Diego Luna only offered ‘drug dealer’ roles before ‘Star Wars’

Diego Luna sat down for a round table with The Hollywood Reporter where he opened up about his career before his role in the Star Wars franchise.

“Before ‘Star Wars,’ the only projects I’d get offered would be drug dealers,” he admitted. “And then I could be the nice drug dealer and not the vicious one but still a drug dealer. Because the system wasn’t even sending messages of, like, ‘Yes, you could find a way to be yourself and still work in those projects that you’re looking at and hoping to see yourself reflected in.’ But I do think that’s changed, and the middleman between the audience and us is not there anymore. There’s no guy with a cigar saying, ‘You! You’re gonna be a star, boy.’ People just click now, and suddenly it’s like, ‘Shit, they’re watching a Mexican show.’ You can be as far away as you can from the system, and the system will go and search for you if there’s a need to hear your story.”

He then clarified, “Oh, I still get a lot of drug dealers. It’s just I’m not looking for what they want me to play. I can look for the stuff I want to do. It’s that freedom that comes with understanding that people today care about specificity.”

Recalling certain difficulties, Luna said, “I remember being asked, ‘Are you going to clean up your accent?’ That’s not part of the conversation anymore. But when I was 20, it was like, ‘Man, you’re great, and if you work with your accent, you’ll be doing what this person or that person is doing.’ And you go, ‘Why would I like to do that? This is what makes me unique.'”

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