Defining moment
AFTER A SHAKY START WITH MARGOT ROBBIE, DIEGO CALVA’S STAR IS ON THE RISE
Diego Calva admits he was so nervous the first time he did a “chemistry read” with Margot Robbie for their new movie, Babylon, that he almost forgot how to act.
The rising star had appeared in TV and film in his native Mexico – his highest profile role to date was in the final season of the Netflix crime drama Narcos set in the Central American country – but this was his first shot at the big time across the northern border.
He’d been sitting with writerdirector Damien Chazelle’s (Whiplash, La La Land, First Man) script for months, self-taping auditions and then acting out scenes with his roommate during Covid lockdowns in Mexico, so knew the material back to front.
But once he was in the room swapping lines with the Aussie Alister – he as Manuel “Manny” Torres, a Mexican film assistant trying to make his mark in the movie business in 1920s
Hollywood and she as hardpartying starlet Nellie LaRoy – he was almost overcome with the enormity of the moment.
“At some moment I realised – and I had to laugh as the thought popped in my mind – that I was yelling at Margot Robbie right now, super close to her face, and super mad,” Calva says over Zoom call from Los Angeles. “And the moment that thought crossed my mind of course I stopped acting.”
Former Neighbours star
Robbie, now a 10-year Hollywood veteran who had already been cast along with Brad Pitt, came to the rescue. “I love that she is so professional that in the moment I started to overthink, it was her performance that made me able to be there,” he recalls. “It’s not a competition and that kind of commitment is contagious. So, I stopped being nervous and I just started acting and being there.”
Whatever magic the two conjured up in the room worked: Oscar-winning director Chazelle knew he’d found his man.
“Damien always told me that was the day he literally understood that I was playing Manny because of the chemistry that Margot and I had, even our first time acting together,” he says. “He told me something that I will never forget – he said, ‘I saw fireworks, so the role is yours’.”
Calva’s admiration for Robbie only grew from there and the feeling was clearly mutual, with the I, Tonya star inviting Calva to stay with her and husband Tom Ackerley for part of the shoot.
“She can do anything, anything,” he says, “and you will see that in this movie.”
Calva recalls one huge party scene with hundreds of dancers and extras and complex choreography shot over three long days with Robbie front and centre.
“When Damien said that we had the scene, the hundreds of extras and all the crew and the
actual musicians were clapping and saying, ‘Margot – wow!’ because it was just so much to see her,” he says. “She never complained, she was always like ‘one more!’. She loves what she is doing and that’s what is so amazing.”
Babylon was very much a case of art imitating life for Calva, who grew up obsessed with movies in Mexico City and desperate to break into that city’s movie scene.
The period piece is set in 1920s Los Angeles, when Hollywood was making the difficult transition from silent films to talkies. Some of the characters are said to be based on real life figures – Robbie’s LaRoy on famous flapper Clara Bow and Pitt’s hedonistic, big-shot actor-director Jack Conrad on silent-era heart-throb John Gilbert – and the new trailer depicts a world of sex, drugs and wild excess.
Calva says his wide-eyed, greenhorn character is “a Latino guy in America, who is trying to find his way into the movie industry … it’s super meta for me in a lot of ways”.
To help him understand Manny’s position as a film assistant on the lower rungs of the showbiz ladder, before they started shooting, Chazelle organised for Calva to be his assistant for real on a coffee commercial he was directing that starred Pitt.
“I just started working on the commercial as an assistant with a backpack of cold Cokes to give to everyone and walking around saying ‘hey, Mr Pitt, do you need a glass of water’,” Calva recalls with a laugh. He says that Pitt was a little baffled once his cover was blown, but says the experience reenforced his belief that films are far more than the sum total of their stars.
“I worked in catering before entering college, and I was a boom operator, I did set dressing, set construction, production assistant so I really knew that it’s a hard job and I already knew that everyone on set is important,” he says. “We all have different jobs but it’s all part of movie-making and that makes you respectful because you know there are no easy jobs in the business.”
Chazelle arranged for Calva’s first day on the elaborate set of the $155m movie to coincide with the scenes portraying Manny’s first time on set. “That was so special and beautiful and I will never forget that,” Calva says. “He told me, ‘Diego, there is only one first time for this – and this is it for you and for Manuel’.”
While Calva’s star is clearly on the rise with Babylon, he says he has a lifelong commitment to LatinAmerican cinema and hopes to continue working with great actors and directors in his homeland as well as the US and beyond. He has long admired Spanish star Javier Bardem as an actor who has juggled films in his native tongue along with big blockbusters but he says firmly that “I want my career – I don’t want anyone else’s career”. And should he scale the heights of Hollywood, he says his Babylon co-stars have been role models on how to behave and doesn’t intend to forget his roots. “Seeing Brad or Margot, these people who are really superstars … and still being this caring, loving, charming, great people,” he says. “They literally took care of me and that is something I am going to love and appreciate forever.”