Diego Luna Goes Rogue

Two decades after breaking out in the iconic indie Y Tu Mamá También, the accomplished Mexican actor is starting a galactic revolution in the new Star Wars series Andor.  

- IANA MURRAY

CASSIAN ANDOR, the intergalactic spy played by Diego Luna in the Star Wars universe, is an enigma at first. In the 2016 spin-off Rogue One, Andor vaguely alludes to his lifelong fight for the rebel cause, at one point telling a fresh recruit, "I have been in this fight since I was six years old." Out of that line blossomed Andor, a new Disney+ prequel series set a few years before Cassian gave his life for the Rebel Alliance, which tracks his evolution from recalcitrant cynic to martyr. The show, which started streaming in September, is part origin story, part political awakening, a saga about how imperialism can shake a population out of its reverie and make it fight back. Luna tells me that, at its core, Andor is "about a community that is waking up".

More than most actors, Luna gets what it's like to be ushered into a rebellion. In 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) staged an uprising against Mexico's government for the rights of Indigenous people in Chiapas, the country's southernmost state. With the encouragement of family and teachers, a teenage Luna would skip school to join the protests. He and his classmates mobilized, independently organizing events protests, concert fundraisers, food drives to support the residents of Chiapas. "I remember meeting amazing people of all ages, all worried about the same issues, and feeling part of something meaningful," Luna recalls on a recent hot July afternoon in Madrid. He found comfort in the movement's growing numbers and learned the power of banding together for a greater good. "I was 15 years old and I was feeling the responsibility of being a citizen in my country. I remember those days as being important. They defined me."