Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, Together Forever
One thing you’re never gonna do is break up Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna. The friends and collaborators first appeared onscreen together in 2001’s queer classic Y Tu Mamá También, went on to create two production companies together, and teamed up to play stepbrothers with dreams of soccer stardom in 2008’s Rudo y Cursi. After more than a decade apart, they’re back at each other’s side in another sports-related project they produced: Hulu’s limited series La Máquina.
Led by showrunner and writer Marco Ramirez (whose writing credits include Sons of Anarchy and The Defenders, and who co-created The Twilight Zone reboot with Jordan Peele and Simon Kinberg), La Máquina follows aging boxer Esteban “La Máquina” Osuna (Bernal), who after a major loss considers whether he’s done in the ring. But his flashy manager and Botox-addicted best friend, Andy Lujan (Luna, in some unsettling prosthetics), isn’t ready to hang it up and instead encourages Osuna to launch a comeback; all of that seems like pretty standard triumphant sports-drama stuff. La Máquina takes a turn, though, when a mysterious figure insists to Lujan that Osuna throw his next fight, or else — an ominous threat that impacts Lujan, Osuna, and Osuna’s ex-wife, a journalist played by Eiza González.
“If we’re doomed, we’re doomed together” will probably launch a thousand more ships for Bernal and Luna. All six episodes of La Máquina, Hulu’s first Spanish-language original, premiere on the streamer October 9.