Diego Luna grew up in a setting like the one he found himself in a few days ago at the Santander Performing Arts Complex, in Guadalajara. Everything in his life always seems to bring him back to acting, but more precisely to theater. He is the son of the renowned architect and set designer Alejandro Luna Ledesma and he accompanied him from a young age to the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, to the UNAM, to the performing arts exhibitions in Guadalajara, in Monterrey, Tijuana, places where he let him see “all the theater that he wanted, without being asked”, something that he jokingly defines as a “total act of irresponsibility”. “I sat down to see how the theater was done and what happened on the stages when you arrived.” [el público], they sat down and also left. That life enveloped me to the point of returning here,” he reflected in front of those present.
Luna, one of the most recognized actors of his generation in Mexico and internationally, received the attention and affection of a packed forum, with more than 1,000 people present, on a stage that, curiously, his father helped build. The emotion could not be held back and a photo was taken, for his children and his current partner, in front of the public. “Very few people know what it looks like from here to there, especially when there is an audience, it’s really cool,” he continued. These last few days in the capital of Jalisco, activities revolved around him, with screenings of films that he starred in, directed and produced. All within the framework of the Guadalajara Film Festival, which concluded this Saturday, and which invited the actor to honor him with the Mayahuel de Plata for his more than 30 years of career.
As part of the recognitions and activities, the actor also presented the book Diego Luna: The net is cool but unattainablewritten by director Roberto Fiesco, a frank and generous testimony of the professional journey of the director and producer, from his beginnings in theater and his time on television, to his multifaceted consolidation as a figure in international cinema.
Luna, 44 years old and born in Toluca, says that he had eight sessions with Fiesco that felt more like “therapy,” because it helped him remember his life, put order in it, and make his memories fit together better and even “sound more poetic.” ”. He describes the experience and exercise of recounting his experiences from the age of three to the present moment as “very nice”, but also confrontational, since he had to do it once his father had died, a fact that happened to end of 2022.
Shortly before the festival closed, Luna spoke to EL PAÍS via videoconference. Returning to the process of the book, the actor delves into what memory means. “Suddenly I realized many things, many patterns, things I didn’t say, things I saw, that I didn’t treasure as I would have liked. I realized that he was telling my story in a very convenient way and that there were things that he had decided to ignore or that he had decided to organize in a different order. He brought back memories, images. He reminded me of fundamental relationships in my life, because sometimes memory betrays you.”
‘And your mother too’, a watershed
During her adolescence, Luna spent time on television where she was part of important soap operas such as Grandpa and me (1991) and The jackpot (1995), to mention a few, a stage that he does not deny because he considers it important to find his way. “It was important to be able to transcend that stage. I had to go through it to realize what I realized. At 19 years old I said ‘I’m never going to watch a soap opera again.’ I owe a lot of that to theater, which kept me interested, but above all to cinema, which suddenly taught me that there was an opportunity to make audiovisuals in a much more artisanal way, with much more time. I needed to play those characters to wake up and get out of there. Without a doubt Alfonso Cuarón was vital,” she says.
The actor refers to what he considers was a watershed in his career, being able to work with Cuarón in And Your Mother Too (2001), which was the director’s third feature film. Starring alongside Gael García Bernal and the Spanish Maribel Verdú, it is a road movie about two young people who embark on a journey of self-discovery to a beach with a woman, in which the director seeks to reflect, through sexual desire and intimacy, the social, political, ideological and economic problems of contemporary Mexican society.
This won the award for best screenplay at the Venice Film Festival. Luna and García Bernal received the Marcello Mastroianni award for Best New Actor. It also earned an Oscar nomination in the Best Original Screenplay category. The film has been successful and is considered an icon of the so-called new mexican cinema.
The work written by Roberto Fiesco takes one of the phrases of Luna’s character in the film, Tenoch Iturbide, to title the actor’s biographical book. “The truth is cool, but the truth is unattainable.” A detail that also the protagonist of Rude and Corny (2008) He found it interesting and not at all coincidental that they used that phrase for the cover.
“Without a doubt it is a watershed. It’s hard for me to talk like that because many very important things have happened in my professional life that I consider pivotal moments. But I think that with And Your Mother Too What happened to me is that I grew in many ways. “I decided to take on new challenges, change direction and somehow I connected with people who have been very important in my life and a reference in making decisions in my professional and personal life, because, personally, very important things also happened to me in that film.” , he complements.
Cinema as a social tool
This professional commitment opened the doors to the international market, with more than 30 films produced in Spain, the United States, England and Germany—in addition to Mexico—, with directors such as Steven Spielberg and Gus van Sant, as well as making the leap to popular sagas. as Star Wars as the spy Cassian Andor in both a film and a series that has two seasons. However, even with this acting range in film and television, Luna continues to see the theater as her “safe place.” A perception that has not changed thanks to his father and the prestigious playwright Luis de Tavira, who invited him to be part of a play at the age of nine.
“When I think about home, about my center, about that place where I want to be, theater is the first thing that comes to mind, without a doubt. But not only as an actor, but also as an audience. I love cinema and I am going to continue doing it and I also believe in cinema as a very powerful tool, but theater is where I always return,” he adds.
Luna has been nominated for a Golden Globe, a Goya and won an Ariel award for best script for Abel (2010), his second film as a director, but he has also stood out for his social aspect alongside García Bernal, his friend, partner and colleague. Whether as founders of the Ambulante Festival, a space for documentary film as a tool for cultural and social transformation in Mexico and Central America; or as producers interested in making sensitive and relevant topics part of the public agenda, such as freedom of the press and violence against journalists in Mexico, which is reflected in the support of their production company, La current del Golfo, for the documentary silent staterecently premiered at the Guadalajara Festival.
He is a firm believer that if cinema does not function as a mirror and if it does not connect with the deepest part of our context, who we are and our life in community, “it has no meaning.”
“That’s why it exists. This is how I learned to see it and this is how I learned to do it. I never saw my dad working on a play that talked about something he didn’t care about. What I feel in this country I have not felt in another. Here I have felt the deepest level of connection I have ever had with other human beings and with my community. I will always respect that and I will nourish it throughout my life to the extent possible. I feel that cinema is a great tool for that. “It would be a waste, a shame, to have the freedom to make films and make one that doesn’t matter,” he says.
Luna feels happy about how cinema has advanced in the creation of spaces like the Guadalajara Film Festival, which allows us to connect through the stories we tell and that matter to our peers, whether in Mexico or Latin America. He says he feels “proud” to be part of a community and a moment in which cinema somehow found an audience and a forum to become a dialogue.
“I am part of a moment in which cinema connected with the public in a very harmonious way. When I grew up as a spectator, we did not have access to cinema that told us about the different realities in Mexico. I grew up watching more foreign cinema. Taking stock of what this festival has meant in my life, now I realize that, that as a filmmaker, actor and producer I have had the opportunity to connect with an audience,” he reflects.
He is grateful for what he has achieved, for the intensity with which he has worked for more than 30 years, but he is also aware of how difficult it is to live with a suitcase and “be addicted to being away,” despite having tools to be present, but at the same time remind you of the distance. The assessment he makes of the profession is that it is important not to forget that life does not happen only on stage, in the stories that are told and that, in the end, what they make are just movies.
“Life is also about other things, other connections. And it is another legacy. If that part is not fed, then you go with your films very alone. “I don’t want that to happen to me,” she concludes.
Sign up for the EL PAÍS México newsletter for free and to whatsapp channel and receive all the key information on current events in this country.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Diego #Luna #dont #feed #life #stage #films