Q&A: Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal’s ‘La Máquina’ explores masculinity and aging in boxing story

Associated Press

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Separately, Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal are highly regarded actors. Together, they are a force to be reckoned with since starring in Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 cult classic “Y tu mamá también.”

They have embarked on another on-screen project, co-starring in Hulu’s first Spanish-language production, “La Máquina,” now streaming. That’s 12 years after working together on the 2012 film “Casa de Mi Padre.”

“Working with Gael is that. It’s returning to the familiar, to what has always been there,” Luna said at the series’ Los Angeles premiere. “We’ve continued this connection and maintained it very easily.”

“La Máquina” tells the story of an aging boxer (García Bernal) whose manager and close friend (Luna) secures him one last chance at a comeback. Their final shot at victory is challenged when mysterious forces threaten the fight and life itself. The show is produced by Searchlight Television, along with Luna and García Bernal’s production company El Corriente de Golfo.

On set, showrunner Marco Ramirez says the synergy between Luna and García Bernal had him replacing scripted lines for the duo’s playful banter.

“They were kind of born to work together and born to riff with each other,” Ramirez said. “I would be like, ‘This scene is fine. The writing is okay, but what they’re doing is so much better.'”

Luna and García Bernal spoke with The Associated Press about how the series deals with aging and body image, as well as the role activism plays in their lives as actors and producers.

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: Your characters explore the themes of body image and aging from different points of view. Why was it important for you to share your character’s perspective, and more broadly, a male perspective?

LUNA: There is this monster we have to fight which is a pressure of like, ‘How do we look?’ We are on screens all the time and and we are televised 24/7.

These two characters are struggling to let go and move into the next stage. It’s fascinating to create a parallel — and at the same time, make characters so different. This man, Andy, the guy that I portray, he’s a guy who wishes to be seen, but he’s looking in the wrong places. It has to start from the inside, but he’s just looking at the outside — which is a metaphor for the world we’re living in, which stays on the surface so much. We’re so afraid of digging further or of going deeper.

GARCÍA BERNAL: In regards to Esteban, the concept of aging comes for men in sports, particularly in boxing, in these contact sports. For women it’s beauty and for men it’s sports, where it kind of manifests in a very natural way.

It’s incredible that at that point in your life — the athlete is finally enjoying what they’re doing. You’re finally starting to have fun — but that’s when the body is just not responding. It is a quite incredible process; you have your whole life in front of you but you have to step away from what you loved. You have to say goodbye — to success as well, which is really complicated. And sports is very, very cruel in that sense.

AP: How do you combat that as an actor? In Hollywood, you’re in front of the camera all the time. How do you keep yourself from taking on the mindsets these characters have about aging?

LUNA: We are in a very luxurious position, where what we do gets better and better with time. The characters that I can do now are the ones that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.

Just as life gets more complex, as maturity comes, your characters become more complex and interesting. There are some things I can do now that I’m a father. There’s just some relations I understand much better now that I went through a long relation with my father. I lost him. Now, I have a lot to say there. The line between the professional and the personal is blurry in this journey we have — as actors or as storytellers.

GARCÍA BERNAL: It is a privilege to be able to sublimate that as actors. Also, we had the fortune of growing up in very loving environments where we’re not forced to think about (the negative aspects of aging). We’re really far away from those concepts, but they might affect us in other ways. But there’s that moment that as friends, Diego and I have confessed to each other as friends like, ‘Man, I don’t play fútbol anymore. Why? Because I get hurt. And I cannot work if I’m—” It’s a bit sad but it happens to everybody.

LUNA: Now, I have to stretch in the mornings.

AP: You chose to explore the dangers that journalists face in Mexico through Eiza González’s character. What made you want to focus on this narrative approach?

LUNA: To me, Eiza’s role is really important because it’s crucial — media plays a very important role in sports. It’s not a story about boxing, you know, but about what boxing generates in a community.

Are we telling the story from the right angle? Are we really paying respect to those who dedicate their lives to sports? Inevitably, we talk about the country, and Mexico is an important subject of this TV series. What journalists are facing in Mexico is happening today and therefore it’s a part of everything.

AP: There’s synergy to your working dynamic as producers. How do you use the platform you both have built to focus on injustices that are happening?

GARCÍA BERNAL: It’s a natural part of our unspoken sort of deal with each other. It was in everything from the beginning. We were both interested in our environment, in what’s happening. And we found, in the cinema, a great way to express ourselves with complete and absolute freedom. And so we purposely always search for films that actually shed a light on all the gray areas that exist — to understand things a little bit more.

LUNA: We’re part of the audience and as part of the audience, we are searching for that opportunity. The approach we have is to always be aware of that beautiful thing that happens in cinema when you find someone else’s story, when you give yourself the time, when you have the curiosity to listen and to get affected.

AP: Diego, you go through a huge physical transformation with the prosthetics. What was an element for you, that last piece that helped you get fully into character as Andy?

LUNA: It was the butt. Definitely.

GARCÍA BERNAL: (laughs)

LUNA: I was like, putting too many things (prosthetics) on the face, and suddenly the butt came in. I was like, ‘Oh, no, let’s get rid of this and this.’ We went too far and then pulled back a bit. If you see the real references we had, we basically stopped half way.

It was an interesting process, an exciting one, a scary one also because, it took time to actually see it working. It wasn’t until I got a reaction from Gael and the rest that I was like, ‘Okay, I think we got it. This is working.’