‘Narcos: Mexico’s Diego Luna Breaks Down Season 2’s Shocking Ending

After rising from nothing to lead the Guadalajara Cartel, unifying Mexico’s drug trafficking operations, and outsmarting the DEA, Narcos: Mexico Season 2 chronicles Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo’s devastating fall. But according to Félix Gallardo’s actor Diego Luna, the real tragedy of this story isn’t just the DEA agent the drug lord ruthlessly murdered or the dozens of lives that were needlessly lost because of his feuds. It’s the corrupt governmental system that allows these atrocities to continue.

Luna spoke to Decider about what it was like shaking his complicated antihero after two seasons, how he managed to best his on-screen smoking requirements, and what it was like finally facing off against Scoot McNairy’s character in the final moments of Season 2. The star also answered a pressing question about his upcoming Disney+ show: Will Jabba the Hutt appear in the Rogue One prequel?

DECIDER: How did you go about approaching Félix Gallardo differently in Season 2 after Season 1?

DIEGO LUNA: When I talked to (executive producer) Eric Newman about the show, we always talked about the whole arc of the character, not one detail and then another. We talked about the journey of this man, and I think the arc is quite dramatic. A lot happens, and there’s a big transformation on the character.

He starts paying for all the mistakes that he allowed himself to do in the name of the organization. He starts to, he gets very lonely. He gets rid of his friends, of his family, and he has to deal with that. He becomes a much more deterred character. And I think the most interesting part, he suddenly thinks he can actually become more important than the system. That’s his big mistake. The system uses you until you become useless. It’s never about the people. It’s about the system. And that’s something I don’t think he ends up understanding. Or, at least, when he gets it, it’s too late.

Absolutely. And what’s so interesting about Félix Gallardo’s arc is, the way the show tells it, he originally comes to power because he understood how to create and use the system.

Exactly. But the time passes and he doesn’t understand how to adjust. What I love at the end is he understands that he is also a victim. They’re all victims of this system that uses these characters and then gets rid of them. The system needs these characters, in a way.

I love the final scene you have with Scoot McNairy. After a season spent chasing each other without ever seeing one another, Félix Gallardo and Agent Walt Breslin finally meet while your character is in jail. What was filming that like?

It was quite emotional for me. It was the last scene I shot, right, because time goes fast. We had to change a little bit the look… I was celebrating that we were done.

It’s always a weird emotion, with this project more than any other, I was really happy to be done with the shooting because I could go back to my life and leave this character on the side and this very dark and complex content that we have to deal with every day. So, in a way it was a celebration, but then at the same time, it is sort of like, melancholy. And then, it’s a moment I was expecting for a long time. I had more dinners and events with Scoot than actual time on set. So I really wanted to do this scene with him. It’s a very intense scene, a very long scene. It was a hardcore day and a great way to finish the season.

It’s so tense because you follow both of these characters throughout the whole season, but you finally see them. Like a cat and a mouse, they finally confront. And it’s just so charged.

They finally confront and when they confront they realize they’re both used. They both lost.

And that there are so many terrible things ahead. The system’s still going to mess them both up. Was there ever a fear or hesitation about making this drug lord too relatable?

No, not really, because it was not something I was thinking of, to be honest. When I decide to do a character, I see every character in the same way. Because that’s my job. I cannot be the one judging the character. Then I become audience again, and I do that. When I make the choice of joining a project, I think about that. Well, what is the project going to say? Why is there a need for this story to be told?

To me, the show shows you the consequences of this life. I don’t think it’s naive in that way, where it just stays in the high. You see the downsides. And you see the atrocity they’re part of… The story that has been told to us is if they are the ones we have to persecute and put in jail, that’s going to bring resolution. And you go, ‘No.’ That’s the story we’ve been told, but it’s far from the truth.

Whatever we have done so far, it’s still not working. We’ve lost these wars. This was happening in the ’80s. It started happening in the ’70s. It happened in Colombia. It happened in Mexico. It’s happening here, and it’s because we haven’t tackled the issue the way we should. We have to accept that every strategy that governments have applied have been proven wrong. So we have to rethink this, and in a way, I kind of like that. It’s not that the character’s not relatable, but you understand how much they’re used, too, by a system that no one really wants to change.

That makes a lot of sense, and it really comes through. When your character is arrested, and he’s really alone in his house, was he always going to be completely alone? 

No one captured him. He understood he was done. That’s the way we represented it. And it’s important to remind people, every once in a while, this fictionalized approach to our reality. If they really want to understand what happened in reality, they’re going to have to do research and find out. But the way we wanted to present this is that he was not useful anymore for the system and it was time to go. He doesn’t fight back because he understands the fight is over. Therefore, he’s still in control at the end. He’s always in control, it’s just that he realizes too late that he’s not untouchable.

Yeah, his ego kind of destroys him at the end. We’ve seen other cartel leaders re-emerge in Narcos. Has there been any talk about your character potentially coming back in a future or past storyline?

We don’t know that, to be honest. At least today, I don’t have an answer for that. They are not that far. So far, we are hoping to see what reaction we get out of this season. I think that it depends a lot on that. Audiences today are much more important. So, a lot has to do with the way they react, and we have to wait a week for that.

I have a silly question. Your character smokes a lot during the season. Were there any challenges remembering to light your cigarettes, and smoking and acting?

Well, now I’m going to blame Netflix for this. As soon as the series comes out I’m going to start a lawsuit because now I can’t stop smoking. I’m kidding, I’m kidding.

But yeah, I had to smoke a lot, and I have this rule [that it’s] real cigarettes I’m supposed to be smoking. And then so many times I regret it. I learned a lot from Season 1, so on this one I decided just to smoke in the very short scenes. Otherwise, if you choose to smoke in a long scene, you end up smoking like two packages in one day. You know what trick I found? I started the scene having the last puff and finishing a cigarette or lighting the cigarette up near the end. Things like that to save my lungs.

Oh my gosh, that’s crazy that you had to do all that. I have one last question. I know that you have a Star Wars show coming up for Disney+. Has there been any talk of trying to get Jabba the Hutt involved somehow? I know you love Jabba.

[Laughs] I don’t know if it’s going to be possible. I’m going to root for it. I’m going to do my best effort to try to get him on a scene. I’ve sent enough messages on the media, so, hopefully they react.

Watch Narcos: Mexico on Netflix