The least is that the actor Tenoch Huerta (Ecatepec de Morelos, Mexico, January 29, 1981) could not swim when he accepted the role of Namor in the Marvel Studios film Black Panther Wakanda forever. No, I didn’t know that (and neither did the film’s director, Ryan Coogler). “If you happen to see me with him it floats in the pool…”, the Mexican actor tells me, between laughs. The important thing, really, is that the character of Namor was a poisoned gift for the actor. Which doesn’t mean it’s something bad, only that Special had to be careful, care that you shouldn’t do with any other Marvel character. Care, for example, that you shouldn’t do with a common villain. Because having to defend yourself in front of millions of viewers is not the same thing as an anti – hero (yes, that corny concept, but that’s the best definition of Namor’s character) rather than a villain. Audiences don’t have to identify with a villain. That’s what heroes are for. Hence the weight of purple. A villain , or rather, the actor who plays a villain, what he has to do is have fun, have fun. He has no pressure. Even the worst movie always has a good villain. The problem is that an antihero has the same to-do list as hero: there are a number of expectations about what can oi and you can not do. The ‘anti’, between you and me, or rather, between you and Tenoch Huerta, Rafael Caro Quintero in Narcos: MexicoIt just adds pressure. A villain just has to do the opposite of the hero, which gives you incredible freedom. An anti-hero can meet your expectations at times and fail you at others. Like every human being.
“I love the expression of a poisoned gift,” says Huerta. “Note what we appealed to Ryan [Coogler] and I went about building a very human, very complex character. We wanted his motivations to be those of a normal human being. Of course he has superpowers, of course he has this wonderful universe, but in the end, his motivations are those of the common man: he’s just a man who protects his family. With that we can all empathize. That’s where people can feel identified. But add to that that it does it regardless of the cost. And this is where we can disagree. And this is where the complexity comes in: what decisions and what actions we will take to protect them is where we will part,” says the actor. And it was a poisoned gift because it had another charge of depth: the weight of representation This Namor It’s not just any Namor, it’s an iteration of mesoamerican futurism compared to the original comic book character, which raises the geopolitical stakes of the film and Marvel. To the afrofuturism of the first installment Black Panther, which meant that the film had different layers of reading (to that metaphor between the confrontation of two ways of defending African-American culture in the United States in the antagonistic attitudes of Martin Luther King, T’Challa and Malcolm X, Killmonger), is adds what Tenoch Huerta suggests as indigenous futurism. You are putting a lot of weight on an actor’s shoulders. A movie, by itself, is not accountable to anyone, is a lifeless entity. An actor, yes. And it’s a burden that Huerta has carried, and he hopes to continue to carry other Marvel products (“can you lobby Marvel and ask them?” the actor jokes when we suggest a series with Namor, and then adds: “Those are decisions which depend, as Kevin Feige says, on the box office”), with pride. Huerta does not weigh purple.
Eli Hades
It’s Namor de Black Panther: Wakanda Forever He is the first Marvel character with an indigenous Mesoamerican background. Furthermore, he is ‘dark’, “said of a person: with brown skin. A man or woman that the social system puts at a disadvantage due to the color of the skin and for uses and customs unrelated to the canons of candor.” Tenoch Huerta thus begins his book Prieto Prieto (Grijalbo, 2022), an essay that reflects on the discrimination in Mexico due to skin color, universal discrimination because it feeds on the same wood. Namor is not bleached (“a way of being and of thinking that places the white, the modern, the western as superior”, he continues at the beginning of his book). In the comics he has never been related to Mesoamerican culture, nor to the Mayans. Much less had a four-century bond with them, like the character in the film. “For me, what’s exciting about this version of Namor, more than the representation, which seems dignified and powerful to me, is that it allows us to deconstruct certain ideas and reconstruct them from other spaces,” says Huerta.
He’s fingering
The first day on the set of Black Panther Wakanda forever, Huerta made it clear that he would take advantage of the opportunity. He may not have done it, but she did. “As an actor you don’t just want to be an actor, you don’t just want to be on set with your character, you want to help build that character’s universe. The actor’s responsibility goes from the skin to the inside and the director’s responsibility goes from the skin for the outside. But in the one with the skin on the outside you can contribute many things without meddling. They don’t pay you to direct, they only pay you to act. It’s good that the hierarchies are clear. I tried to be a little more involved,” he says. There are so many ways to make a mission statement, to give an inspiring speech, but it’s not usual to do it hanging from cables, in a hypnotic green bathing suit and with the pointy ears of a marine mutant. “This is the first superhero with an indigenous background, a Mesoamerican background. He is a brown skin type. This millennial culture is at his roots. And he speaks like me. We are making history. he said, remember: hanged, to the film crew. Yes, he was crazy, but necessary crazy.
“The structure of Black Panther and the afrofuturism could be transferred in a kind of I don’t know if indigenous futurism or mesoamerican futurism or something similar. It’s the same concept: creating utopian spaces of utopian civilizations that science fiction presents us with: crazy, beautiful, bright worlds. The beautiful thing about this type of fiction is that it generates us, it creates new horizons for us. And when you have a different horizon, you have different perceptions because your mind changes and you have a different place to reach. Horizons will always serve us as reference points, as spaces to reach, and the irony of horizons is that the closer you get, the further away you get. They will always give you a point of reference to reach out and change your path and your decisions”.
We asked Huerta what he thinks was his greatest contribution to the character. Early in his book, after the definitions of ‘dark’ and ‘white’, he makes a heartfelt statement of intent that can be extrapolated to how he approached Namor. “I specify that I am not an academic, nor an expert, nor a social fighter, nor an activist. I am an actor who has acquired a certain notoriety and to whom, thanks to this, they have put a microphone in his face because the public lends him attention, today I am no longer aware of having a lot of privileges: I am bato, hetero, middle class; I liked clean water, electricity, sewage, gas, the family car: I come from a close-knit family unit; I have accumulated a cultural capital thanks to my parents and the formal education I received…”, writes Huerta, a graduate in Communications and Journalism, and a cameraman before having his first opportunity as an actor. “I think my contribution is been double” , he replies quickly. and then reflects.
He’s fingering
“On the one hand, I think it was stating that the character was an everyday man, a guy who seeks the best for his family and builds it from those earthly motivations. On the other hand, I was very involved in creating l ‘universe of Namor Of course the decision [de ese origen en la cultura mesoamericana] It wasn’t mine, but once I knew what it was, it was important for me to contribute the knowledge I had as people I knew. The production employed a group of Mayan-speaking scholars who grew up in the Mayan communities of the Yucatan Peninsula. I knew them and this contribution they have made to the storytelling and building of Namor’s universe is what enriches it and makes it so compelling. It is not fully visible in the scenes, but there is a stele, which comes out of Namor’s hut with Classic period Mayan hieroglyphics and tell the story of Namor and Talocán. I can proudly say that I helped make these connections (contact those people),” says Huerta.
