It’s easy to see why Kuno Becker is an international star in the Hispanic television market. His smoldering good looks and smooth style give him that certain star quality. Now, he’s breaking into the U.S. market with his new film, Goal! The Dream Begins, the first of a trilogy of films about soccer. Becker plays Santiago, a Mexican-American soccer player who gets his big break playing for England’s Newcastle United team. Becker chats with Hollywood.com about making the film and the rigorous training he had to endure in order to perfect all those cool soccer moves.
Hollywood.com: How did they find you for this movie? Was it a competitive audition process?
Kuno Becker: Man, it was the most difficult thing in the world. Not only competitive, but also soccer-wise was really, really hard. I didn’t play a lot of soccer when I was a kid. I did play when I was in school but nothing professional. So I had to do a couple of auditions, like normal auditions, and then when I got the role, or at least half of the role, they said, “Okay, now can you play soccer?” And I was like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I can play soccer.” Then I had to do this audition for two weeks in England with the real time, with the Newcastle United, the team of the film. I had to train with them for a couple weeks to do another audition, a soccer audition. I broke my ankles because I was training so hard, so many hours a day that I had stress fracture, so I couldn’t even walk, forget about playing soccer. So it was really, really, really hard.
HW: You broke them before the movie started?
KB: Before the movie, just for the audition. And I almost didn’t get the role because of that because the day of the audition, I couldn’t even walk, forget about playing soccer or anything else. I did learn a couple of things, like a couple tricks and stuff to keep the ball with me, and that’s where the director said, “Okay, you know what? You did improve” so I got the role, but it was really, really hard.
HW: Did you have time to heal before the movie started?
KB: I did have time to heal because that was like a month and a half before we started shooting, so the time we started shooting, I had started training but I was recovering myself. It was very, very hard. Then the actual training for the film, I did it, again, with a team and on the field and I had a football coach and I had a football teacher. And I had to learn everything from, “This is how you go to try to score a goal.” It was really, really bad. Physically, it was the toughest thing I’ve ever done.
HW: Did you have to repeat the same action in take after take? Did you become an expert at hitting the mark?
KB: It was very difficult, as you said, because it’s a whole different thing to actually play a match than to shoot a match for film. All the scenes, for example that trial you see in the first film under the rain and with mud and everything, we shot that sequence for about a week. And it was really, really hard. It was super cold. It was minus I don’t know what and I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. Somebody broke my nose and it was cuts and cuts and it was constantly playing football, playing soccer for 10-12 hours. Stopping and not stopping, but it was really hard. So it’s actually harder than just playing a match.
HW: Can you tell when it’s your double in the film?
KB: [Laughs] Yeah, a couple times just because I did train. I did everything in my power to be able to do as much as I could but there were certain things that even if you want to do it, you can’t do it. There are certain things that just these guys have been training for 25 years and they are 27, so it’s really, really hard to train for a couple months, four months and achieve that level. It’s just impossible. So there were certain things that I really couldn’t do because even a lot of soccer players they can’t do those things. Like the tricks for example. But I did train a lot so I did as much as I could. I do things that I didn’t really know that I was going to be able to do, so that was a good thing. And the most important thing is that the audience really believes it and that the audience is not taken away by those scenes. It doesn’t take you away from the story when you see those scenes. That was my main concern. I really wanted to achieve a good level so the audience could really follow the story and just really believe that Santiago was a talented player.
HW: Was it a culture shock going to England?
KB: I was kind of not used to it but it was the situation that I did experience when I was a kid. I started to play the violin when I was six years old. And I did study classical music for about 10 years. And I was living in Austria in Salsburg when I was nine years old the first time. And I was a couple months a year in Austria studying the violin. So being a Mexican kid at that time in Europe just by myself, it was kind of like that. So I knew the feeling a little bit. So that wasn’t really, really a problem. But the training, that was the toughest part.
HW: Did you encounter any soccer hooligans?
KB: [Laughs] No, actually the Geordies were great with us. At the beginning, they were like, “Oh, man, this is not gonna happen. I mean, a guy that comes here and trains for four months is never going to be able to play football” as they call it instead of soccer. And I just trained hard and by the time we finished the film, the English fans were actually making up songs for my character, for Santiago. They were yelling, “Santiago is a Geordy” So it was really, really great. The people of the team, they were open to us. They were very warm with us. They were very helpful and supportive.
