friendly football match. One day I was acting in Moliére, as Luis 14th in the theater… but I hurt myself during a football match and came to the stage with a super modern splint combined with tights of the era.” Mexican Cinema “There is no real film industry in Mexico. There is not even a school for actors of cinema, only for theater and television. Cinema gets worse all the time in Mexico. In 2002 we did 15 productions, but in 2003 only eight! It is incredible. There is no challenge for culture in Mexico; there is no support. The distributor remains with every project; it stays with almost nothing. In order for a real cinema industry to exist in Mexico, they have to change the laws and incentives. But the leaders do not go to the cinema, and support neither movies nor art exhibitions. They know us in the world for our culture and traditions, but there is no real support to the culture. Nobody worries, because the talent remains in Mexico. As an actor you cannot live off eight productions a year. One must stop seeing the culture as a luxury and start seeing it as a necessity.” |
