If promoting your first feature as a director is a stressful task then Diego Luna does not show it. The laid-back, confident star of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Milk is in Edinburgh to attend a screening of Abel, his first fictional film as a director, having made documentary J.C Chavez in 2007. Of course, promotional touring of this kind is nothing new to him, but approaching it as a director is a different ball game. “It’s a lot more personal, I mean it’s your baby you know? There’s no-one to blame but you so it does feel different,” he says. Different it may be, but Diego Luna is clearly relishing the responsibility: “There’s also a lot of joy in promoting this film because I love the film, I feel proud of what we did and it’s easier in many ways than with many other projects I’ve promoted because it’s part of your contract, it’s what I would like to do the most you know? I want everyone to watch the film.”
Abel tells the story of a young boy with serious problems. After two years in an institution he returns home and starts to believe that he is the man of the house, as his father has also been gone for a long-time. Not wanting to cause a regression in his state of mind, his mother encourages Abel’s sister, Selene, and brother, Paúl, to play along with the fantasy, and a strange new family dynamic is created. Blurring the boundary between childhood and adulthood is something which obviously comes quite naturally to Luna, particularly since becoming a father himself. “On holiday me and my wife were playing with my kid and many people thought it was brothers and sisters playing together, you’re like, ‘Who’s the grown up here?’”
While there may be a childishness to Diego Luna both in his youthful good looks and his fun loving attitude, there is also more of him in the character of Abel than there would initially seem. Following the death of his mother when he was just 2 years old, Luna was raised by his father, an acclaimed theatre and movie set designer. This meant that Luna was raised in a world predominantly occupied by adults, so while Abel is far from being autobiographical he does admit: “I’m a little bit like Abel. I decided that I was an adult before I was, so in a way there is a lack of a childhood there, but at the same time there’s always gonna be an immature part of me that didn’t go through the processes you should. That’s why I do film - film is a world that lives in a fantasy, and that’s definitely a very childish thing.”
Fantasy plays a huge part in Abel, but what is equally striking about the film is the degree of realism with which such a bizarre subject matter is put forward, both in terms of the performances of the cast and in the way that Luna has shot the film. Striking this balance between the fantastical elements and the real human emotion which drives the film is something that Luna was acutely aware of when making it. “I do feel that when you’re watching a film, and you don’t think that what you’re watching is possible, there’s a part of you that gets so far away from the characters that you cannot get affected anymore,” he says. “And I like film when it affects you, when it touches you, when it hits you sentimentally.”
Like his title character, Diego Luna displays a maturity as a director that is beyond his years, particularly when asked about a subject that affects many directors who begin their careers as actors; writing himself into a film. While he opted not to do so for Abel, Luna does not rule out the possibility altogether. “Probably a small part, yeah why not?” he begins. “But being the lead of your own film? No way! A lead needs a director and a director needs a lead. It can’t be the same person; you need someone else’s eyes to watch you.”
Luna clearly has a keen sense of what it means to be a director, but looking back over his acting career this is hardly surprising. Working in both Mexico and the United States, Luna has acted under the likes of Alfonso Cuarón, Gus Van Sant and Stephen Spielberg, and says that each of them has had an influence on him as a director. “Every time I worked as an actor, something happened to me that marked me, and because I never went to school, every director I’ve worked with has become my teacher, mentor, whatever you want to call it.” He goes on to add: “I’m influenced by many of them, not just in my directing but in life, in the way I see cinema, and many others are an influence on what not to do!”
A glittering career as an actor and a promising debut as a director may seem like a lot for a man who only recently turned 31, but clearly this is not enough for Diego Luna - he also runs his own film company. Canana Films was started in 2006 by Luna, Gael García Bernal and their friend, producer Pablo Cruz. What made two young and up and coming actors decide to go down the route of starting their own production company? “Gael and I started this, we said, ‘OK we’re getting so much attention, let’s shift this to the actors who should be should be shooting films in Mexico,’” he reveals. “You get a lot of attention as an actor, a lot of the time for the wrong reasons, so it’s nice to shift that attention to things you think deserve the attention. When you grab a microphone, it’s in your hands what to say.”
Both Luna and Bernal then clearly have no problem with using their success as actors to promote their company, and Luna does not underestimate the importance of having a recognisable name in the crowded Mexican film industry.“In the country I live in there’s a lot of freedom, a lot of free space, the problem is it’s a lot of freedom just for a few,” he says. “That’s the reality in the country, but we are those few, so either we do something or we are wasting our time. We started our company six years ago and today we’ve done more than ten films, we have a film festival, we’ve done a TV series, we own our projects, and it’s such a nice feeling.”
Luna clearly feels a great deal of pride when discussing Canana Films, and as the rapport between himself and Pablo Cruz demonstrates, it is a very close community, which is exactly what Luna had always wanted to create. “As an actor you spend a lot of time jumping into families that already exist,” he begins, “by jumping from one to the other you feel the lack of your own family, that’s why we started building Canana. It’s just a feeling that you always have somewhere to go back that you belong to, that is yours.”
With Canana being a company so close to his own heart, is there a possibility that Luna would ever direct a film in Hollywood if the chance presented itself? “Yeah, why not?” he responds. “As a director, definitely. Having a family doesn’t mean you cannot go and have other friends around the world. I definitely see myself working in many places.”
For now Diego Luna will continue to promote Abel around the world, and seek to gain the kind of exposure that his film and his company richly deserve. But what does the future hold for him? A Spanish-language comedy with Will Ferrell is on its way later this year as are several more films from Canana. So, will we be seeing more of Diego Luna the actor, or the director in the years to come? His response is typically charming: “You’re not going to get rid of the actor, but you’ll see more of me as a director.” PK
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