EXCLUSIVE | Control Z's Mauro Sanchez Navarro says Bruno's 'rejection of authority' sparked a twisted expose
Spoilers for 'Control Z'
Netflix's Mexican teen drama 'Control Z' is a very fitting successor to the sensational '13 Reasons Why' which is about to wrap with its fourth and final season. Arriving right in time to give fans some much needed 'Black Mirror' meets 'Gossip Girl' feels, with just the right dosage of 'Pretty Little Liars', the classic whodunnit plot of the Mexican series kicks off when a hacker starts exposing the deepest, darkest secrets of a school's popular students. But this hacker is eventually revealed to be one of the students, Raul (Yankel Stevan), who initially got exposed too. But turns out Raul found his inspiration when the school's resident tech guy Bruno blackmails him by hacking his phone's data. And if you ask actor Mauro Sanchez Navarro, who played the role of the criminal mastermind that sparked the fire right at the start, he will tell you a tale of rebellion and "rejection of authority" that drives the purpose of such characters.
Navarro took time out of writing a play inspired by Michael Ende's 'Momo' and starting a screenplay alongside to address our curiosity surrounding Bruno in an exclusive chat with MEA Worldwide. "In my opinion Bruno wasn't on either side, he had his own," he tells us when asked why would an employee of the school suddenly start targeting the students. Bruno's story is quite interesting too; the series sees him repeatedly warning the school's principal -- Quintanilla (Rodrigo Cachero) -- about having open Wi-Fi that's easily hackable. But when the inevitable happens, the principal somehow manages to pin the blame on Bruno for not alerting him beforehand -- a classic avoidance of all accountability by someone in a position of authority. So it is understandable why Bruno would indulge in a rebellion against the school. As Navarro tells us, "His character has a rejection of authority [...] and also in the banalities in which he believes teens live with."
The "banalities" are, of course, the class divide and adverse bullying that's prevalent in most schools, and in 'Control Z' we see that in the form of a student called Gerry (Patricio Gallardo) bullying an easily intimidated quiet guy called Luis (Luis Curiel), all because he doesn't stand up for himself or fight back. Gerry beats up Luis so bad, the poor guy goes straight into a coma he never wakes up from. And it is probably these brutal imageries that spark Bruno to continue on his path of rebellion, setting every perpetrator's life on an unavoidable fire.
"Bruno was an enigma, which I was discovering as days were passing by. Little by little I was understanding where I wanted to take him," Navarro tells us about the journey of essaying the role. But there were challenges too, namely some intense interrogations in scenes where the protagonist and student Sofia (Ana Valeria Becerril) and her new classmate Javier (Michael Ronda), and Raul duct tape Bruno to a chair in his own house, thinking he is the real hacker. "It was really hard to have all the tape around my body. It was almost impossible to take it off between shots, so I had to stay stuck to the chair like 3 hours," recollects Navarro about the difficult sequence. "At lunch break, Michael shared with me his quesadillas and I had to arrange myself to eat them with my hands tied to the chair. Everybody was walking around me and they even started taking pictures next to me while I was tied," he fondly reminisces.
The actor-writer was drawn to the Netflix project because of the streaming pioneer's love for diversity. "I like that Netflix talks about diversity and helps people to identify themselves. I've played a lot of different characters who suffer from being part of a minority and understanding the way that we see it’s wrong, it’s always interesting," Navarro tells us. But when compared side by side with his on-screen persona Bruno, he says they "are alike with irreverence, but also totally different, in the way that he is unattached of what other people may feel. I try to make people aware of empathy and respect to any other human being. I ́ve got a fight and I'm never going to step back."
A fan of teen dramas and "projects that handle human relationships and (helps viewers) understand what led the characters to behave in certain ways, what their fears and insecurities are, and how they decide to hide them," Navarro believes 'Control Z' stands out simply with the way it makes viewers feel for the characters. "It is interesting to become a character and figure out how to create your own theory and gradually fall in love or hate the characters. I think that Control Z deals with it pretty well." Asked about upcoming seasons or the cliffhanger that Season 1 ended with, Navarro teases, "There are thoughts of what may happen, but everything it's uncertain. My guess is..." he trails off, before quickly adding, "Just kidding, I won't say a thing."
