Diego Luna

Diego Luna
Luna in 2018
Born	Diego Luna Alexander (1979-12-29) 29 December 1979 (age 41)[1] Toluca, Mexico
Other names	Alexander García
Occupation	Actor singer director producer
Years active	1982–present
Spouse(s)	Camila Sodi ​ ​ (m. 2008; div. 2013)​
Children	2
Parent(s)	Alejandro Luna Fiona Alexander

Diego Luna Alexander (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈdjeɣo ˈluna aleksanˈdeɾ]; born 29 December 1979) is a Mexican actor, singer, director, and producer. Following a career in Mexican telenovelas, he has appeared in films including Y tu mamá también, Open Range, Milk, Rudo y Cursi, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, The Terminal, Berlin, I Love You and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. He played drug trafficker Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in the first two seasons of Narcos: Mexico.

Early life[]

Luna was born in Toluca and raised in Mexico City. His mother, Fiona Alexander, was a British costume designer of Scottish and English descent.^[2][3][4] She died in a car accident when Luna was two years old.^[5] His father, Alejandro Luna, is a theater, film, and opera set designer who reinforced the importance of theater and the arts in his life. Alejandro would bring Diego to the sets and mentor him in different aspects of art, cultivating a desire to become an actor and uphold the family tradition.^[6] Luna and his frequent co-star Gael Garcia Bernal were friends from infancy; their mothers were close friends.^[7]

Career[]

Acting[]

Diego Luna, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Julia Jentsch at Berlinale 2017

Luna acted in his first play at age seven. As a child actor, he appeared in several telenovelas.^[8]

Luna starred as Tenoch Iturbide alongside Gael García Bernal in Y Tu Mamá También (2001), a Mexican road trip movie.^[8] A critical and box office success, the role brought him international stardom.^[8] The film also was the beginning series of high profile collaborations with childhood friend García Bernal,^[9] with whom he would costar in several films and go on to establish Canana Films.

In 2002, Luna starred in Vampires: Los Muertos and the Oscar-winning Frida. He also appeared in Open Range (2003), The Terminal (2004) alongside Tom Hanks, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004) (a Cuban-based sequel to Dirty Dancing), Criminal (2004), Only God Knows (2006), Fade to Black (2006), Mister Lonely (2007), Rudo y Cursi (2008), Just Walking (2008), Milk (2008), and Elysium^[10] (2013).^{[citation needed]}

In March 2015, Luna joined the cast of Ana Lily Amirpour's film The Bad Batch.^[11]

In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), he portrayed Cassian Andor,^[12] a captain and intelligence officer of the Rebel Alliance, starring alongside Felicity Jones. He will reprise the role in an upcoming Disney+ series centered around the character. In December 2020, he confirmed that the production of the series has begun in London on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Luna starred as Mexican drug cartel leader Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo in the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico,^[13] which premiered in November 2018.^[14]

Other work[]

Diego and Felicity Jones at the premiere of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in Japan.

After starring in many telenovelas,^{[citation needed]} Luna and Gael García Bernal created Canana Films in 2005.^[15]

In 2012, Luna directed his first film, the biopic Cesar Chávez, about the eponymous founder of the United Farm Workers.^[16]

Luna became a member of the jury for the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival.^{[17][better source needed]}

Luna and García Bernal co-founded Ambulante A.C., an organization and film festival working to bring documentary films to recommended places.^[18] The organization received the prestigious Washington Office on Latin America's Human Rights Award in 2011.^{[19][better source needed]} In January 2015, Luna narrated a video about the obstacles faced by children migrating from their home countries and seeking refuge in the US.^{[20][21][better source needed]}

In October 2019 Luna and García Bernal announced they were joining the Creative Advisory Board for TV and Film development company EXILE Content along with Adam Grant.^[22]

In 2021, he received a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Daytime Talent in a Spanish Language Program for his Amazon Prime Video talk show Pan y Circo.^[23]

Personal life[]

Luna married Camila Sodi in February 2008; they were divorced in March 2013.^[24] They have two children: Jerónimo (b. August 12, 2008),^[25] and Fiona (b. July 1, 2010), named after Luna's mother.^[26]

Filmography[]

Luna at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Film[]

Television[]

Luna in 2017

Music videos[]

Awards[]

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Diego Luna.

• Diego Luna at IMDb
• Diego Luna on Twitter