LOS ANGELES??They are fantastic actors,? Gael Garcia Bernal recently described his Filipino cast mates in Swedish director Lukas Moodysson?s ?Mammoth.? ?They? include Marife Necesito, Martin Delos Santos, Jan David Nicdao, Perry Dizon and Maria Esmeralda ?Chiqui? del Carmen.

?They did a really wonderful job,? Gael added about his Pinoy co-stars in the film, which debuted at the Berlin Film Festival last February. The festival screening enabled the cast to reunite. ?It was great to know them. They were really committed and understood the craft of cinema. Lukas had a great interaction with them.?

The international star, who shot to fame in such movies as ?Y Tu Mama Tambien? (with Diego Luna), ?Amores Perros? and ?El Crimen del Padre Amaro,? said he was glad to see the finished film that also featured Michelle Williams and child actress Sophie Nyweide. He didn?t have scenes with the two Filipino child actors. ?So it was nice to see the parts in the film that I didn?t get to watch them do,? said the actor whose later credits include ?Babel? and ?The Motorcycle Diaries.? ?It was also nice for them to see the parts that they didn?t get to watch us shoot,? he added.

Gael likened the experience to the making of ?Babel,? which also had an international cast and was shot in different countries. ?Many of us didn?t know each other because we did not appear together in scenes,? he said of ?Babel,? whose cast included Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. ?It was great to meet them later.?

In ?Rudo y Cursi (Tough and Corny),? Gael is reunited with Diego though it?s not the sequel to ?Y Tu?? that we have all been wishing for. ?Y Tu?? was a landmark Mexican film that memorably tapped the onscreen chemistry of the two actors who are childhood friends. But it?s good enough to see the two talented guys together again, this time playing brothers in the comedy-sports drama directed by Carlos Cuaron, who wrote the screenplay of ?Y Tu?? and is the brother of Alfonso, who directed that earlier seminal film.

Almost a decade since their breakthrough film, both Gael and Diego have become fathers and first-time directors. They have worked together in other capacities but not onscreen. In ?Rudo?,? they play brothers who work at a banana plantation and play with their village soccer team. Tato (Gael) dreams of becoming a famous singer (a music video of Gael singing and dancing in character is a hoot) while Beto (Diego) wants to become a professional soccer player.

Partners off-cam

?In a way, Diego and I have not stopped working with each other,? Gael said. ?We have been working off camera together. We?re in touch a lot because we have a production company. Every year, we organize a documentary film festival called Ambulante. We have a lot of things in common. But being able to act together now is a great opportunity to test our maturity. We are more aware of the filming process. We are actually even more dedicated than we were before. There?s less pressure now, too. We just had fun doing it. What?s great about knowing each other very well is that we?re able to experiment with things that we would not experiment with other people.?

?Will it be called ?Y Tu Mama Returns,? as in ?The Mummy Returns??? Gael joked when asked about the possibility of a sequel, his green eyes lighting up. He himself said, ?It would be fantastic to see Julio and Tenoch again. We are still wondering what happened to the characters. Are they still in university? What did they end up doing? I miss those characters. But we haven?t seriously talked about it.?

Teased about singing on stage before ?Rudo?? was screened in Sundance early this year, Gael laughed and said, ?It was definitely the first time that I sang in front of an audience. That was also the first time that I was singing without the character. If anyone would ask me to sing in a film or something, I would immediately freeze because I don?t see myself as a singer. I think I sing really badly. Fortunately, my character had to sing really badly (laughter).?

In character

In a separate interview, Diego went to town about his buddy?s crooning and accordion playing (Gael plays accordion in the film) skills: ?In the beginning, I couldn?t tease him. I felt sorry for him. I wanted to hug him (laughter). But he?s always going to say that he was singing in character. He?s going to say his real singing is much better. The worst part was not the singing. It was his accordion playing. Oh my God, that was so painful (laughter). I made the stupid decision of sleeping next door to him in the hotel. We were playing brothers so we had to get together, talk a lot about these characters.?

Diego, who entered the hotel meeting room as we were taking photos of Gael (he pretended to take pictures, too, of his pal with his cell phone), continued: ?When Gael learned half of the song, he felt so happy so he would play that half of a song all day long, nonstop. My wife came to visit us. She stayed for a week and she ran away (laughter). I was worried she would divorce me (laughter). It didn?t happen.?

When we asked how fatherhood has changed Gael, Diego smiled and replied, ?If you look closely, he?s starting to have a few gray hairs (laughter). They?re coming out. You can tell he?s not having enough sleep now. I remember before when Gael was on the phone, he was either doing interviews or making business calls (he mimicked Gael sounding business-like on the phone). Now every time, Gael is like (in a high pitched, child?s voice as he imitated Gael talking to his baby), ?Oh, how are you?? Being a father just brings the most beautiful part of you. You have to be really an asshole not to become a better person (laughter). Gael has become a much more beautiful person. It?s really sweet to see someone you love loving so much.?

Diego, also asked about an ?Y Tu?? sequel, recounted, ?The other day, we were doing the commentary for the DVD of this film (?Rudo??). I was telling Gael that we should have our two characters in ?Y Tu Mama Tambien? commenting on this film. It would really be fun to have those two guys, 10 years later, saying ?These bastards don?t know what acting is? and stuff like that.?

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, ?The Nepales Report,? on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport.