Diego Luna on México 86 and Mexico’s 1986 World Cup bid

EXCLUSIVE: Diego Luna is a soccer-mad bureaucrat who makes an outsize promise to win the rights to host the 1986 World Cup in his new Netflix movie. México 86 bows on the streamer on June 5, just days before the country becomes a co-host of the 2026 World Cup, alongside the U.S. and Canada.

From a galaxy far, far away to the sun-drenched soccer pitches of Mexico, Andor star Luna plays Martín De La Torre. He’s a pen-pusher who makes the audacious pledge to deliver the World Cup after Colombia withdraws as host, setting off a chaotic and politically charged bid to stage the world’s biggest sporting event.

For Luna, art mimics life in the movie. “It’s the first World Cup I remember, and it happened at home,” he tells Deadline in his first interview about the film, which he leads and exec produces. “I was taken to see Italy vs. France at the [Estadio Olímpico Universitario] stadium of my team, Pumas.”

The comedy-drama kicks off with a title card stating it is inspired by true events but also fictionalized. What follows is a wild ride through an ingenious and audacious bid for the World Cup, set against a high-energy backdrop of Mexico in the 1980s.

“My character is fictional but many of the things that happened in the film are things we read about and we know, or that we heard that happened,” Luna explains. “We fictionalized everything, but many of the characters are based on those who were around at the time. You have some of the players, [FIFA President] Havelange, and Emilio Azcárraga, the owner of the biggest TV chain in Mexico, which became a key player.”

Daniel Giménez Cacho stars as Azcárraga, the Televisa boss and Mexican media tycoon who has a vested interest in his country winning the tournament at a time when the worlds of business and sports were starting to collide. Guillermo Villegas plays Mexico’s star player Hugo Sánchez. Other real-life figures in the larger-than-life movie include Henry Kissinger (played by Frank Crudele), who part of efforts to bring the tournament to America. Karla Souza plays de la Torre’s on-off girlfriend.

The film is squarely a satirical comedy-drama. It also covers how the devastating Mexico City earthquake in 1985 almost put paid to the World Cup coming to the country. With FIFA concerned about Mexico’s ability to host the tournament after the disaster, Luna explains that his character does everything to keep things on track and deliver an event that can lift the spirits of the country in the wake of the tragedy.

“We ended up saying we’re doing the World Cup no matter what. Thousands of people died in the earthquake, and we kept going. So that’s why I say it’s a World Cup that wasn’t supposed to happen in Mexico, but it ended up happening, and ended up being not just a World Cup, but a great one.”

The biggest sporting tournament on the planet naturally focuses the attention of the world on the host country, meaning hosting becomes much more than just putting on a series of matches. “There’s always something going politically and socially and the World Cup brings a lens to it that allows us to see and magnify what’s going on,” Luna says.

“My character represents a kind of story that happens a lot in Mexico, which is people getting a straight line to success. No-one is expecting anything from him, and boom, suddenly he becomes what he is, because it’s a country that allows these stories to happen. Why? Because the rules are bendable; people get very rich in my country, very fast. Those stories are happening and this character represents that, he’s just a bureaucrat in the right place who decides to promise the impossible, and then he delivers.”

Gaumont, the producer behind Narcos, made the film, which was helmed by Gabriel Ripstein, who wrote the script with Daniel Krauze. Luna has a track record with soccer movies, having played an eccentric goalkeeper in Rudo y Cursi alongside his friend Gael García Bernal, with whom he has a production company, La Corriente del Golfo.

The México 86 producers set out to capture the music, fashions and general brashness of the era. “Recreating the 80s was probably my favorite part,” Luna says. “This is a comedy. We are clearly taking real events but they are definitely heightened and we get really close to ridiculous, which is fun. As a performer, these characters are out-there. Sometimes you can’t believe what people are saying, but also it reminds you how things were in the 80s.”

In ’86 Mexico became the first country to host the World Cup for the second time, having earlier been home to the 1970 tournament. Netflix, Gaumont, Luna and Ripstein are revisiting one of the most iconic moments in Mexican soccer history and celebrating the country’s legacy as a World Cup host, as it gears up to welcome the world once again in 2026.

Luna says: “It made so much sense to make this project just before we become the first country to organize our third World Cup, which is quite a thing. As a team, we haven’t won anything [in terms of World Cups], but as an organizer, we tend to be very good.”