Donde Ir (Where To Go) Magazine

April 2006

I am Diego ~ Diego Luna Increasing (Developing)

The actor discusses his new film roll as a journalist in his new movie. About learning ways of acting as diverse as cinema, theater and television and the characteristics of a great work.

Diego Luna Alexander is an actor who learned the love to the acting profession on stage. From childhood he shared the world of drama with his parents, and with time this experience helped him appear on television and further on in cinema. In this latter setting he met an important person who marked his life decisively: Alfonso Cuarón. Diego speaks to us briefly about his learning to act and about his new cinema work in Sólo Dios sabe (Only God Knows), the film directed by Carlos Bolado.

Is it difficult to play a Mexican journalist?

Diego: As a matter of fact, I am going to the put the name of your profession in a high place. No, it’s not difficult. There is no difference with any other character. It is to understand a profession, to find the reason of the person. Damián is a reporter who is beginning; he goes to Tijuana to carry out a report. He’s a guy that loves driving in highway and to travel around his country. It fascinates him to take photos and write about these trips. He is a guy that’s very curious about life. I believe that it is a very important quality for people that do journalism, to never loose curiosity.

How was the construction of the character?

Diego: Damián looks like many people that I know. In fact, he is very much like our director. Carlos Bolado, only you can’t tell him, it is a secret, although he will have found out already. In this precise moment of life, the guy is losing faith. He’s an individual who knows that love is the most important thing, very centered in this sense, someone adorable who commits many mistakes.

What were your reasons for accepting the character?

Diego: I took the role for several reasons. The first is the admiration of Carlos and because when I saw Bajo California and Promises so much, his two movies, I enjoyed them very much. They stayed in my head a long time. That’s the main reason. And the second for the rhetoric of the movie, it has a lot to do with me. Especially for a subject that is very important, in the movie it talks about a brotherhood (association) of orphans. And this is a subject that comes to me and sticks to me very much. It is a film where I share many concepts with Bolado.

What are you left with at the end of the movie?

Diego: With the wonderful journey that we made for Mexico and Brazil, the pleasure of working with many people that I like and admire. And the pride of having a movie ready to show.

Of the actors you collaborate with, what can you tell us?

Diego: The cast is solid and I met several Brazilian actors who impressed me with their work.

And of Alice Braga?

Diego: I am grateful having worked with her. The truth is the public will go away pleasantly surprised with her work. She’s a bad-ass!

You have acted in cinema, theater and television. Where do you come across best?

Diego: They are so different from each other, they are incomparable. Perhaps where I have liked it least, along my career, is in television. There you have less time, as an actor, to develop your character, to prepare yourself, to achieve a work more handmade. This does not want to say that it should not be possible to do good television. This is not to want to say that one cannot make good television. There are some attempts to make it. In theater and cinema the process is more organic. It is the process for which I go. To have to choose between theater and cinema would be like choosing between the salty thing and the sweet thing.

What learnings have performance in theater and in cinema left you?

Diego: In theater, the affection and love for what I do. I was in theater since I was a child, my dad devotes himself to that, and half my life, when finishing school, was to be in a theatrical enclosure. It was there that I decided to do this, but there I also set out that wanted to do many things. There I grew, I owe it very much. Besides, as an actor, it is the best place to practice. In Mexico one cannot count on a school of acting in cinema, all that want to do cinema had to start in theater. There are some exceptions. I believe that the stage and the experience you take in the theater. The cinema gives you much less opportunity.

To cinema, what do you owe to it?

Diego: Cinema is much trickier. In theater you are standing in front of the public, you depend on text, light and someone opposite you that listens and sees you. In cinema there are many more elements. Cinema is more than one specific point of view, it is a story that only one person tells. There it is the director. One becomes a tool so that he can extract his story. It is the point of view of this eye, with the personality of the director. Hence, an assembly is created to help him. In cinema there is a boss. Well, in good cinema there is a boss.

What directors have left you an education?

Diego: It is going to sound pretentious, but I try to learn from everyone that I work with. Everyone can grab hold of something. There are directors that I admire very much, and that has to do with the project and the process that they take. Undoubtedly, working with Alfonso Cuarón has been something which marked me more in all respects. Therefore, he, as a person and as a director, he is someone that is going to always be there.

What are your plans for the future?

Diego: First, to be happy. Next, to be able to keep on working with the people that I admire. To speak seriously with the Pumas’ board of directors to sort out some contracts and structural problems of my team. [Pumas de UNAM – a Mexico City soccer team.]

PROJECTS

Sólo Dios sabe (Only God knows)

Director: Carlos Bolado

Cast: Diego Luna, Alice Braga, Damián Alcázar

The paths of a Brazilian student named Dolores and Mexican journalist who answers to the Damián name, cross in the border town of Tijuana. Dolores, on her way to San Diego, loses her passport, for which she will have to travel to Mexico City to obtain another. In this trip her new friend Damián accompanies her, in whom she will find an almost magic relationship. Behind this dream there will be several obstacles.

Origin: Brazil – Mexico

Fade to Black

Director: Oliver Parker

Cast: Danny Houston, Paz Vega, Diego Luna, Christopher Walken

In order to recover from his divorce with actress Rita Hayworth, director Orson Wells travels to Italy, where he will be surrounded by a series of intrigues and murders.

Amapola (Poppy)

Director: Luis Mandoki

Cast: Daniel Giméz Cacho, Diego Luna

Written by Vicente Leñero, it is based on a true story that deals with the topic of friendship, ambition and the loyalty of two friends that devoted themselves to organize the cultivation of the poppy to provide morphine to American soldiers during the Second World War. The actions of both will have repercussions in the future and in the life of anti-drug agent, Saúl Garza, who investigates an organization of drug traffickers in San Diego.

Toto

Director: Carlos Cuarón

Cast: Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal

Film debut of scriptwriter Carlos Cuarón; a drama on of the world of the professional football (soccer).