At Cannes, Diego Calva Makes His Mark

For Diego Calva, the past two weeks have been among the best of his career. When we met on a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean during this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the 34-year-old Mexican actor was amid a whirlwind of press, parties and screenings – including two films in which he stars. 

The first, Club Kid, by director-actor-screenwriter Jordan Firstman, premiered the day after our interview. The film is a coming-of-age story for those who have pushed adolescence past its use-by date, and now, in their 30s, are confronted with the impacts of their choices. Calva plays Oscar, a social worker, who isn’t present in the first half of the film but whose impact looms large in the second, as the shine of Peter’s (Firstman) decade-long partying lifestyle begins to rust. 

The second, Her Private Hell, is a horror-thriller directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, who won Best Director at Cannes in 2011 for Drive. Sophie Thatcher plays Elle, an actress trying to reconnect with her father in an otherworldly metropolis, where a strange mist unleashes a menacing killer. In an intriguing supporting role, Calva plays Nico, a smoldering club owner.

Whereas Firstman was directing his first film, Winding Refn returned to filmmaking after a 10-year hiatus. Despite the contrast, Calva found both sets to be liberating. “If you are starting, you don’t owe anything to anyone, and if you are already someone, you don’t owe anything to anyone,” he says. “Both were really free.” 

CAITLIN HENNESSY You’ve talked about your breakout role in Babylon (2022) as being “like going to college.” What does arriving at Cannes with two films feel like then? 

DIEGO CALVA It means that I got my first job after college. Being here is very special. I remember being in Mexico and going to Blockbuster and trying to find any Cannes movie – it didn’t matter the director – and watch them all. I did a little research, and the other Mexican here with two movies was Gael García Bernal, the year he premiered La Ciencia del Sueño (The Science of Sleep), the Michel Gondry movie, and Babel. So, it’s important. Just being Mexican and being here with two films is special.

You recently told The Hollywood Reporter that you’re “less afraid of committing a mistake” now. What do you mean by that? What changed? 

DC First of all, as an actor, you are just happy to have a job in the beginning, right? You don’t decide, in a way. You romanticize the idea that a character chooses you. Then there’s a moment when you are able to choose what you want to do. That comes with a little bit of being afraid and scared all the time. But I think I’m getting to this point where I feel more relaxed about it, and I’m trying to do what I want to do and make a story with my movies – in a way, my own story. If you do something that is not amazing or you don’t like it, there’s something special – you made the decision to do it for some reason. So, I feel more relaxed, taking my decisions and having fun, finally. Less stress about, “I always have to do a great movie.”

That makes sense, because now you’re not going to be defined by any one decision, since people have seen your other work and you have built this back catalogue.

DC What is important, of course, is the audience – always – and the industry, but now I really feel that I have to please myself and I have to tell my own story. I’m not gonna be part of something that I don’t want to be in. Before, I was in the position where I just wanted to be part of everything. You want to eat the whole world in a moment, and now I’m more chill about it. 

What is that story that you want to tell? When you read a script, what are you drawn to now? 

DC You always have to research your idols, right? I think about, for example, Benicio del Toro’s career. There’s a story there, he got to that point where he literally chose his roles. And you can see The Usual Suspects and, now, One Battle After Another, there’s a story there. You can see the kind of actor he is by just watching his movies. You can tell, like, “Okay, he’s political, he’s social. He’s trying to say this…” There’s a story there. 

And I really like music. I think, for example, of The Cure. If you listen to all The Cure albums, there’s storytelling there. It talks about love, being sad, being joyful. As an actor, you can’t do an album, it’s not only yours, but there’s a way you can link one movie with another. I think, after Babylon, what I’ve been doing kind of relates, and that’s what I want. Fifty years from now, I promise you can look at my first movie and my last movie and there will be some kind of link. That’s the idea.

The two films you feature in at Cannes, Club Kid and Her Private Hell, seem very different. What links the two? 

DC Punk rock. Club Kid is a really special movie. I haven’t watched it [yet] but I read the script and I really like the idea of a coming-of-age film for people my age. My grandpa at 30 had two kids and a house, but I’m literally still an adolescent. We’re all confused because the world is crazy. I think it’s a very beautiful story that also talks about electronic music and craziness, but then the moment you have to behave, you have to change and become an adult. I think that’s punk rock, in a way. I used to think that punk rock was being completely messed up and fucked up. [Now] I think punk rock is being punctual and trying to not be late. 

Then you have Nic’s movie [Her Private Hell], and he has this really intense connection with music. When we were shooting the movie, he used to play Iggy Pop or Suicide, these bands that I really love, like a mantra. Every day there was just one song on the whole day. And the movie, I mean, is Nicolas. He’s a punk rock guy. He’s a Prada guy, but at the same time he’s listening to the Sex Pistols or something like that. 

So, in a way, music connects both movies, but also this feeling of both directors doing what they want. They’re not studio movies, they are stories they wanted to tell. Nic’s movie, in a way, talks about fatherhood and Jordan’s talks about this coming-of-age moment. Both feel really personal.  

