The 28-year-old
Mexican is best known for his role alongside childhood friend
Gael Garcia Bernal in the breakout hit Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001).
Luna has since starred in Frida and The Terminal. This month
sees the release of his directorial debut, JC Chavez - The
Ultimate Mexican Hero, a documentary about his homeland's
greatest ever boxer. Luna has also just completed shooting on
Rudo y Cursi, a film that reunites him with Bernal as brothers
who are rival footballers.
There is a special affinity
between Mexico and boxing - can you explain that?
Boxing is about hunger. It might be the only sport, that and
marathon, that we are really good at. It's because it's a
country that doesn't give you any options. Mexico is terrible at
football because it is about communication, understanding and
working as a team, and we are shit at that. Boxing is exactly
the opposite.
How important is Julio Cesar
Chavez within Mexican boxing?
He was a national hero. For many, many years in Mexico the only
good news we had was this man's fights. As a kid, I remember
going to my uncle's house, who would get the pay-per-view, and
we would have all the family and friends watching on a big
screen and it was a huge party. We got used to this man always
winning; they were very intense fights, but it didn't matter if
the other guy was better, Chavez would win. Losing is a word
that we're very used to saying; defeat is a word that is part of
every day. So the idea of having a Mexican who didn't know what
losing was for 11 years made it a very special story.
Do you remember when he lost
for the first time after more than 80 fights?
Yeah. And do you know what is the most painful thing? When I was
interviewing him, he said it was because it was so close to
Christmas, he didn't train. It was so sad, it says so much! The
most important record in the history of boxing was lost because
of Christmas parties.
I'm guessing you have never
boxed yourself...
Never! I hate fights. I try to talk people out of fighting if I
can and if they start I run away.
So why did you want to make a
film about boxing?
The first fight I ever saw live was the first Castillo-Corrales
match in Las Vegas in 2005. After a very tough fight, I was at a
party with the promoters and I saw everyone apart from the
fighter. And I asked, 'Where's Castillo?' And they told me, 'Oh,
he's in his room peeing blood.' And there was a whole
celebration happening without him, lots of money, people playing
blackjack, having sex with beautiful women, while he sat alone
in his room. And I thought: 'Fuck! The story of these people.'
There's many people who live from them.
Is it true that football is
your preferred sport?
Yeah, totally. When I was young, football and theatre were the
only places I was happy. I remember school as just what happened
in between the things that I liked. Then, when I was seven, I
went to see Italy play France, with Platini, in the World Cup in
Mexico. After that I was a huge football fan.
Did you play football with
Gael Garcia Bernal when you were growing up?
Uh-huh, we still do. We play every Saturday for a team called
Sinaia. It's a team of friends, it's not that celebrity thing.
It's a team where sometimes when you are hungover you have to
stay on the bench, you know? We have played for a long, long
time, and you pay money, and there's a referee, a league, and a
web page where you can see who scored. It's kind of sad, but we
pay to feel like professionals.
Do your film contracts allow
you to play football?
I never let them know. I try not to read that part of the
contract.
Who's the better player, you
or Gael?
I'm much better than him. People always ask me if Gael and I get
jealous about what happens to the other, and the only thing we
are very competitive about is football. We become kids, little
kids. Football has played a very important role in our
relationship because we get all our tension out playing it: it
is good therapy.
If you had to compare
yourselves to famous players, who would you say that you were
like?
I can tell you who we would love to be, let's put it that way.
Gael would love to be Lionel Messi; and I would like to be, I
don't know, Thierry Henry. Not today, but at Arsenal. But it's
one of those things: it doesn't matter how bad you are or how
fat you are, it's amazing when you drive to where we play - it's
almost in the countryside, you have to drive for half an hour -
you always have the feeling that that day might be the day. It
doesn't matter how bad you were the last time you played, how
bad your team is, you think: 'I might score a few goals today!'
And those 30 minutes are amazing. And then the whistle blows...
Finally, what was it like
meeting Mike Tyson for the Chavez documentary?
Very scary. I arrived at the hotel for the interview and he made
me wait an hour and a half in the lobby. So I waited and the
whole thing was that he was waiting for his jacket to be ironed
for the interview, that is what the assistant told me, and when
I got to his room he had the most wrinkled jacket I have ever
seen. He was kissing this girl who was sitting with him and the
first thing he said was: 'Hurry up, I'm in a hurry.' So it all
started so tense, but he started to talk and say beautiful
things about Chavez. I have to say I couldn't understand
everything he was saying - he has a very peculiar way of
talking. At the beginning I was like 'Maybe it's my English',
but I turned to all the others and they had the same face of
'What? What the fuck is he saying?'
