Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal joke shared career is '25 years of milking' on-screen chemistry (original) (raw)

Watch: Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal discuss La Máquina

Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal have long been known for their friendship on and off screen, and they add to their shared legacy with the new Disney+ series La Máquina which they joke to Yahoo UK is the latest example of them "milking" their natural chemistry.

In the six-part series the actors play boxer Esteban "La Máquina" Osuna (Bernal) and his manager Andy (Luna), longtime friends helping the other with their dreams. After a devastating loss Andy is keen to push Esteban back into the ring for another chance at success, but in doing so puts them and their loved ones at the mercy of a dangerous organisation.

Luna and Bernal, like their characters, have been friends since childhood, having worked together in theatre before their star-turning roles in 2001's Y Tu Mamá También. They reunited for 2009 sports film Rudo y Cursi and have gone on to start their own production company together, it's through this that they created La Máquina in exactly the way they wanted.

"Before Y Tu Mamá También we had been hanging out in same circles but at the same time we did work together in a play," Bernal tells Yahoo UK. "We did a play together when we were very young and so that showed when we did the casting for Y Tu Mamá También. It was like, 'OK, these guys seem like they work well [together], like they know each other.'

Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna reunite onscreen in La Máquina. (Disney+)

"Which is funny because in La Máquina there was a kid there that came up to me and said 'you and Diego work really [well] together. You should keep on doing things together. You can tell you know each other.'"

Luna laughs at the recollection, adding the kid remarked 'You have good chemistry' as he adds: "We were like 'yea, it's been 25 years of milking that!'"

"So if a young kid says that," Bernal continues, "then it always feels fresh, like a discovery, you know?"

The project has been a long time coming, with Luna and Bernal first coming up with the idea ten years ago, and it required a lot, physically, from the two of them. From Bernal's point of view it required hours of rigorous training that he has previously said left him "hurting all the time", while for Luna it meant two hours in make-up everyday to make change his face with prosthetics to exhibit Andy's botox obsession.

Even so they had "a lot of fun" on set according to Bernal, as they often broke into laughter whilst filming. "We're more mature as people, as actors," he explains. "We have more things to play with and what's really nice is the reformation that we get to the point of things really quickly, me and him. When we work together it's like [one thing happens after another], and it comes together, it's something that is very particular."

Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal are childhood friends, having worked together in theatre before their star-turning roles in 2001's Y Tu Mamá También (pictured). (Anhelo Prroduciones)

It's been 15 years since the pair last worked opposite together onscreen but they still surprise each other, namely with how they now are able to act seamlessly because they have an even better understanding of the other's approach to their work.

Luna reflects: "We are, in a good way, more open to lend the characters and the fiction what's needed to work from our personal experience, and our connections, our reference. We trust each other more than ever, in a way where we can help each other to get there.

"He knows what to do, how to help me to get where I need to get and the other way around, and that that also makes life probably easier for directors. A director can come and give me a note for Gael, and I might be able to trigger that easier than if the note is told to him and the other way around. So yeah, it's fun. It's fun and it opens opportunities."

The actors told Yahoo UK how a child co-star commended their shared chemistry, and they joked their career was '25 years of milking that'. (Disney+)

The idea for La Máquina began during a drunken night out together at the Berlin Film Festival, Luna shares: "Gael was coming from training [in] boxing for a project that he ended up not doing, I had done a documentary about a very famous Mexican boxer, a great champion called Julio César Chávez and Gael said 'why don't we do something about boxing?'

"And I think it all happened there, the main decisions were made that night probably, it was going to be about a boxer and his manager, about the end of the career. We were going to come into the story in the moment where you have to let go, everyone trains to get there but no one trains to say goodbye — That was the genesis."

Bernal adds that he and Luna have "wanted to do something together" again for years: "It was something that we were always thinking [about]. Like, 'what two characters can we play that we can do something [with]?' There were many ideas, some of them are still there, some of them we're not going to do. We keep on thinking about what's next in that sense."

In the six-part series the actors play boxer Esteban "La Máquina" Osuna and his manager Andy, with Esteban pushed back into the ring after a major loss that puts them at the mercy of dangerous people. (Disney+)

Luna jokes that "gladly" there are ideas they've had that they've since dropped, going on to explain that he and Bernal are always discussing things together.

"Promotion is a good time to do that," he says. "I think when when we were promoting Y Tu Mamá También we were 19, 20 years old and that's when we decided we need a company, and we need to be able to produce theatre and film. And probably in another promotional tour we came up with the idea of having a festival in Mexico, it's like that.

"When you talk about a project, and you realise you care about the project, these promotions make you reflect on what you went through."

Reflecting on their reunion, Diego Luna said: 'We are, in a good way, more open... we trust each other more than ever, in a way where we can help each other to get there.' (Disney+)

Reflecting on it in the moment, Luna says that making La Máquina "means a lot" because of everything they had to face to get it to screens: "10 years ago we had an idea and we managed to execute it the way we dreamed about it, with the people we love and respect.

"Working with partners that years ago we would dream about working with them, that now we were sitting and discussing our show together. It's something that is difficult to describe, but it makes you feel very lucky and loved in a way."

La Máquina premieres on Disney+ on Wednesday, 9 October.