A tridimensional T. rex protrudes from Iñaki Godoy’s head while he holds a small plush toy of Monkey D. Luffy, the character who changed his life forever.
The plastic dinosaur is attached to a cap — its head in the front and its tail in the back. It’s the first thing I notice when he arrives for our interview. But Godoy doesn’t call attention to it. For him it’s the coolest headgear, even more so because his dad gave it to him, and it’s something he would wear on an average day, or for a press engagement like this.
At 17, the Mexican actor landed the role of Luffy, the captain of the Straw Hat Pirates in Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the popular manga “One Piece” (also a long-running anime series). He started shooting the first season at 18. And now, at 22, he’s promoting Season 2 (out Tuesday), while taking a break from shooting the third batch of episodes in South Africa — where the entirety of the series so far has been brought to life.
“Thanks to playing Luffy, I can now truly dedicate myself to being a professional actor and a creative person,” Godoy says in Spanish while sitting inside a West Hollywood hotel last month. “And for that, I will always be grateful to this project.”
Godoy radiates effortless charisma, a kind of uncynical openness that feels both childlike and magnetic. Wouldn’t you want to hang out with the guy unabashedly wearing a hat with a prehistoric creature bursting out of each end? No doubt that playful warmth played a part in him being cast as Luffy, a hilariously nonchalant, yet utterly sincere would-be pirate. “One Piece” unfolds in an alternate past where futuristic technology, classic pirate imagery and fantasy collide. Luffy can stretch his body like rubber after eating a magic fruit, for example.
Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy in Season 2 of Netflix’s “One Piece.”
(Netflix)
“Iñaki’s heart as a human is as big as Luffy’s. That is the overlap,” says producer Becky Clements of Tomorrow Studios, which produces the series for Netflix, in a separate interview over Zoom. “But Iñaki is an incredible actor who is bringing a significant amount of skill to a role that can change on a dime in one scene. He can be playing three or four different ideas at once.”
In the mind of “One Piece” creator Eiichiro Oda, the vivacious Luffy hailed from Brazil. Thus, during the casting process, the production focused their sights on Latin America to find the right actor. When Godoy taped his audition, shot while working on another project in Canada, he read the scene from the first episode where Luffy is speaking with his new friend Koby while a ship they just escaped from burns in the background.
“They liked my audition, but they asked me to record it again,” recalls Godoy. “They said, ‘Luffy is not bothered by the burning ship behind him. He’s completely relaxed.’” He listened to the feedback, amped up the carefree, and later learned that his interpretation made Oda laugh.
“Luffy is the cornerstone of the entire spirit and heartbeat of this manga franchise. It takes a very special human to act that. We knew our biggest casting challenge was going to be finding who could be Luffy,” Clements says. “When we saw Iñaki, we could breathe again because we knew we found Luffy.”
Originally from Mexico City, the vivacious Godoy had been performing from an early age, long before “One Piece” was on the horizon.
“I started acting when I was 4 because I definitely wasn’t going to have a future playing soccer,” Godoy says laughing. “But I had always liked entertaining people, and my parents realized that, so they enrolled me in musical theater classes.” He soon made his stage debut playing Flounder in a production of “The Little Mermaid” as part of that program. It was a version the teachers had written and turned into a story about recycling.
“I don’t know what went through my head but being on stage, in front of everyone, I thought, ‘Wow, I think I can do this for the rest of my life,’” he recalls. “Acting is one of those things I’ve been doing for so long and since I was so young that I can’t even remember a time in my life when I didn’t want to be an actor, when I didn’t want to tell stories.”
“I don’t know what went through my head but being on stage, in front of everyone, I thought, ‘Wow, I think I can do this for the rest of my life,’” says Iñaki Godoy about his first acting experience at 4.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
He began acting professionally at 9 years old, and Godoy’s first recurring role came at 11, in a Spanish-language drama series for Telemundo titled “La querida del Centauro.” That production holds a special place for him. “They always made me feel like my opinion mattered even though I was a child,” he says.
Throughout his childhood and early adolescence, Godoy took multiple acting courses, including one with seasoned Mexican thespian Silverio Palacios. And from the age of 9 until he was 16, Godoy traveled to California every summer for a camp that featured an acting program. “It might not sound very sophisticated in terms of an acting education, but the camp meant a lot to me,” he says. “I learned a lot by trying to write and act things for young people from different parts of the world with different interests.”
Summer camp also helped Godoy practice his English, a language he’d been studying from a young age. “I consider myself a very privileged person,” he says. “My parents were able to enroll me in a bilingual school, for which I am very grateful.” His mastery of English served as a key advantage when “One Piece” knocked on his door.
The son of an accountant father and a stay-at-home mom, Godoy is the first person in his family to pursue a life in entertainment. That his parents nourished his creativity so early in life speaks to how much of a supportive force they’ve been in Godoy’s life. He calls his parents every day from wherever he is in the world.