You mentioned music on set. Do you use music to get into character? Or do you have another way? 

DC I use music even with my stylist. I used to send her a playlist of what I was listening to at the moment to create a look. But I use music most of all in the beginning. When I’m reading a script and I’m trying to find the character, I imagine a playlist. Then I use it on set to clean myself. If you are doing something really intense or an intimacy scene, then you can listen to one song and just erase everything and be a white page again, blank, and you can draw on yourself again. I’m a fan of The Cure, so listening to one of The Cure’s songs, I’m ready to do it again. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like a recharge. 

I was thinking about these two directors who you worked with, who are at very interesting moments in their careers. You’ve got Jordan with his first film and Nicolas returning to film after 10 years. What was the process like being directed by them? 

DC Completely different. With Jordan, it was really special to witness his ability to switch. He was the director, the producer, the writer and the actor. I had never acted before with the director and that was kind of fun. He improvised, he changed the script, he’s really free. But then he had all this team of people that he trusts, so he was not looking at the monitor all the time. He was literally switching, and between takes, solving issues, doing four jobs at the same time. And we had a child actor, so with him it was really important to be precise. It was really beautiful to see Jordan being so cool with the kid and creating this relationship. Jordan is someone really kind, he’s really warm. He creates this space where you are able to play and be free, and at the same time have this sense, as with his movie, that it was a coming-of-age. It was literally a kid doing his first movie. 

Then you have Nic, who is the other way around. He was so free with his movie. He wrote the script and said: “I don’t give a fuck about the script. I just wrote the script to sell the movie, they said yes, and now I want to find the movie.” It’s the same kind of freedom, just in different positions. If you are starting, you don’t owe anything to anyone, and if you are already someone, you don’t owe anything to anyone. So both were really free. 

With Jordan, I was really involved in the movie, creating the character, rewriting the script with him during the takes. With Nic, it was: ‘I’m gonna learn and I’m going to give myself to the process.’ With Nic, sometimes he’s like, “Don’t do anything. Just listen to the song,” and he’s going to record you for 10 minutes looking at the camera. You don’t have to say anything, you just have to feel. Then he’s like, “Ah you did something with your eye. I have it.” You just go into that kind of trance. 

You’ve described working with Nic as surrendering to a genius. Is that liberating or is there a level of discomfort? 

DC No, that feels amazing, because Jordan builds this honesty and this relationship. With Nic, he did kind of the same thing. First of all, he called me. So, my agent called me and said, “Nic wants to talk to you,” and I was like, “Don’t fuck around.” No, really, he called me, and said, “I want you and this is not a casting. I’m offering you the role.” So, first of all, that creates in you this kind of security. You feel ready to do it. And then you see him struggle in the best way, he’s really finding the core of the movie during the process. He’s really trying to access some moments in you, as a person, not as an actor. If you really surrender in the best way possible, then you also feel free, because there’s someone guiding you. He’s the director so he puts the limits, and when you have limits, then you can play. I don’t know how to explain it, but you feel safe. That’s important.

Your character in Club Kid is a social worker. How did you find that role? 

DC I was shooting Nic’s movie in Copenhagen and Olmo Schnabel, my friend, wrote to me: “I want you to meet Jordan.” It was not an offering of a role, it was just to meet Jordan, and we ended up having a beautiful two-hour conversation. I’m always really open, and he was too. I love when people are not afraid to tell their doubts, their situations, and Jordan was really honest with me. I said to him that I had beautiful but really complex teenage years. I used to skate, I was in the street a lot. I had this record label, I was doing the punk rock life, if you wanna call it that. But during that time, I was also an only child from a single mom and she struggled a lot, and I didn’t have a father figure. Talking about that, we found Oscar – that’s my character’s name – and we realised maybe Oscar was living in Mexico and he had some kind of childhood, the same way that I had in Mexico City, and he moved to the States and decided to change his life. 

Sometimes, to find a character, it’s important to find their joy and their pain, and Oscar’s pain probably came from having a traumatic situation during childhood or during his teenage years. We found that was the reason why he decided to work with children, to fix some situation that he didn’t have. Talking about it, we found that and then we ended up being like, “Okay, we need tattoos, we want to see Oscar’s past on his arm.” We decided maybe a gang tattoo situation; he changed his life but he didn’t decide to erase it. He’s proud to show it. 

When you are playing a supporting character, you are playing in an orchestra, you’re part of the instrumentation. So, it’s not about you shining, it’s more like you are part of a puzzle. And I think Oscar is one of those people that comes into your life, I don’t know if he’s going to stay in Jordan’s character’s life forever, but at that moment, they are really important to each other.

Grooming by Petra Sellge. In lead image, Diego wears blazer by Dior, vintage zip jacket, jeans and necklace from Les Mauvais Garçons, tank top by Dries Van Noten and his own earring.