In a different timeline, you might be talking a lot more about “Cassandro.” And, frankly, you should. Roger Ross Williams‘ feature directorial debut found strong reviews out of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was set for a bit of an awards season burst at Telluride. The film’s star, Gael Garcia Bernal, was set to receive a tribute from the Academy’s favorite fest centered around his latest acclaimed performance. Like many plans, however, the SAG strike put the breaks on that (and, hey, some things are obviously more important at the moment) and the movie has arrived on Prime Video without Bernal or any of the stars able to promote it, including none other than Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, otherwise known to his millions of fans as Bad Bunny.
READ MORE: “Cassandro” Sundance Review: Gael Garcia Bernal gives the gay Lucha Libre icon his due
The massively successful Latin music artist made his big screen debut in “Bullet Train” last summer but actually set foot in front of the cameras for “Cassandro” first. The movie was also a major moment for Williams, an Oscar-winner for the documentary short “Music by Prudence,” who was directing his first feature narrative film. It turns out Bunny is actually a huge wrestling fan and when he heard about the project, he reached out to the filmmakers directly. Williams admits he was excited but a little “overwhelmed” over the prospect of Bunny taking a role in the biopic.
“I can’t tell you, Bad Bunny couldn’t have been nicer,” Williams says. “First of all, he’s a talented actor, and he couldn’t have been nicer. And I remember the first scene I was directing Bad Bunny, and his manager said to me, ‘Listen, do not fear Bad Bunny. This is not his artistic genre, and he trusts you, and you just go for it.’ And that’s all I needed to hear. And I loved going to his trailer in the morning and talking to him about a scene. And it was just a great experience working with him. It was amazing.”
Over the course of our interview, Williams reflects on Bernal’s commitment to the project (and, yes, he very much deserves to be in the Best Actor conversation), the real Cassandro’s reaction to seeing the new movie for the first time, and much, much more.
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The Playlist: I know it’s been many months since the Sundance premiere, but congratulations on your movie.
Roger Ross Williams: Thank you, thank you. Yes, it’s very exciting. It has been months, but now the world’s going to get to see it, so that’s really a whole new level.
It is. The most obvious question first. How did you become even involved in this project?
I made a short documentary about the real Cassandro for the New Yorker. It was a New Yorker article called “Man Without a Mask,” written by William Finnegan in 2014 and the New Yorker did a series on Amazon, where they transformed the magazine into a series. And in each series, there was a short doc, and you could make a doc about anything from any article in the New Yorker from 1922, when it started, till now. And I chose Cassandro because it’s such an amazing article, one of the most-read articles in 2016 in the New Yorker. And I met him. And when I met him, I was just blown away by just his charisma, his energy, his spirit, and I was like, “Your story is so inspiring.” The first day I met him, I said, “You’re going to be my first fiction film.” I don’t know where that came from. It wasn’t even like I was really even seriously considering making a fiction film at that point. I was maybe thinking about it, but when I met him, I said, “This is it,” because it spoke to me. His story spoke to me deep down in my soul as a gay man who struggled to love himself and find acceptance, who was rejected by my own father. It was very personal to me. And I was just so inspired by him, I was like, “This is it. This is my first film. I’m going to figure out how to write a screenplay and make it.”
When you came back and told him that you were trying to make a feature film, did he believe you? Do you think he was surprised It actually happened?
Oddly enough, he believed me right away. I think because I had made a scripted film, but because I had made, obviously, documentaries, that had received attention, so he didn’t even have a doubt. He was like, “Oh my God, this is amazing. I can’t believe it. There’s going to be a film about me.” He was already talking about it like it was happening [Laugh.]. He totally believed in it and he knew. He’s like, “This is happening. I know it’s happening. I can feel it.” And I felt it too, and it was just how I was going to pull it off.
Was there anything that sort of popped when you started going even deeper into his life?
Well, so for me, it was about the pain in his youth and his relationship with his father, which he was still wrestling with. And I liked that it was not really going to resolve itself, but that it was something that he had to resolve in his own mind. He had to not look for acceptance from his father, he has to find acceptance within himself, and that struggle and that relationship was what I really dove into. And I had the same thing with my father, so it really connected with me.
How did Gael Garcia get involved? And do you think the project would have made if he hadn’t come on board?
No, so the first day that I met Cassandro and I decided it was going to be my first scripted film, I went to a tequila bar with the crew and we started. I said, “Guys, this is it. This is my first scripted film.” And then we started being like, “Who’s going to play Cassandro?” And then it hit me, like right away, I was like, “Gael Garcia Bernal, he’s the only one who could play this role.” I loved “Y tu mamá también,” obviously and he had the same energy as Cassandro. I was like, “He’s the only Mexican actor that can pull this off,” in my book. And so, when I finally got to pitch it to him, he said, “Yep,” right away. He just saw the power in the story.