Before “One Piece,” a teenage Godoy was still considering other career options. “I thought, ‘Is this acting thing something I can commit to for a longer time?’ Because being an actor is difficult. But ‘One Piece’ has given me the chance to aspire to a long and successful career.”
The actor says “One Piece” has given him the chance at a long career in the industry.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
The other professional path that Godoy contemplated would’ve still brought him back to acting. “My original plan was, ‘I’m going to go to film school to become a director,’ because I didn’t have faith that I’d get the projects I wanted,” he explains. “I thought, ‘If I want to play a role that really means something to me, I think I’m going to have to write it myself.’”
Godoy admits that before entering the “One Piece” universe, he didn’t watch anime. To immerse himself in Luffy’s worldview, he read the manga and watched the anime up to where he felt he’d learned enough about the character to embody him.
“I didn’t want to watch all of ‘One Piece’ before we started filming because I also believe that when making an adaptation, it’s important to strike a balance between respecting the original material, giving it its due — because fans have expectations of what this character should be like, and those expectations must be met. But it’s also important to have enough confidence to bring something you believe is valuable to the table,” Godoy says.
While reading the manga, Godoy would take photos of Luffy’s wildest faces to try to include them in his performance. “As an actor, one of your most important tools is your physicality, and the amazing thing about the manga is that you have a resource with visual images of things that you can physically re-create,” he says.
Once he wrapped the first season, Godoy continued watching the “One Piece” anime and then branched out to other popular sagas: “Attack on Titan,” “Death Note” and “My Hero Academia.” It was also after the first installment that he started learning Japanese.
“’One Piece’ has had such a great impact on my life and it’s something I’m so grateful for that I wanted to show my appreciation to the Japanese people somehow,” he explains. “And I think the most obvious way was by learning their language.”
Committed to learning the language, Godoy took classes with teachers on top of the hours he dedicated to studying on his own for the last two years. He’s now comfortable doing events and interviews in Japanese when he visits the country to promote the series.
“I don’t consider myself the most perfect speaker of the language, but I can communicate well enough to talk about any subject and express what I want to say,” Godoy says. “Maybe I do it a little slowly and with very simple words, but I feel confident that I can do it.”
For Season 2, he felt like he knew Luffy enough to bring more of himself to the role. “In the first season I was still experimenting with how I was going to adapt this character, but from the second season onwards, I’ve had a very clear vision of what I wanted to achieve and who Luffy is,” Godoy explains.
And who is Luffy? Godoy only fully grasped the answer before shooting Season 2. He understood that he shouldn’t think of Luffy as a real person but instead as a concept that inspires other people.
“In the first season I was still experimenting with how I was going to adapt this character, but from the second season onwards, I’ve had a very clear vision of what I wanted to achieve and who Luffy is,” Iñaki Godoy says.
(Netflix)
“Luffy is more like an ideal,” he says. “He’s what we all wish we could be. We all wish we could be as confident as Luffy, as brave as him, as open with people and not hold grudges, but no one will ever be exactly like him. But we all wish we could be a little bit like Luffy or have friends like Luffy.”
And while Godoy is flattered that people assume he’s just as easygoing and self-assured as Luffy, he’s still working on getting closer to him.
“I always aspire to be like Luffy,” says Godoy. “But unlike him, I do have insecurities and I do have fears, and I get very nervous about many things. But sometimes I ask myself, ‘What would Luffy say?’ in certain situations, and that inspires me and helps me keep going.”
For Godoy, the physical demands of playing Luffy represented the most challenging aspects of the production. He did learn how to do a backflip but is aware of his limitations, and is keen on shouting out his stunt double, Cameron Groep. “He is Luffy in the same way that I am,” he says. Still, for a shirtless scene this season, Godoy put in extra effort, “I tried to get buff because that clip is going to live forever on TV!” he laughs.
What Godoy does have a great aptitude for, however, is video games. “I want to take this opportunity to say that Iñaki Godoy loves video games and I think they are one of the most incredible artistic mediums there is,” he says. Godoy favors Nintendo releases, especially games such as “The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask” and “Super Mario Galaxy.”
Laughing, he adds: “I’m a serious gamer, because there are a lot of people who say they are gamers, but they only play FIFA. I’m so happy you asked me about this.”
Speaking with Godoy, one discovers a grounded young artist, aware that fame is fleeting and conscious that those who love him will do so no matter the trajectory of his career.
“An actor’s career is very much about ups and downs. One day you’re relevant and people watch you, and the next day you’re no longer interesting,” he says. “Right now, I’m doing an interview with you, who knows if in 10 years or less that will still happen. I’m enjoying this moment and the opportunity to share a character that means so much to me.”