An emerging star shines ever so brightly in director Bill Condon’s musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” And this actor can sing. He can dance. But best of all, Tonatiuh can tear your heart out.
Named after the Aztec sun deity, the 30-year-old Los Angeles native has a career that is on fire.
He might be familiar for smaller parts in the Netflix thriller “Carry-On” with Taron Egerton and the indie dramedy “Drunk Bus.” Perhaps he caught your eye in the short-lived ABC soap opera “Promised Land,” set in Sonoma County.
All of that is but a prologue to his soul shaker of a performance as Luis Molina, a-jailed-for-indecency queer hairdresser who escapes from the hardness of life through old-school movie musicals. Molina forms a life-changing bond with a political rebel (Diego Luna) in a prison cell in 1983 Argentina and metes out to his new cellmate what his cherished musical is all about.
Based on Manuel Puig’s once-banned 1976 novel and the Broadway musical made out of it, the part gives one of Variety’s 10 actors to watch in 2025 an unforgettable role that demands a lot out of him. And he delivers in every scene. Heck, he even manages to upstage Jennifer Lopez, no wallflower who plays the screen siren that Molina is so captivated with. He even double down with another role, along with Luna, playing character from the musical he vividly talks about with cellmate, Valentin.
Tonatiuh and Condon – an Oscar winner who directed “Gods and Monsters,” “Dreamgirls” and the live-action “Beauty and the Beast” — were in the Bay Area for the recent Mill Valley Film Festival where Tonaituh received a Spotlight award. We got a chance to chat with them both.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How were you introduced to “Spider Woman” — as a novel, a movie, a musical on Broadway?
Condon: It was as a book for me after I graduated from college. It came out and created a stir. It was sort of the book everyone was reading and it was incredible. It’s still such an original novel, all dialogue except for these theoretical footnotes that suddenly take over the whole book. But that was absolutely my reason for wanting to make this movie. I felt as if we were just catching up to everything that he was talking about and certainly in terms of the love story between two men in a gender-neutral way is something that I think was hard for people to grapple with for a long time.
Tonatiuh: My first introduction was the play. I was constantly hunting for scenes to put on their feet. And it was a wonderful piece of work. And seeing the love between the two — Bill will always make fun of me because he says I cry too much — but it’s very hard to find that demand for you to break down. And the script is just apt for that.
Q: The story is timeless and right now it seems important to see these stories getting told and seeing representation onscreen. Do you agree?
Tonatiuh: What I love about art the most is when it’s subversive in nature and I just feel like our film without necessarily hitting you on the head with it is ensuring that the communities that are being attacked the most are getting the Hollywood treatment, which creates dignity. It reminds people of our value. It’s really honoring.
Q: Playing the character of Luis Molina requires great skill since you don’t want to fall into caricature or stereotype. Could you talk about how you approached portraying Molina?
Tonatiuh: I think it’s years of lived experience and training that helped me be ready for something like that, but the source material was just so powerful … . The construction of building that character was a collaborative thing. There were lots of conversations to understand the psychology behind Molina, which was really fun because we would have intergenerational conversations over the privileges of someone being born in the ‘90s versus someone like Molina who was born in the ‘40s. So navigating how do you defend yourself in a world but also not have the actual nerve to do it in a way that somebody in 2025 would do it. And then following the through-line of finding what their insecurity is, but straddling it so it doesn’t become self pity, but not overly so. There was a lot of table work to really decide the essence and the energy of what we wanted to create. But I lost 45 pounds in about 50 days to get into that physicality.
Q: How’d you do that?
Tonatiuh: (Laughs) The old-fashioned way. Yea, someone kept pushing (asking) was it Ozempic? I was like, girl, I wish. But jokes aside, losing that weight felt different and people responded to me differently … . It’s interesting to see how the world (the prison sequences were filmed on a soundstage in Uruguay and other outdoor scenes were shot there) responds to you when you’re feminine and thinner – in a good and negative way.
Q: What were some of the negative and good ways?
Tonatiuh: There were looks on the street especially when we were shooting the exteriors. I think if I deepen my voice and I have facial hair and depending on how I style myself, people want to come up to me and the energy is different. But in this case, it was people crossing the street as I was walking. Or a couple people wanting to connect in ways that I just don’t know how to — they’d be like ‘Oh my God, let’s talk about fashion.’ I was like I’m not that person … . Also I have an entire life of people wanting to make my identity palatable for their experience. So like with my name, they’ll shorten it without even knowing. (Tonatiuh posted a hilarious Instagram reel about how to pronounce his name as well as some of the mispronunciations.)
Q: Bill, could you talk about the process of finding the right actor to play Molina?
Condon: It was pretty long, about four months. You know the thing was that I wasn’t just casting Molina, I was casting this other role in the movie, Kendall Nesbitt (the character Tonatiuh plays in the musical). So the actor had to be able to do both. I think I had already winnowed down the field. I was insisting on it being an actor of Latin heritage and also a queer actor. But there were still hundreds and hundreds of people. (from various countries). Also there were several trans actors … . Tonatiuh did a self tape and it came in really late. I hadn’t felt like we really had anybody I entirely believed in. When I saw it, I said to (casting director) Bernie Telsey, well, I know we have a Molina, now let’s see how far he can go because we didn’t know if Tonatiuh could dance, for example…I think it’s important for a director, it’s also important for Tonatiuh to know that having worked with choreographers, worked with Diego Luna and with me to know, oh my God, this is my part. I do own it. I did earn it. So I think Tonatiuh came into it with more confidence having gone through that.
Tonatiuh: From my perspective, I felt like I was the last possible person to even hear that the opportunity existed. The self tape request came in late December and I submitted a tape a day later… Then on Jan. 9, 9 a.m., it was like we’re flying you out to New York. Next thing you know I’m doing a Bob Fosse dance and a tango number and singing in front of Bill. It’s weird…I was just focused on the act. I was like let me create…I just wanted to do the best job possible. And it wasn’t until we were in the midst of it all and I’m surrounded by all these professional Broadway dancers in the ensemble and even in the table reads I still felt like I had a chip on my shoulder. Like I needed to keep proving myself. I needed to go harder and there was no time to relax…I am grateful because the choreography team pushed me but I wanted to be pushed. I wanted to be mined. I wanted to do it right. I don’t want to make it sound like a sob story at all but opportunities like this don’t present themselves often and if I only get one shot (I needed to) go all in.
There was a moment I remember that I was so embarrassed of my dance skills relative to the Broadway dancers that would rehearse in the parking lot separate from them, using the mirror off of the car windows because I wanted to make sure that it was as good as possible.
Q: Have you watched your performance and do you feel good about it now?
Tonatiuh: I think the first time I watched it was at Sundance (where it premiered). And that was just complete disbelief. I didn’t know what was happening. I completely blacked out. But I think our premiere was the first time where it finally felt like I could breathe. We walked the carpet. Bill said some very nice things that almost made me cry and I was sitting next to my mom who I feel like I would like to dedicate this film to, and I had an espresso martini. But there was a moment where I didn’t see myself up there, which was really nice. I could see the life behind Molina’s eyes, which made me as an artist feel proud.