Obviously, Gael looks the part is incredibly fit, but he is a man over 40 and this is a crazy physical role. Were you worried about that aspect of it at all?
No, because Cassandro wrestled up into his 50s. He was wrestling literally up until when we were shooting this film. And Gael trained for a year, bulking up and training to be a wrestler. He was in the ring working with luchador. He did most, not all, but most of his own stunts, and he took the physicality of it really, really, really seriously. That wasn’t a factor, because he threw everything he had into it.
Was there anything about luchador wrestling that Cassandro specifically wanted to make sure was in there or wasn’t maybe glossed over?
I think it’s important to show how difficult it was for him in the beginning, that he was jeered and called a fag and screamed at, and that he refused to let that stop [him]. He was going to be his authentic self. And also, to build to coming to that decision, after his life and his feelings of rejection, learning to love himself. And I know we got it right because, when I showed it to Cassandro for the first time in an empty theater in El Paso, it was the most incredible viewing experience of my life, because he was sitting in the row in front of me and he was screaming at the screen. When his mother came on, he would scream, “Mama! Mama!” When he was standing there triumphantly with his arms raised in the air, he would jump in the air and raise his arms triumphantly and scream out.” He was linking the action on the screen in the theater. And two weeks before we were going to start principal photography, we, JC Molina, who’s the production designer, and I, went to his scout in El Paso, and we went to this fight [featuring] Cassandro. And it was all families and women and children, then he comes out, and his theme song is “I Will Survive.” “And they’re playing “I Will Survive,” and he comes out, and JC is crying like a baby because it’s so beautifully inspiring, it’s so powerful. And the first time I saw Cassandro was when I was shooting the documentary in Juárez, Mexico. And Cassandro comes out, and “I Will Survive” is playing, and thousands of people are singing, “Once I was alone, I was petrified,” and I couldn’t even believe it. And people are holding their babies up for him to kiss and hug, and he’s in full drag, and he’s his authentic self. And I was like, “How is this possible? What is going on here?” And I realized the power of this narrative, of this story, and how visually powerful it is, and how inspiring it is, and so… I don’t even remember the question.
No, no, it’s great, but you went down a thread I wanted to ask you about. When I saw the movie at Sundance, one of the things that impressed me was that, and absolutely no disrespect, this is not the movie many would expect from a documentary filmmaker making their first narrative movie. It is so impressive artistically and from a cinematic perspective. And I wanted to know what your priorities were when working with your DP, Matías.
It was important that it was both the big spectacle set pieces of the fights and that each of the fights had its own sort of narrative, but that at its heart, it was this intimate, emotional portrait of a gay man fighting for acceptance in the world and acceptance within himself. So it was framing, the 4×3 framing. We saw it as a portrait, as a series of photographs, really. That was always our concept, we used photographs as our creative guide. He’s in every scene, so we framed it and we created it. And this is the beauty of Matías’s work, he created it like a portrait, so you feel the intimacy, so you’re in his head, you’re in his world, you’re in his brain, you’re in there with him emotionally, and it was important to visually shoot it that way.
The question people still want to know is, how did you get Bad Bunny to star in the movie?
Bad Bunny is a big wrestling fan. And Bad Bunny contacted us and said, “Oh my God, I love this story. I love Cassandro. I love this. It sounds fine and I want to be in the film.” So imagine you’re a director, the first time, and I’m in pre-production in Mexico City, a lot’s going on. And then the producer comes to me and says, “Bad Bunny wants to be in the film and he wants to play Felipe.” And I was like, “What?” I was like, “The biggest star in the world wants to be in my film?” And it’s also his first acting role because this was before “Bullet Train.” So I was like, “I’m going to be the first one to direct Bad Bunny in a film?” I was so excited, but also like, wow, overwhelmed.
I can’t tell you, Bad Bunny couldn’t have been nicer. First of all, he’s a talented actor, and he couldn’t have been nicer. And I remember the first scene I was directing Bad Bunny, and his manager said to me, “Listen, do not fear Bad Bunny. This is not his artistic genre, and he trusts you, and you just go for it.” And that’s all I needed to hear. And I loved going to his trailer in the morning and talking to him about a scene. And it was just a great experience working with him. It was amazing.
You’ve been super busy. There’s this movie, you recently directed a Donna Summer documentary, there’s the Netflix doc “Stamped From the Beginning” that came out this year, and the upcoming Hulu doc series “The Super Models.” Are we going to see you in the world of narrative filmmaking again?
I hope to make another narrative film. I’ve fallen in love with narrative, with making scripted films, because you get to create a world. You get to create a world from start to finish, and there’s just so much freedom in that. I love the pre-production process because I love being able to work with Mariestela Fernandez, the brilliant costume designer, and JC, the brilliant production designer, and hair and makeup, and everything, and to create this work. And I was like, “Wow, this is…” I love the process of filmmaking on this level and I pray that I have an opportunity to do it again.
“Cassandro” is now available on Prime Video