Anyone who visited the Rainforest Cafe, a now defunct Piccadilly Circus tourist trap serving overpriced burgers among plastic foliage and animatronic wildlife, may have met a future auteur without realising it. In the early 00s, Alonso Ruizpalacios was not the gifted, ingenious director he is today – the man behind A Cop Movie, a slippery psychodrama that breaks the laws of documentary, and the new La Cocina, starring Rooney Mara as a waitress at a hectic New York restaurant. Back then, he wore baggy khaki shorts and welcomed customers to the Rainforest Cafe. “Hi, I’m Alonso and I’ll be your safari guide today,” he would say. “You guys been here before? No? Well, this is Bamba, our gorilla. Occasionally there will be rain showers, but – hey – don’t be afraid, you won’t get wet!”
Sitting in a London hotel room with a view of the Thames, the film-maker grimaces at the memory. “You had to give the whole spiel,” he says. “It was fucking horrible.” Ruizpalacios, who was raised in a suburb of Mexico City by parents who are both doctors, is 47, with dense stubble, curly black hair and chunky-framed Harry Palmer-style glasses. Give or take the same lopsided smile, he doesn’t look much like the budding matinee idol in his Rada headshot. “I got into acting because I wanted to be a director,” he says. “And I needed to understand actors.”
