In director Roger Ross Williams’ new uInterivew, he spoke about his film Cassandro, which is based on a real-life story of a professional wrestler who became famous for doing drag in the ring.
The film Cassandro is based on a wrestler, Cassandro. Williams explained how he had already made a “short documentary about Cassandro for the New Yorker series on Amazon” which is how he met him for the first time. “I totally fell in love with the real Cassandro and I fell in love with his story, his spirit,” Williams said. “He’s such a positive person, but he has a really inspirational story and he’s inspired a lot of people.”
After meeting the wrestler, Williams immediately knew that he was going to create a film about him, recalling, “I think it was on that first day I said to him, ‘You’re going to be my first fiction film.’”
Cassandro, who is played by Gael Garcia Bernal in the movie, saw the film for the first time during a private screening at a theater near his home in El Paso, Texas. Williams described it as “the most emotional screening” as Cassandro “was standing up and screaming and yelling and imitating the emotions on the screen.”
The first time the wrestler saw it with an audience was at the Sundance Film Festival. It was a memorable experience for Williams as there was a “standing ovation” and an “incredible amount of love in the room.”
Cassandro’s story was important to Williams because “he decided to wrestle as an outwardly openly gay man in drag.”
This is a stark contrast to the world of lucha libre wrestling, which the director describes as a “macho” sport that deals “with a lot of homophobia.”
Cassandro’s approach was “unheard of but in an exótico, which is what they’re called exóticos, that wins and he just turned the whole sport upside down.” To many people, he is “a national hero” because “he’s really changed a lot and really inspired so many young queer kids in Mexico and around the world, really.”
The film has an inspirational message, Williams said, “Take off your mask and be who you truly are, be yourself. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight, it doesn’t matter but be yourself, be true to yourself, learn to love yourself and if you love yourself then you can love others and everyone will love you.”
Cassandro is now available to stream on Prime Video.
