Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna on Reuniting After a Decade For ‘La Máquina’: Now “We’re Better Actors”

Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, lifelong friends who have previously worked together on Y Tu Mamá También and Rudo y Cursi , are reuniting on screen after more than a decade for their new limited series La Máquina .

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The duo first conceived the project in 2010, with García Bernal playing an aging boxer (nicknamed “La Máquina,” which means “The Machine”) and Luna as his eccentric manager securing one last shot at a title. They knew from the beginning who would play which part, as García Bernal teased Luna was never going to play the athlete: “Come on, look at him!”

Of working together again now at this stage in their careers, García Bernal told The Hollywood Reporter at the show’s L.A. premiere on Thursday, “It just gets better and better — it gets more complex, more beautiful, more engaging, more warm and intelligent and hopefully better,” adding, “We’re very good at working together, at being together and helping each other. It was different in the way that it’s just more full, more complete.”

Luna — who undergoes a physical transformation in the series courtesy of heavy prosthetics — echoed of their partnership, “Now we have families and we’ve aged; we are wiser and more mature. I think we’re better actors, so it’s even better than last time.”

With the two serving as executive producers, he continued, “This time we are behind the project; before we got a phone call, this time we had to make the phone calls. And it’s been a nice journey. We always talked about one day we have to be the ones telling the story. This story talks about what we had in mind — what worries us, what we want to reflect on, it’s all there.”

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The project also serves as Hulu’s first original Spanish-language production, authentically reflecting the world of boxing in Mexico.

“I’m glad they waited for us, but I’m also hoping from now on they just do one after another. It’s like the right time,” Luna said of breaking ground on the streamer, while shouting out both Hulu and Searchlight for the freedom and support they’ve given the series.

García Bernal added that even beyond the Spanish element, the two stars were backed on “the craziness that we wanted to do, because it’s a bit crazy this story, it’s not a straight tale. It’s got a lot of twists and it goes against the typical story of boxing as well which I love, I love that it’s so original in that sense. Also in Mexico we have a huge culture of boxing, it’s the sport that we’re best at, so we wanted to tell that story.”

La Máquina , which also stars Eiza González, premieres on Hulu on Wednesday.

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