Eugenio Derbez on the Inspirational Tale of Radical

Eugenio Derbez in Radical, the true story of how Mexican teacher Sergio Juárez Correa changed lives by giving kids hope (Image courtesy of Participant/Pantelion Films)

In new film Radical, when the students of José Urbina López Primary School first meet new sixth grade teacher Sergio Juárez Correa, they’re shocked he’s lying on the floor. The young cast got their own surprise when they realized the man on the floor was comedy superstar Eugenio Derbez.

Director Christopher Zalla hadn’t told the kids that the man playing their teacher was a comedy megastar in Mexico, star and director of international smash Instructions Not Included and the voice of Donkey in the Spanish-language dubs of the Shrek films. “He wanted the real reaction,” recalled Derbez. “So, in that scene they didn’t know it was me until they came into the classroom. They were really surprised it was me.”

Many of the kids knew Derbez because his shows are on permanent reruns in Mexico, but Radical is his first major dramatic role. Derbez said he’d been trying to take on more serious parts since 2001 but had found himself typecast in comedy parts. “They thought I was going to ruin any dramatic part, just with my presence.”

However, after the success of 2021 Oscar winner CODA, in which he played he played music teacher Mr. V, opened the door to non-comedy roles, he leapt at the chance to play Correa, a real-life teacher in Matamoros. Literally built in the shadow of a trash heap, the school had some of the worst test scores in Mexico. But through innovative techniques, and actually caring about the kids, Correa increased scores and changed lives.

“I love true stories,” Derbez said. “When I go to the movies and it says, ‘Based on a true story,’ I love that.” And this story addressed another passion of his: education. He first heard about the school when he saw a story on Mexican TV about a 2013 article in Wired, “A Radical Way of Unleashing a Generation of Geniuses” by Joshua Davis. The report centered on one of the students, Paloma Noyola Bueno, who was referred to as “the next Steve Jobs,” Derbez said. “I was really interested, but they didn’t say that much.”

It was only when, a few years later, that he met Davis and started discussing optioning the rights that he learned about Correa, “and that it was not just Paloma who succeeded, but a lot of kids from the same classroom that, a year before, was evaluated as one of the worst, nationwide.”

With a chance to tell his own true story, Derbez really wanted to tell the truth. The first step was to have Correa on set, acting as a kind of fact-checker and advisor. “I was always asking him, ‘How am I doing? Am I being accurate?’ I didn't want to exaggerate anything or do something that was unreal, and he was always on set, telling me this and that. Everything you see on set was in some way supervised by him.”

That access also gave Derbez an opportunity to really study Correa, who he called “a really nice guy. He was so nice, I kept telling him all the time he should have been a priest.” It also added a little extra pressure to Derbez’s performance: After all, playing a real person is demanding, playing a living person even more so, but playing him while he stood behind the camera? “I didn’t want to do an impersonation of him. It was more about capturing his essence.” He credited his director with helping keep him on track. “I wanted to look like him, physically, but he said that, because my background is comedy, he didn't want me to be wearing anything that could remind people I was playing a character. He wanted me to be as real as possible, so we focused more on the rest: on the delivery, on the method, on the interactions with the kids, rather than trying to imitate his hairdo.”

Eugenio Derbez as Sergio and Daniel Haddad as his doubtful but supportive boss Chucho in Radical (Image courtesy of Participant/Pantelion Films)

Having Correa on set gave Derbez confidence to tackle a serious role, but there was another morale booster in Daniel Haddad as Correa’s boss, Chucho. Like Derbez, he’s also best known as a comedy actor, and Derbez said he found it reassuring to have another comedian on set. “It happens to me, constantly, that when I call an actor to work with me, even if it’s a drama, they want to be funny just because it’s me. It’s hard for them because they’re programmed. ‘Oh, he’s a comedian, I should be funny.’ But it worked well with Daniel because he was aware we should be playing straight roles.”

While Radical ends with the big end-of-year test that would be a proving ground for Correa’s techniques, his story didn’t end there. Derbez said, “I would ask him, what are you doing now? And he told me, ‘I’m in the same school, the same grade, everything.’ I asked him why, and he said, ‘After the article came out, a lot of schools approached me, especially private schools, and they would offer better salaries in a better location, but I realized that it was not going to be the same. In this school, where I am right now, is where they need me the most.’”

Derbez got a little sense of that commitment when he spent so much time in the fictional classroom. “I remember I was a little bit scared: ‘Oh my god, I have to be surrounded by 30, 35 kids for the next two months and a half.’ But immediately we bonded. They were really nice, playful, and we bonded from moment one.”

Radical is in theatres now. Find our review and showtimes here.