Speakeasy with Rudo y Cursi director Carlos Cuáron

Carlos Cuáron is probably best known as the creative sidekick of his brother, director Alfonso Cuáron. After working on several project as a co-writer with his sibling, he shifted into focus as the writer of the Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning, Y Tu Mama Tambien in 2002. Last year, Cuáron decided to jump into the big chair to direct his first feature film, Rudo y Cursi, a story of sibling rivalry and the past time that binds them, soccer.

Keeping it in the family, this is the first film produced by Cha Cha Cha, a company formed by his brother Alfonso (Children Of Men) along with directors, Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel).  Rudo y Cursi opens in limited release Friday, May 15. Don't forget to read Curt Holman's take on the film.

Rudo y Cursi is a far departure from your previous film, Y Tu Mama Tambien.

Well the thing about Y Tu Mama Tambien is that it came by accident. A long time ago in the late 80s in Mexico City, Alfonzo and Emanuel Lubezki were producing this film… and out of the blue, Lubezki said “Hey man why don’t we make a film about two guys who go to the beach.” Alfonso and I said “Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.” Then ten years ago…on the phone we said why don’t we do ‘Mama’ because we had the title and we knew the plot pretty much and that’s why we did it.

I’m a soccer freak – I’m a sucker of soccer. I’ve had the thought of making a fake documentary about a soccer player who came from a humble background and made it big.  And at the peak of his success, he mysteriously disappeared. So I told the idea to Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal and they both said they wanted to be this guy. Which was great but I had two actors and one characters. I realized I wanted to work with both of them again so I made up a brother. I told them that it’s going to be a sibling rivalry story in the context of professional soccer and they said great but Gael said, “I have to be Rudo (Beto), I cannot be Cursi” and Diego said, “yeah, I’m Cursi (Tato).” I said, “No man, I don’t want to repeat myself. I don’t want to make  ‘Mama 2,’ I want to make something completely different, completely original from start to scratch so and to do that, I need to cast you against your types.“ They got it immediately and they started throwing out ideas, and I started writing.