HW: Did you know Goal! was the first of a trilogy?
KB: Yeah, they told me from the beginning it was going to be a trilogy and I knew that so the challenge was to make my character evolve and change throughout the story instead of just playing the same guy three times. I think that’s very dangerous. It wouldn’t be interesting for the audience too. The most important thing also is that this is a story and you have to remember that it’s about emotions, feelings, relationships and people have to relate to it. If it was just a bunch of guys playing soccer, it wasn’t going to be interesting. What I think is interesting about this one is that this is a story of what happens inside of the soccer world instead of just a bunch of guys playing soccer. And in the second one, I wanted to see him change. I wanted to see him evolve. I wanted to see him become a little bit crazy because that’s what happens with rock stars, soccer players, American football players. In any sport, it doesn’t matter. When a guy that comes from a very simple background gets all this money and fame and everything, so I wanted to really see him change. So the challenge is still there for the third one and I want to try to think about a couple more things to do with that.
HW: How big a commitment is that? Are you tied up for the next two years?
KB: It’s very big and it’s very challenging as you said. I don’t know about the third one. I know that it’s going to happen. The plan is to shoot the film during the World Cup in Germany and then the rest of the film, not all the film, but maybe 30 percent of the film during the World Cup. Then when the World Cup finishes in Germany, we’re supposed to be shooting the rest of the film there in the stadiums, with the real players, not with a real audience anymore but with a real everything. That’s the way we shot the first one and the second one. We shot it at the stadiums with the real players. It was just awesome and that’s going to give the sense of realism that we want to achieve.
HW: Will the soccer be easier for you?
KB: In the second one it was actually not easier but it was great that I did improve a lot because I kept training and I had a wonderful coach. Andy Ansah, he’s an English player and in the second one, I did a lot of things that I never in my life thought I was going to be able to do but it was just because of him. I had a great, great, great, great soccer coach. And in the third one, hopefully I’m gonna be able to do a couple more things.
HW: Can you ever go back to Spanish television?
KB: No, [laughs]. I don’t know. That’s a good question but it was so hard to get here. I’ve been working so hard. Centimeter by centimeter. I did work a lot in TV in Mexico and when I decided that I wanted to play better characters and be part of better stories, I realized that the only way to do that was in films for theater. And it was hard to start in films in Mexico City because films were very different from TV and people go kind of like here, people go, “Oh, no, you’re like a TV actor.” So you have to prove yourself again and prove them wrong. So I did that and it was hard, and then I did a couple independent films here in the states that actually not a lot of people saw. This is the first film that I do that a lot of people are going to watch and has great support from a big studio like Disney and FIFA. People are actually liking it so right now it’s been so hard to get here that I don’t know if I want to do that again because that would be kind of like not going back, but in a way yes because the characters are kind of the same. You play the same over and over and I really want the challenge to do something a little bit more complex.
HW: When was the first time you went far away from home for work?
KB: Man, the first time was when I was nine years old. I started studying violin when I was six years old and by the time I was nine, I had to go for the first time to Salsburg in Austria, this drama music school. And I stayed there for about three months and I used to go there once a year, take courses and study the violin. And it was so hard because I was a kid in Europe and I was alone and it was really, really hard but that was the only way to make it. If you want to be a professional violinist, it’s the only way to make it. It’s like ballet or any other super hard thing to do. If you don’t start when you’re a kid, you just don’t make it.
HW: Ever have any bad jobs, like a busboy?
KB: I didn’t do that but when I was a kid, I did play on the streets in Salsburg. I didn’t need the money so much but I had a couple of friends that were a lot older than me, 20-something years old, and they were also studying there in Salsburg, the course, the violin/classical music course. And they didn’t have a lot of money for a couple of things, so they convinced me to go and play in the streets a couple of times. Money, you wouldn’t believe it. It was funny. I had a French friend and a Korean friend and me, a little Mexican kid. So we were kind of playing Bach, a concert for two violins and piano, we made it for three. And we were playing on the streets a couple of times and we made so much money. It was so much fun. That’s the closest I can get.
Goal! The Dream Begins opens in theater May 12.
