La Maquina: Gael Garcia Bernal & Diego Luna share their career friendship

ODE

The old friends have reunited for Disney+ boxing drama La Maquina. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:00Gentlemen, congratulations on the making of it.

00:03Just to start off with though, I want to talk about a film that's very dear to my heart,

00:07which is The Motorcycle Diaries.

00:09I saw that when I was maybe 16, 17.

00:11It was the first foreign language film I watched on the big screen in the cinema,

00:15and it really affected me about what cinema could be,

00:19the scope, it was beautifully shot, the storytelling.

00:22And it's a film that stayed with me for a long, long time,

00:25and it was a bit of a coming of age experience as an audience member.

00:30And it just made me think, especially with the parallels with this,

00:34what project do you guys feel like you came of age on?

00:38I know you did Itamama Tambien before that.

00:42Was that the film, or even The Motorcycle Diaries?

00:45No, coming of age?

00:47Yeah.

00:48Definitely Itamama Tambien.

00:50It is that.

00:51It encompasses the whole coming of age thing of us being...

00:57You were 19, I was 20, no?

01:01And we were shooting it, and we started to work in films,

01:07started to discover the magic of cinema,

01:11started to discover the way of making it as well,

01:15and it was a very thorough and very entertaining way

01:20of getting to know cinema as such.

01:22So that's when it happened for us,

01:27that it was like, OK, we might have, let alone a career,

01:31a desire to have a career in cinema.

01:34At that point, we decided, let's do more cinema,

01:38let's do more of this.

01:40And the opportunities came about after the films came out,

01:42because we hadn't done any film that had that kind of resonance.

01:48So that was the main coming of age.

01:51And then maybe when you're young, it happens to us,

01:56but it happens to everyone, I guess, also.

01:59Many of the stories are about the coming of age kind of thing.

02:02So you always end up falling into that kind of...

02:06And now we are maybe in a coming of age of like...

02:10We do a story of coming of age of realizing

02:13that there's a boxer that the career needs to end.

02:17And the problem is, how do we say goodbye?

02:20So we finish that career, which is a very short life,

02:24the lives of athletes.

02:27So, yeah, in a way, they are all coming of age.

02:30And I'm taking that expression very literally

02:32because I'm translating it from English to Spanish.

02:35They're kind of like...

02:37Like a loss of innocence, in a way.

02:40And I think it's definitely to Mama Tambien,

02:43because we were old enough to be talking about something.

02:47We had the perspective and the objectivity

02:50to actually reflect on.

02:52It wasn't like that we were going through that in our lives.

02:58But in cinema, yes, we were.

03:00As filmmakers, we were going through that.

03:03We were realizing we had those tools

03:07that we were capable of doing that.

03:10But at the same time, we were telling the story of younger guys.

03:14They were 17, 16 years old in the film,

03:17and we were 19, 20.

03:19So we had a little bit of distance

03:21to actually be making a comment.

03:24It's funny because we felt that,

03:26we look older, no?

03:28No, we were wondering,

03:30maybe we're not good for the characters anymore

03:33because we look a little bit older.

03:35And 10 years later, they kept telling us,

03:38do you want to do this film about this 17-year-old?

03:42But that's over now.

03:44One thing I love about cinema is remembering where you were

03:47when you saw certain films, what your mindset was.

03:50You can feel like you've got certain things figured out at one point,

03:53then you watch the same film 10 years, 20 years later,

03:56and it has such a different impact on you.

03:58You're almost scared to watch things back

04:01because you don't want to tamper with the way it made you feel

04:04at that particular time.

04:06Let's talk about where we are now.

04:08You're right, it is a coming of age,

04:10a different age,

04:12and you deal with not so much your own mortality

04:15but your own frailties in this.

04:18It made me interested.

04:20You've got such different characters.

04:22Was there a debate in the development of this going,

04:24OK, are you going to be the boxer?

04:26Am I going to be the guy with the Botox?

04:29How did those characters come about

04:31and how much of a struggle,

04:33how comfortable were you inhabiting them?

04:36Diego and the prosthetics have a magnetism

04:40that was impossible to break.

04:42It was impossible to break, yes.

04:44Very difficult to leave them behind.

04:47I still wear them sometimes when I'm alone.

04:51No, it was clear from the beginning.

04:55When we decided to do this project,

04:58it was 10 years ago,

05:00or something around these characters

05:02because back then it was a different project

05:04that we had in mind.

05:06And he was coming from training for...

05:08I mean, he loved boxing and training for boxing,

05:11but he was coming out of an experience

05:13where he was training for a film

05:15that didn't happen for him.

05:17And I was coming from doing a documentary

05:20on a Mexican boxer,

05:23one of the greatest, Julio Cesar Chavez.

05:26And we sat together

05:28and we went through a film festival

05:30and the craziness of a film festival.

05:33And like every festival,

05:35you come out saying,

05:37I need to do something.

05:39I need to be able to get something back

05:42on that screen.

05:44And we were talking about this idea.

05:47Let's do something with the idea of a boxer.

05:50But at the end of his career,

05:52that was from the beginning there.

05:54Not the classical story

05:56of seeing someone reach a peak,

05:58but what happens when you are there

06:00and you have to let go.

06:03And it was clear who was playing what.

06:05And I think it always happens.

06:08I've never been like...

06:10If you think about it,

06:12we've never been in a project where it's like...

06:15It's clear from the genesis of the project.

06:22Gael was casted already

06:24and I was casting with him.

06:26And therefore I was playing the other guy.

06:29And then in Rudi Kursi,

06:31it was clear who was who.

06:33And here it's the same.

06:35And it's interesting

06:37because the two reflections

06:39complement each other.

06:41These two characters

06:43trying to hold something

06:45that they're just not capable of letting go.

06:52Those two things complement each other.

06:54Do you think that's the secret

06:56to your real-life friendship

06:58and partnership over the years?

07:00You've gone off and done different things,

07:02but you've been able to signal back

07:04to each other at different points.

07:06Do you feel you've competed in your careers?

07:09We compete in many things,

07:11but not in our careers.

07:13And the few times that has happened

07:16that we've been competing,

07:18not because we want or we even know,

07:21we've managed to find a way

07:23to talk to each other and say,

07:26you're not going to do it, I'll do it.

07:30Let others think

07:32that we are competing for something

07:34that in fact we are discussing on the back.

07:38Because it has happened.

07:40I got this call, I did too.

07:42Are you doing it? No.

07:44Okay, me neither then.

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