Diego Boneta can’t stop transforming. He lives to take those exhilarating, terrifying steps out of his comfort zone to become someone entirely new. Like an adrenaline junkie who can’t get enough of hurling themselves off of cliffs with skimpy parachutes, Boneta can’t stop daring himself to be better, especially when it comes to acting.

“I love characters or chameleons that are a real challenge to portray, and who are subversive and who are unpredictable and fun and contradicting at times,” says Boneta. “That really gives you a lot of good stuff to play with.”

It’s not just the practice of acting that 34-year-old Boneta uses to push himself. The Mexico-born, Los Angeles-based actor has done a little—actually, a lot—of everything through his music, TV, and film career. After kick starting his professional career at 12 years old, when he participated in the Mexican children’s singing reality series Código F.A.M.A., Boneta has appeared in popular telenovela Rebelde to 90210. He’s been the aspiring rock star Drew Boley in Rock of Ages, Latin music superstar Luis Miguel in Luis Miguel: The Series, the murderous barista Pete Martínez in Scream Queens, and soon, Fidel Castro in Killing Castro. He becomes someone entirely new with each project—just the way he likes it.

Of course, Boneta isn’t just content with his extensive onscreen resume. While filming Rock of Ages, Tom Cruise gave him what he considers the most valuable advice of his career, which was simply: do more. 

“He really planted the seed of, ‘Don’t just be an actor, create your own projects, write them, direct and produce them.’ Obviously, easier said than done, but it really [catalyzed the idea].” During the pandemic, Boneta founded his own production company, Three Amigos. Now, he uses it to develop the stories he wants to tell, of which there are many. 

“A lot of the stories that come out of Mexico have been either drug-related or border crossing stories,” says Boneta. “[These stories are just] the tip of the iceberg of all the cultural written richness and history that Latin stories and Mexican stories have. So I’d say the common thread in many projects is ‘Let’s find the aspirational side of things.’”

Following the formation of Three Amigos, Boneta signed an overall deal with Amazon—he had three years to conceptualize and produce four different projects. The ball was rolling. Boneta had long wanted to write his own script, and the Amazon deal was giving him the opportunity to execute. His sister, however, told him he should write a book instead. After a bout of hesitation, Boneta warmed up to the idea of a challenge. Hence, The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco—Boneta’s debut novel and conjunctive television script—was enthusiastically born.

The result is a twisting, opulent game of intrigue and seduction set amongst one of San Miguel de Allende’s wealthiest and most secretive families in which Boneta plays protagonist, tennis player Julian Villareal. 

“It had to come from the heart. I really believe that audiences and readers can tell when it comes from someone’s heart,” Boneta shares. There are easily identifiable parts of Boneta’s heart in The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco. The novel and television series, which is currently in development after being delayed by the 2023 writers’ strikes, are set in San Miguel de Allende, the vibrant city in Mexico’s central highlands where his aunt and uncle live, and where Boneta spent much of his time as a child. And then there’s the inclusion of the tennis aspect, a sport that Boneta not only plays himself, but says he “literally wouldn’t be alive” without, as it’s the reason his parents met.

“It was very important to me to have tennis really be woven into the story in a major way. Not just like, ‘Oh, these characters play tennis,’ but metaphorically, like how these characters play tennis,” said Boneta. “That needs to inform the reader of who these people are. It’s such a mental game, you know that how someone plays—their style, their technique, their strategy behind it—tells you a lot about that.”

But while some of Boneta’s great loves—his country, his sport, his family memories—feature heavily in The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco, Boneta himself does not. He wrote Julian with himself in mind, but not in the way most creatives insert themselves into their own projects. Instead of making Julian a fantasy of himself, the storyteller instead considered what kind of character would best push his creative boundaries to portray.

Julian and Boneta couldn’t be more different, but the author knows his creation well. When asked what advice Julian would give him, Boneta takes a moment: “I’m so passionate. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m the worst liar on the face of this earth,” Boneta muses. “I think Julian would tell me, ‘You’re too much of an open book.’”

If he’s an open book, then it’s a book that is always adding a new page to itself. Boneta always learns something new from his most recent role, whether that be in front or behind the screens. He’s confident he can do it all, or at least confident that he can try—and he’s scared. After more than two decades in the business, one might doubt that the charismatic do-it-all man with the chops to back up a performance as the highly beloved Latin music superstar Luis Miguel would have any uncertainties. But he is terrified, and he uses it as fuel to achieve his own version of greatness. 

“If you don’t want to do it and you’re scared, that’s exactly when you know that’s what you have to do. But I’ve found that those are the projects where I learn the most, and I have the most amount of fun, and I really push myself to be out of my comfort zone,” says Boneta. “I work with incredible people who I trust, and really take on a challenge that I have no idea how I’m going to achieve. All I know is that I’m never going to give up and I’m going to do whatever it takes to become whoever I’m playing.” 

Photographed by Selah Tennberg

Styled by Mo Johnson

Written by Maddy Brown

Grooming: Aika Flores at The Wall Group

Flaunt Film: JayD

Photo Assistant: Syd Dresen

Styling Assistant: Syd

Location: Ziggy Mack Johnson