CANNES DISPATCH
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Interview by JANE CROWTHER
Mexican actor Diego Calva was as thrilled with the film he’s presenting at Cannes as the audience at the premiere who gave Club Kid a rousing seven-minute standing ovation, chanting the name of the child actor in the project as writer-director Jordan Firstman lifted him aloft above the seats. ‘I was in Los Angeles two weeks ago, and the producer called me, and said, ‘We want to do a screening for you, so you can see it before Cannes,’ Calva says over a pick-me-up espresso martini in the bar at the Martinez Hotel when Hollywood Authentic catches up with him. ‘I said, ‘no’. I wanted to see it here. It was my first time watching it, and it just felt really special. Because it’s very specific to this universe of New York, drugs, parties. But it’s also really universal. I love when I do a project that I can show my grandmother, my mum, my junkie friends… and they’re all going to like it!’
A buzzy hit on the Croisette this festival, Club Kid follows Peter, a NY party promoter (played by Firstman) whose drugs/sex/dancing existence is challenged when he discovers he’s father to a young boy (Reggie Absolom). Calva plays a child therapist who epitomes love and tenderness, his warmth extending to a fizzing chemistry with Peter. Firstman first came to prominence via his online presence and has calibrated that into a spiky, funny, heartfelt movie that plays like Chaplin’s The Kid crossed with Trainspotting and Saturday Night Fever. Calva has Instagram and posted footage of the premiere and after-party but, he says, he still likes to think of himself as ‘an outsider’ both in terms of social media and Hollywood – despite having high profile projects under his belt. He’s appeared in Narcos Mexico, made a splash as the lead in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, appeared opposite Jacob Elordi in On Swift Horses and most recently, joined the award-winning team of The Night Manager for season two.
‘I do belong to movies. Movies are my life. But I don’t want to belong too much to an industry; to feel like, ‘I’m part of this. I control it’. I like the idea of the immigrant, the foreigner who’s visiting this. Nobody owns a movie. The directors, the actors, the producers – we all do the movie. But then the movie is out, and it belongs to everyone. And everyone should be invited to this party called cinema.’ Cannes is certainly a party for cinema and this is Calva’s first time at the event. ‘Being in Cannes for me is really emotional. I was at the party last night, and I called my mom. It was 4am in the morning, but it was 3pm in Mexico. I cried, and I said, ‘Mom, I’m here’. I decided to dedicate my life to movies. Movies saved my life so many times. Now I’m here.’
His writer-director-co-star Jordan Firstman has been equally moved by his experience. He went viral at the premiere by kissing Calva post-credits in a euphoric moment. Calva laughs at the notion that it was wish fulfillment for audience members who’d been so taken with their onscreen relationship, which crackles with want and love. It’s the sort of chemistry that is hard to find. ‘The relationship of a director and an actor is a first date, your first impression,’ he shrugs. ‘Jordan got so open with me. He really told me stories about his life, and why he wanted to do this movie. He told me something really cool: ‘I’m still learning how to be alive’. I love the idea that this movie is a coming of age for a 30-year-old adolescent. When someone is open, and so excited, and has something to say… that’s what all actors want. We really want to be part of someone’s dream – not someone’s job.’ What did the duo discuss on their first ‘date’? ‘ I told him stories about my childhood, living in Mexico City, getting into some situations – I used to be a skateboarder, and I had a record label. And how movies saved my life. You talk about all these things in the first two hours of meeting someone on Zoom, then when I met Jordan in person, he kind of had already built the relationship. When you’re working with someone who has so much love; you want to be part of it. And the chemistry…What is chemistry? First of all, how do you define that?’
When he’s asked to define it, he sips his drink and thinks. ‘Acting is more about silence than talking. Now, I’m talking. This is easy. But being silent… It’s all about the passion of the untold. It’s all about the silence. With Jordan, the silence was so easy. Sometimes, when you act, when you have to cry in a scene, and you’re able to just remember your character’s life, not your own… That’s what I was thinking about in this movie – not acting.’ The movie has the same effect on viewers; though it’s gloriously snarky and funny, the heart is real. At the premiere, tears were flowing amid the fisting gags and vomit scenes. ‘We all have trauma, right?’ Calva says. ‘And trauma is like a hole. We are always trying to fill that hole. What if we realise that that hole makes us more… light. You know? It takes a weight out of us. And also, we can have a party there. That’s Club Kid. It’s a party in the hole of trauma.’
Calva is in town with two movies, he’s also presenting Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell in which he has a small, but pivotal role. ‘Her Private Hell is about a completely different story and a completely different situation. Jordan is my fucking friend. Nic is my friend, of course, but it’s different… He likes to play one song during the whole day. One song every day. We were listening to Suicide and Alan Vega, Iggy Pop. He asked me to just look at the lens, and listen to the song one, two, three, four times. And then he’ll say, ‘You did something with your eye. I like it. We have it.’ And what I did… I don’t know. It’s like a mantra. And that’s amazing. Actors are horrible and sensitive, blah blah. But we want to deliver. We want to please. When someone is like, ‘Just be you’ – whoa, we are in fucking trouble. But then he captures you.’
Despite imdb’s claims that he is playing Che Guevara in an upcoming project, he’s not – though he looks just like him. ‘I would love to play Che Guevara – but in a vampire movie. America is the humans. Cuba is the vampires. And we’re conquering the world.’ He is appearing in Danny Ramirez’s football film. Baton, alongside recent Hollywood Authentic subject, Lewis Pullman. ‘I admire Danny so much because as a Latino in Hollywood, he is building a career, and now he is directing and acting and producing. And he invited me to play his best friend in the movie. I play a completely weird character. I’ve never played something like that. I’ve been lead in a movie, right? But I love supporting characters. I love to be part of the universe, and make other people shine in a way that you have more room. For me, the lesson is: Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights – one scene, and you will remember that scene forever. I want to do things like that.’ Based on the love for Club Kid out of Cannes, he’ll be taking his pick…
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Interview by JANE CROWTHER
Club Kid and Her Private Hell premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival
