LOS
ANGELES, California — As we reported earlier, “Milk,” Gus Van Sant’s
biopic of the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in
America, is an effective introduction to the life and times of Harvey
Milk. Before he was assassinated by a colleague in the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors in 1978, Harvey fought for gay and human rights,
forging coalitions across a wide political spectrum, from senior
citizens to union workers.
Harvey's love life is certainly not what
“Milk” is all about. But since Harvey and his two lovers, first Scott
Smith and then Jack Lira are played by straight actors—Sean Penn, James
Franco and Diego Luna,
respectively—reporters asked James and Diego about their respective
kissing scenes with Sean, who was not present at the press cons held
recently at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco.
Diego Luna, the Mexican actor who is enjoying an acclaimed
international career with such films as Alfonso Cuaron’s “Y Tu Mama
Tambien,” Steven Spielberg’s “The Terminal,” and various award-winning
entries at film festivals, was alternately shy, sheepish, amusing and
flustered but always winning in his discussion of his intimate scenes
with Sean. He had the reporters constantly laughing with his
humor-tinged responses.
“He is not here, right?” Diego joked, pretending to scan the room to
confirm that Sean was not around.
He said, “(Sean is) a good kisser. No. I mean, he’s okay. I am not going
to say that he is not a good kisser but I’ve tried better. With Sean,
something happens. The people who are really great in what they do have
magic. When they perform, they don’t need to pretend. Sean is a guy who
works more than any other actor I’ve worked with, who takes his job with
a lot of commitment and enjoyment. He’s a very sweet guy. He understands
acting as a sharing process. I really appreciated that when I was on the
set with him.”
“The love scenes?” Diego repeated aloud the key words in a reporter’s
question. “I try to forget them. Gus shoots in such a way that it’s very
relaxing as an actor. No one else is there. There’s just a camera and
the camera was really far away from us so it feels like a safe place.
Whatever happens there is just between you and the other actor. Then
it’s all the millions of people who are going to see the film. But when
you’re doing it, you’re not thinking about that. It went well. It was
quite easy, in fact. But I did need tequila in between takes.”
Playfully covering his face with both his hands, Diego added, “I need
help. You got me.” Then the actor, who also kissed his friend, Gael
Garcia Bernal in “Y Tu…,” continued, “It was not the toughest thing
to do in the film. It’s like the same thing happened in ‘Y Tu Mama
Tambien.’ It’s like it’s tough to jump into the water but once you
are there, it’s fine. It’s easy. It’s worse if you do it with
someone you like because you don’t want the scene to end. You start
to get too close and it starts to feel real. Sean is a great actor.
I am kind of an okay actor so we can pretend it’s okay.
Using his hands to demonstrate a gesture of shooing someone away, Diego
quipped, “But at the very end, it was like, ‘Get away. Put something
on.’ ”
“We were not completely naked,” he revealed. “We had something covering
our things. Our beautiful things were covered by these fake ones. So if
you get to see something in the film, it’s not ours. It was designed and
completely shaped. We had a chance to choose, in fact. The makeup
artists came up with three and said, ‘Which one do you like?’ I was
like, ‘Um, not the biggest one.’ Because I thought that would be too
much, too pretentious. I chose one that has the hair perfectly cut. We
used those things and I have to say they helped in a weird way because
it feels like you’re covered. It feels like okay, this is easy. It’s not
me. What you’re seeing is not mine so it’s fine.
"I remember walking completely naked, with no problem among the grips
and everyone. I felt like, you guys, this is okay. I felt in a way that
I was dressed. It worked but the other thing is that the scene played
like for a minute. Gus said, ‘Okay, go do it, play and we’ll see what
happens.’ It was not one of these scenes where we needed to hit
positions and marks and that we spend the whole day doing. We wore these
for an hour and it was easy.”
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