The role Diego Luna never wants to play again: “I don’t think it’s worth it”
Although sequels, prequels, and spinoffs can often be viewed cynically as the dearth of Hollywood’s creativity, there’s often value in getting to return to the same material, and there’s no better recent example than Andor, the Disney+ prequel series to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story that gave Diego Luna the chance to play a younger version of the brave rebel leader Cassian Andor.
Rogue One may have been a box office smash hit, but it was a troubled production that was nearly entirely reshot and re-edited only shortly before release, and, as a result, Luna’s role in the film wasn’t fleshed out nearly as well as it could have been, which instead centred its focus on Jyn Erso, the other hero played by Felicity Jones.
Cassian’s death at the end of Rogue One prevented him from ever appearing in a sequel, but, fortunately, Andor offered a prequel story that explained how he first got involved with the Rebel Alliance, marking the rare continuation that fleshed out the original source text and made it stronger.
While those who have seen both seasons of the Emmy Award-winning show will have a greater connection to Cassian in Rogue One than they did previously, continuing something that was already perfect to begin with is a much more difficult task, which is why Luna told The Guardian that he never wants to see a sequel to Y tu mamá también.
Alfonso Cuarón’s brilliant coming-of-age dramedy starred Luna and Gael García Bernal as two lovestruck teenagers who go on a road trip with an older woman, in which they learn more about life and love. One of the most memorable moments in the film is the ending, in which it’s revealed that the two main characters never end up seeing each other again, and it is thus that Luna said trying to do a sequel “could be a disaster”.
“I don’t think it’s worth it,” he said, “It was special and unique, but it was part of its time. Films like that are like marks on the ground; they’re a reminder of something that happened and is gone. We cannot just say: ‘Let’s do it again’.”
Making a sequel to an established classic is always going to be a risky gamble; for every success like Blade Runner 2049 or Top Gun: Maverick, there is a complete disaster like Independence Day: Resurgence or Zoolander 2, and Y tu mamá también would feel like a particularly challenging film to develop a follow-up for, given how critical the age of the characters is to the story. Although it would certainly be exciting to see Luna and Bernal work together again, it’s unlikely that there would be the same magic if the next instalment focused on an older Julio and Tenoch.
The only possible way that a sequel could ever get off the ground is if it marked the return of Cuarón, who has strangely not made a film in almost a decade.
Where the director reached an apex in his career when he won his second ‘Best Director’ Oscar for Roma, he’s since spent his time working on the Apple TV+ miniseries Disclaimer, which ended up being a massive disappointment, and while it would be great if Luna could lure him back to filmmaking, it doesn’t necessarily have to be for a Y tu mamá también sequel.
