Diego Luna: "The pandemic underscores everything we did not want to confront"

Mexican actor Diego Luna, during an interview with EL PAÍS in Mexico City, on July 30, Seila Montes

Talking about racism, sexist violence, migration ... Diego Luna (Mexico, 40 years old) sits in 'Pan y circo', the program that has just premiered on Amazon, several people around a table, with dishes prepared by the best chefs in Mexico. This is how they radiograph their country, although the debates are understood global.

• Diego Luna wants to whet your appetite (and mind)
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Question. Is it more about eating or cooking?

Reply. Because I like to eat, I started cooking. And it all has to do with parenthood too. Those first months when you do not know your role very well, who you are, if the valet parking [valet], the house cleaner, the one going to the supermarket…. I decided to put on the character that feeds both mother and children. It is an incredible bond with my children, they grew up with me in the kitchen.

Q. What were you looking for with this project?

A. Food works for three things in this project: that talking is as important as listening. That is something that happens at the table. A conversation is generated that has the potential to transcend your personal agenda. Today I feel that everyone reaches the spaces where you can connect with others with a shell, nobody wants to be exposed. Then, the food alone tells stories, the cooks of the show have to say something about it. And then the secret wish to meet the chefs I admire is fulfilled. I am a closet cook. And I'm also a glutton.

That talking is as important as listening is something that happens at the table

P. How do you get that there are no fights in a dinner between several people?

A. We were not looking for unnecessary rudeness. He didn't want to amplify violent or toxic voices. If we were going to talk about pregnancy termination, I didn't want pro-life at the table. If it is the climate emergency, we are not going to add someone who does not believe in global warming. We are not a journalistic product, we do not require impartiality. However, a neighbor who is afraid of migrants, who does not want them to enter her community, can be grateful for the experience of those who know the caravans. There is a chance to transform or affect a point of view as a result of that conversation. It is about reminding us of the possibility of reconciling, of understanding the point of view that you do not share.

P. Seating several people at a table. What he raises became more complicated with the pandemic.

R. The first thing I thought was that we could not put this there, who is going to see it with this level of anxiety? We did an episode in confinement to see if Bread and Circus made sense or if it was all part of a world to which we would no longer return and we should end up showing it in a museum. But the pandemic, within the horror that it represents, invites us to do an exercise that the project inspired. The pandemic underscores everything we did not want to confront: talking about our racism, violence, inequality, to talk about migration. "Stay at home" what it means for a migrant or a woman who shares a roof with her aggressor.

Today I feel that everyone reaches the spaces where you can connect with others with a shell, nobody wants to be exposed

Q. What have you choked on?

R. Various opinions. I remember speaking at the racism table to Yásnaya Elena Aguilar and Pedro Cayuqueo and they left me flying. They spoke so beautifully and said such awful things that they left me spinning for several weeks. There were also others who confronted me with my naivety, that I believed that something else was going to happen and it didn't. Reading one makes stories that later are not true. There are people who have to keep reading and not eat with her.

P. What stereotype bothers you the most about your country?

R. That the wealth is in the tourist offer that we can offer. That depress me. If that were so, I would not live here, I would come to vacation. She would come to the beaches from time to time. The destruction that I have seen in the most accelerated way is the one that tourism has brought, as it was conceived in much of the country. If you are going to come here to have a tequila with a mariachi in front of you, you will not have come to Mexico. It has a lot to offer, with all the challenges and complexities. The violence that drug trafficking and drug use have generated in the world is exacerbated by the geographical situation, but it is one of the many complexities we have. The pandemic has reminded us that if we do not work against inequality, we will hardly leave vulnerability. Seeing this country as a tourist destination prevents you from seeing what I see, what you see, what your newspaper writes!

There are people who have to keep reading and not eat with her

Q. Anyone you have been eating with?

R. With many characters. The invitations went from the president of this country to…. Well, the one in the neighboring country to the north, no.

P. If you join López Obrador with Trump, you will need mezcal ...

R. No, not to the north, because amplifying toxic voices is not what we are looking for. Invitations went out everywhere. It is very complex, I had to work a lot with humility, generally when you consider having dinner or having lunch with someone it happens. Here it was so much fart that I wondered what is happening! Now I am on time for all my interviews, I do not make the mistake of leaving the hosts waiting….

P. You will end up taking love from journalists.

R. Totally, I tell you that if they had the mezcal tool, their work would be much easier.