But Luna, 24, has been acting in Mexico more than half his life-- since he was seven-- which means he's only playing the part of the starlet. And he's doing it by the numbers.
Step One: Make a gritty, but ultimately uplifting indie film. That would be Y Tu Mama Tambien -- The Oscar nominated road trip that dared to show teenage sex as the seven-second pile drive it really is. The film broke all Mexican box-office records for homegrown productions despite getting slapped with the equivalent of an NC-17. (A pack of teenagers at one theater protested the rating by stripping naked in the lobby.) "There aren't too many honest movies about young people," Luna says, "Everyone treats you like it's the best time in your life. But we were trying to say that it hurts a lot being a teenager."
Step Two: Leverage low-budget success into a film that'll play in the heartland. So Luna spent four salsa-inflected months in Puerto Rico for Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. The title is already a punch line, and then there's that Patrick Swayze cameo, but the producer Lawrence Bender insists, "Ours isn't cheesy." It's said that Luna had the time of his life with co-star Romola Gari. "You've got a movie about two people who find each other and fall in love on an island," says the director, Guy Ferland. "I guess that's my non-denial denial."
The alleged couple have since split, which handily takes care of Step Three: Promote said movie with your co-star/ex-girlfriend. Luna remains the gentleman, sort of: "My father told me never to date an actress."
Step Four, of course, is Remember Where You Came From. "I don't want to become somebody else," he says. So whenever Luna can squeese in a brief vacation-- between playing a grifter for Soderbergh and shooting the airport thriller, Terminal, with conjoined twins Spielberg and Hanks-- he always drops by the theater company he started back in Mexico City. He misses the tequila. ("We keep the best for ourselves," he says.) And he misses the simple pleasure of going out to buy a newspaper and running in to a friend along the way. "In Los Angeles," he says, "the only contact you have with normal people is valet parking." When he's in L.A. on a Sunday, you can find him playing soccer with a local team, the Coyotes de la Frontera. Although he's also taken up golf. Step Five.
Y Tu Mama Tambien director Alfonso Cuaron, for his part, isn't all that concerned with the actor's corruption. "We don't need to worry about Diego," he says. "He's a charmer. He's humble. And he's a hard worker."
And if Hollywood still manages to corrupt Diego Luna?
"Well," Cuaron admits, "that might be healthy."
