Diego Calva, actor: Latin America is more than violence, salsa music and food
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 5 January 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“In Latin America, we have way more than violence, we're more than salsa as our music, or food, or culture. It's a pleasure and a responsibility to share it with the world.”
BBC presenter Nikki Bedi speaks to Mexican actor Diego Calva about his life and career.
Diego Calva first made waves in independent cinema before landing major roles in hit series like Narcos: Mexico and the award-winning Hollywood epic Babylon, where he starred alongside Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie. It was his first American film — and it earned him widespread critical acclaim.
Raised in Mexico City by a single mother, he originally set out to be a writer and director before fate intervened. One day, when an actor didn’t turn up for a college film he was working on, Diego was asked to step in.
Since then he’s continued to build an impressive international career and has a starring role in the second series of The Night Manager, the acclaimed television drama based on the book by John le Carré.
Diego Calva talks about navigating fame, challenging stereotypes, and the power of telling Latin American stories on the global stage. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presenter: Nikki Bedi Producer: Farhana Haider Editor: Nick Holland
Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
(Image: Diego Calva. Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.3 | Hello, I'm Nikki Bady, BBC presenter, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service, |
| 0:13.3 | the best conversations coming out of the BBC, people shaping our world from all over the world. |
| 0:20.6 | Today we are spending trillions on war and peanuts on peace. |
| 0:24.3 | Wind power in the United States has been subsidized for 33 years. |
| 0:27.9 | Isn't that enough? |
| 0:28.9 | Solar for 25 years. That's enough. |
| 0:31.3 | I don't have army. I don't have missile rockets. |
| 0:35.4 | I have my body. I have my voice. |
| 0:37.3 | I love singing and so my goal was always to do better and better at rockets. I have my body. I have my voice. I love singing and so my goal was |
| 0:39.3 | always to do better and better at it. I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was |
| 0:45.3 | defining me. For this interview, I meet the Mexican actor Diego Calva, one of the biggest |
| 0:51.7 | talents to emerge from Latin America in recent years. |
| 0:55.5 | He built a strong reputation in Mexico's independent film scene, |
| 1:00.4 | starred in the TV series Narcos Mexico, before rising to global fame in the Hollywood movie Babylon, |
| 1:06.8 | starring alongside Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie. |
| 1:10.1 | That was his first American film and garnered him much praise from critics and audiences alike. |
| 1:16.7 | You may also have seen him last year in the US film On Swift Horses, |
| 1:21.4 | a historical romance where he co-starred with Jacob Ilaudey. |
| 1:25.6 | An only child, he was raised by a single mother |
| 1:28.4 | and wanted to be a writer and director |
| 1:30.4 | before fate intervened. |
... |
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