When Luis Gerardo Méndez got a call from his agents that Ben Affleck wanted to cast him in “Animals,” he was surprised the Oscar winner even knew who he was.
“They sent me the script, and it had a very beautiful note at the end from Ben, just saying like, ‘Hey, Luis, I really want you to be in the movie. This script is not ready. I’m gonna do a rewrite specifically about your character, so I’m gonna call you around Christmas because I would love to hear your thoughts,’” Méndez tells me.
They didn’t meet in person until the first day of rehearsals.
“Ben saw me and he came to me with his massive Batman back and hugged me, and he started screaming to everyone like, ‘This guy is the best actor in Mexico. He’s incredible!’” says Méndez, who first gained fame in his native Mexico with his starring role in the 2013 comedy “The Noble Family.” “He brought me to his office and he started speaking like nonstop for an hour about me and how excited he was to work with me. At the end I was like, ‘Ben, can I ask you something? Why are you so excited to work with me?’ And he was like, ‘“Narcos: Mexico.” Your character is incredible. I was watching “Narcos,” and I called Matt [Damon, who was originally supposed to star in the film] and said, ‘Hey, dude, are you watching “Narcos?” The cop. We need to get the cop.’”
Méndez starred in the third season of the Netflix series “Narcos: Mexico” in 2021 as corrupt cop Victor Tapia.
Affleck stars in “Animals” — he also directed the film and co-wrote the script — as a businessman running for Los Angeles mayor when he and his wife (Kerry Washington) receive a phone call saying that their son Denny (Christopher Woodley) has been kidnapped.
Méndez plays Ramon, the undocumented Mexican boyfriend of the couple’s housekeeper (Adriana Paz), who finds himself unexpectedly thrust into trying to resolve the kidnapping when things take a drastic turn.
As for Affleck’s script changes for Ramon, Méndez says, “It was so magical because it was like if Ben had read my mind, like all the things that I thought about the character that were missing, about the proper representation, about the proper way of speaking of the characters … everything was there.”
While the film is meant to entertain, Méndez hopes it also fosters conversations around immigration.
“What I want the audiences to think about for a second is: no one leaves their homes because they want to,” he says. “They leave it because they’re running away from violence, from political persecution. We need to understand that. The vast majority of the immigrants, not just in the U.S. but in the whole world, they just want to work and they’re very hard workers. They just want to do the right thing like our characters in the movie. They’re taking the biggest risks with the least protection. They’re doing the right stuff in a system that won’t allow them to shine or to be heroes.”
Méndez splits his time between Los Angeles and Mexico City. He also travels the globe as a goodwill ambassador for UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).
Méndez chokes up when asked about ICE. “To hear about these families getting separated, it’s really hard for me to speak about it, especially with what happened yesterday here in New York,” he says in reference to the recent ICE shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal. “I feel like no matter what your immigration status is, no one should lose their dignity. It’s as simple as that.”
He also warns about global warming’s effect on immigration. “We’re going to see massive amounts of people moving, leaving. We’re seeing it already in California,” Méndez explains. “We don’t know if tomorrow we’re going to be the ones migrating. No one has any certainty about that. We must understand that. We must be welcoming because we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next 20 or 30 years. It’s about empathy and also about you could be next, we could be next.”
