Luis Gerardo Méndez and Adriana Paz, the Mexican actors in Ben Affleck’s new Netflix thriller “Animals,” are using its release to press for a more realistic portrayal of migrants in the United States.
Affleck directed, wrote, produced and stars in the film, which reached Netflix on Oct. 9. He plays Mark Kimball, a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped. Paz plays Cecilia, the family’s housekeeper. Méndez plays her husband, Ramón, an undocumented immigrant dragged into the crisis. Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun and Gillian Anderson round out the cast.
Méndez says Affleck recruited the pair with a blunt mandate: the story is half Mexican, half American, and everything Mexican had to come from them. If a scene felt implausible, Affleck told them, they could change it. Affleck describes the arrangement as a full collaboration and credits both actors with contributions beyond their performances.
The director’s link to Mexico predates the project. He lived there at 13 and has returned repeatedly. “I love Mexico,” he told Remezcla. His company, Artists Equity, now wants to work with Méndez again, and Méndez has been teaching him how Mexican films get financed.
Méndez frames the film as a corrective to caricature. Most migrants who reach the United States are hardworking people seeking a better life, he told EFE, and nobody leaves home by choice. He also argues that society assigns unequal value to lives, with the powerful shaping which ones count. Paz urges solidarity against discrimination. In a separate interview, Méndez said human rights belong to everyone and require active defense.
The politics reached the set. Affleck has said immigration enforcement in Los Angeles complicated where the crew could shoot. The film arrives in a charged climate, and one outlet has called it polarizing. Its themes of class and immigration sit inside a kidnapping plot that runs on genre suspense, a mix that will draw varied reactions from audiences.
