(upbeat music)
- Diego, you're telling a story
about the country you're from,
and it's a tough one.
Why was this the story that you wanted to tell about Mexico?
- Its, uh...
Well, first of all because I live in Mexico,
and the struggle that's happening,
it's violent times for my country.
It was interesting to revisit my childhood
and the Mexico of the 80s from this perspective
because obviously my father was trying
to hide this Mexico from me,
but then everything starts to make sense,
and the story has been told in a way that is wrong,
very convenient for many criminals that are not in jail
that are actually running the country,
tons of politicians that have been making a lot of money
with this business,
and the show starts in the first episode saying
that since the 80s, since this started,
there's been more than a half a million people
killed in Mexico.
So the idea of making sure audiences around the world
think about that when they're going
to have a line of cocaine made sense suddenly,
and it's quite complicated also
because yes, we happen to have the longest border
between the first world and the third world,
and we happen to be the neighbor
of the biggest consumer of drugs,
and it's quite unfair to be honest.
- Yeah.
Were you scared?
- Eh.
But no more before doing the show
because I live there.
- [Lacey] You live there.
- I have kids, and I still choose that city to be my city
so I'm going to fight to try to make it a safer place always
because that's where all my love stories are.
It's exciting to see
because this is international companies.
It's Gaumont from France
and Netflix from the states
telling a story that we haven't been able to tell-
- [Lacey] Sure.
- In the right way,
and it's also a great chance to see Mexicans working
and being at this table means a lot talking about this
and not Star Wars.
- [Lacey] Right.
- Because I think the great beauty of my job
is I can talk about what worries me,
what matters to me,
and they're giving me that opportunity.
- [Lacey] Absolutely.
(upbeat music)
- To me the directing brought me patience.
I used to be, I think, a pain in the ass
in like five years before I decided to go on directing,
but I directed my first film,
and I phoned a few directors back saying sorry.
- [Lacey] You did?
- I'm ready whenever you are.
(laughing)
No one called me.
(laughing)
But it does change...
Once you live it and you go through that process
of actually having to answer every question.
- Yup.
- And sound secure.
I think it's when I pull out my acting the best
to convince everyone I knew what I wanted.
When you don't, it's impossible,
and then you choose to do a project when you're 35,
and you end up shooting it when you're 42,
and you're telling the same story,
but you're not the same person.
Directing is good, I think,
and also theater gives you what's needed.
Because in theater it's the actor who has the control,
and you go from beginning to end every night.
- Sure.
- And then you realize how difficult it is to do that,
and acting can be a little schizophrenic.
You come in and out,
and you don't actually know what you're doing
until you see it years later.
- [Lacey] Sure.
- For this guy, the guy in Narcos, Felix Gallardo,
to understand that Mexico he lived in
that I didn't get to live,
and when I started researching on that,
I was very jealous,
and suddenly, I really wanted to be him
in order to experience that,
and I stop judging the character
or thinking about his choices
and more about the beauty of life,
those moments that I cannot live anymore in Mexico
because it's gone.
- That's where enjoying the character is huge, isn't it?
- [Diego] Yeah.
- It's a very key moment where you think,
this is quite fun.
I like being him.
- Yeah, I gotta be really careful when I say that in Mexico
because everyone's like, "Oh, my God!"
But it's true.
We are actors,
and we have to understand it
and enjoy the journey
and believe in it,
and then we can be objective again and say,
fuck, this is a horrible world.
But once you're living it-
- But until then.
- You have to enjoy it.
(upbeat outro music)