Michael Peña on ‘Narcos: Mexico’ and His Bollywood Watchlist

Michael Peña and Diego Luna, the two lead actors of Netflix’s new show Narcos: Mexico are in India to publicise the latest offshoot of the popular series Narcos. While Peña plays the tough DEA agent Kiki Camarena in the new season, Luna acts as the dreaded Mexican drug lord Felix Gallardo.

Here’s my brief chat with Michael Peña about playing the incorruptible Camarena and his own “addiction”:

Hi Michael , welcome to The Quint. I’d like to start off by asking you how closely does your role reflect the real Kiki Camarena? Does it closely reflect his life and his personality or are there fictional elements that you’ve added to it?

Michael Peña: I mean, I never interviewed the man himself, so I wasn’t able to fully get a grasp on him per say. But I got to interview his wife and boss and I talked to people around him and they were able to tell me that the reason he was a very focused man was because of all the things that was happening around him and the fact that he was telling other people about them, they also didn’t believe him and so it was tough and that fed the fire to his almost obsession about this thing especially when he can see that it was all gonna end very badly, he was trying to avoid that and you know when somebody doesn’t believe you, it kinda adds the fire.

What in your mind drives a person like Kiki Camarena? You know he is this incorruptible person, when there is so much corruption around you. There is a fear of violence, there is a fear for life, there is a temptation to get money and get corrupted, but this man stood by a certain thing and wanted to take on the cartel. What do you think drives a person like him?

Michael Peña: I think to be honest with you, a majority of people on this planet are good people. Of course, in the news you hear about the 10% that are bad but for most part, you know, I walked up and down in India and we went on 2-3 hour walk and it was like you saw just a lot of very good people. So I think he knew that in his heart that there were mainly good people everywhere. And he just didn’t like injustice. He didn’t see the need for senseless killings and for men, women and children to be put in harm’s way and dump drugs that will destroy families and persons and end up in jail. I mean there is no need for that. And it takes a certain kind of person to take that upon himself and to do good by that.

How did you come on board Narcos Mexico, and did you at any point want to play, Felix’s role because the bad guy is probably more interesting to portray.

Michael Peña: Yeah, I mean it would be cool. To be honest with you to be able to play that part, those are flashier parts. In my mind they are a little harder to know how to sustain this and you know you have a lot of exposition where you explain the story and in my mind it is just a little easier to play because it is just a little more fun. That’s how it’s easier. But umm, yeah if maybe next time there is a movie or something like that, it’ll be fun to do, but in the meantime it was definitely fun playing this one.

It was just challenging for me to be honest, it wasn’t that easy. But I had a conversation with Eric Newman about 3 years ago and he told me that he had plans to move it to Mexico, Narcos Mexico season 1. And I saw the show after the meeting and I said ‘Wow this is a fantastic show!’ It is almost better than a lot of the movies about Latin America because it really captures the Latin America sense and I thought that was really cool and so I was naturally excited to be in it.

Now you and Diego Luna go back some way. He directed you in Cesar Chavez. What was your experience like, working with him as your director then.

Michael Peña: You know it is funny. You build a different kind of relationship when you are with a director because they are telling you what to do most of the time and that was a film that I loved and I hold dearly and I thought he did a great job with it. But I only knew him as a director and when we were filming Narcos he had his thing and I had my thing and we were always in different parts and we didn’t get to hang out so much. We’ve actually been hanging out more in the press tour and I was like, ‘aah this guy is really really cool.’ But yeah, we always had a mainly a working relationship but he is a great guy, super cool.

What is the one thing that Michael Péna is addicted to?

Michael Peña: I definitely love watching movies with my family. You know like me, my wife and my kids would literally sit in front of a television and sometimes it takes longer to pick a movie than to watch it. But you know we pick something that we like. And the last thing that we all really loved was Ready Player One. You know we watched it as a family and I was like, there were really cool references that I got and my son didn’t get. But all and all it was a fantastic story that all three of us liked and that is always really good. Some of the animation movies are really good because of the way that they are written.

Is there any show that you are currently watching on Netflix that you recommend for viewing.

Michael Peña: Yeah, I mean Evil Genius, it’s so well made, it’s really cool. Wild Wild Country, it’s fantastic. I think I watched Wild Wild Country in a day or two, It is fantastic. Ozark, Staircase, Making a Murderer, 13 Reasons Why, the first season was really good. Ozark was really good. I watch a lot of Netflix.

I just saw Anurag Kashyap, the Indian filmmaker, who’s made Sacred Games put up a picture on Instagram with you and Diego. Did you guys exchange notes on filming South American mobs versus the Indian underworld.

Michael Peña: Now, we were just talking about Indian cinema and I was, you know, it was great. Yesterday, we got to meet a lot of writers, directors, producers and you know I’m gonna watch Gold, Black Friday, Maqbool, that one and I’ve written down some other ones. And yeah, I watched some other trailers and it really looked like really amazing, the cinematography. It’s not easy.