It’s not often that Diego Luna gets to act like an idiot, and he savoured the opportunity in Casa de mi Padre, playing the drug-fuelled, trouble-plagued brother to Will Ferrell’s humble Mexican ranch hand. But just because Luna – who has begun directing as well – had such an eye-opening experience acting in an off-the-wall comedy, that doesn’t mean he’ll be stepping behind the camera for comedy. “I don’t know if I have what is needed,” he admits.

This film looks like it was a lot of fun to make.
It was crazy. It was fun. It was like a huge relief in my life, you know? I suddenly enjoyed every second of it. And the director said to me, “You know, do anything you want. Do everything. I’ll tell you when you went too far.” And he never said I went too far. I allowed myself to do stuff I’ve never, never allowed myself to do on a film set.

What sort of stuff are we talking about?
I always say I played a role called Raul Alvarez, but there was a role behind the role, you know? Behind the role there was the role of this actor that made just these terrible choices, and that was very fun to do – allow yourself to go very intense in every sentence you say, in every reaction. The worst choices, falling into every cliché possible, we were allowed to do that. We were allowed to also incorporate every mistake, you know? And in fact you could make it big and point at it.

And you always have a drink in your hand.
I remember in the gunfight, I said to [director Matt Piedmont], “When I hide behind my car, there should be a whiskey waiting for me.” And he went for it, and in fact there was this red carpet with different kinds of whiskeys, cigarettes and guns waiting for me. Just from nowhere, suddenly there was this minibar waiting for me.

And now you demand having that on every movie, right?
I demand to have that in every day of my life, in fact. (laughs)

You’re a director now as well. Has doing this film made you consider directing a comedy?
I don’t know. I definitely want to try to act in another comedy one day, but I don’t know as a director. I don’t know if I would have what is needed. I’m a little of a control freak, and in comedy you need to give freedom to those who are there. There’s a lot of improvisation happening.