Interview with Carlos Diehz - Star of ‘Conclave’
Amid the political and religious chaos of Edward Berger’s Conclave, Cardinal Vincent Benitez (played by Carlos Diehz) stands out as an example of the Catholic Church’s capacity for social justice. Hailing from Mexico, Benitez’s missionary work in war-torn Congo and Iraq makes him unique, important, and an outsider in the conclave makes him unique, important, and yet, an outsider in Vatican City.
Benitez, the eventual choice for pope, is a strong proponent for human rights and the Church’s capacity for good. Like Benitez, Carlos Diehz is an unexpected standout; Conclave is his feature film debut after starting acting in 2020.
Conclave is a vehicle to unpack the Catholic Church: its role as both a religious institution and a geopolitical superpower, its internal and external shortcomings and strengths, its simultaneous divinity and humanity. Carlos Diehz’s depth of research, appreciation for the complexity of humanity, and strong belief in human rights reflects the film’s arguments for the future of Catholicism.
When Diehz was young, he considered becoming a priest, even going so far as talking to a priest that worked at his university. He said to himself, “Yes, I want to be one of them. I just want to change the world with some genius stroke forever.” Ultimately, he decided against priesthood and continued with architecture, his primary work until deciding to try acting in 2020.
So, reading about Benitez years later came as a surprise to Diehz. “I read the breakdown [for Benitez], it's like, oh, this sounds like something I wish I was before….I read the book twice in probably, like ten days to get the real gist of the story and everything. And I realized this character is how I would have liked to be if I had followed that path: the spiritual, deep person committed to the work with people and a leader also.” Playing Benitez became a way to fulfill this young wish.
The experience of being in Rome during filming was an architectural dream for Diehz. “[Rome was] my number one city to visit in Europe whenever I had a chance,” Diehz told FilmSlop. “So you can imagine how I was so elated, so excited. Every single day I walked around until my knees hurt, and then I would take a break, and then go back outside to do that all over again.”
Diehz’ explorations of Rome were a way to get in touch with the character, as he spent time going to St. Peter’s, Casa Santa Maria (the location of residence for the conclave) and a Jesuit church “to get in the mood [of Benitez]; this religious experience that the baroque architecture [imbues] is meant to inspire you to get more in the role.”
Architecture was not the only aspect of Rome that helped Diehz get into character: “Benitez is jet lagged when he arrives. So you can see in some takes, I see myself like, ‘Oh my God, I look so tired,’ because I was really tired of the trip! So all that helped, all that contributed to building a good performance.”
Diehz shares Benitez’s passion for the Catholic Church as a means for leftist social change. After an intense period of doubt as a teenager “for several personal, familial reasons,” Diehz took inspiration from a visit of Pope John Paul II to Mexico. “All his homilies were loaded with a social message. He spoke against corruption, against the poverty of the people in the countryside, not just in Mexico, but in Latin America. He spoke about exploitation by the capitalist side of the society, and the deceit from the supposedly left wing of society and everything. So all these messages were so down to earth, so real, so practical.”
The studies on social justice are evident in a rousing speech Benitez gives in Spanish towards the end of the film. The conclave takes place amid religious tensions between Muslims and Christians around the world; even the closed conclave experiences the fallout of a bombing. As the cardinals argue, with the conservative Cardinal Tedesco advocating for a holy war, Benitez argues that the Church is not about tradition, but about “what comes next.”
“The Catholic Church has this social doctrine about justice, especially for the working class. So that called my attention to go back and learn more about it,” Diehz says, “and then [learn] more about the history of the church…I found that there's people in the church that are really committed to the principles of the gospel in a practical manner to bring hope and to bring justice to people.”
Conclave explores the multifaceted political tensions inside the Catholic Church. Despite the Catholic Church’s traditionalism, there is a surprising diversity of political ideologies in the Church. As the rest of the cardinals get caught up in the politics of the conclave, Benitez is the one who returns to his religious principles. He refuses to yield to Cardinal Lawrence’s political suggestions, steadfast in his theological tenets.
Diehz’s primary theological inspirations for Benitez were St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order—a religious order focused on social justice and ending poverty—and St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order which professes poverty.
“[St. Francis] had a very difficult relationship with his father. So he would say, I see God as a mother because his mother was nurturing and guiding and everything his father wasn't. . .So Benitez is capable of seeing others with a motherly love, and the motherly love of nurturing and guiding and being authoritative, but not in an aggressive way, is what drives him to speak up his mind when he has to.”
Diehz speaks quickly — this history is clearly something which he’s spent a great deal of time thinking about. “He looks at the situation and everything, and when he has to confront someone, he does it in a very motherly way. It's not like a traditional authority that a father would convey, but like a loving, caring authority that a mother would [have], so always keeping that in mind, that was that was very, very helpful to know—that this character is gravitating between these two ways to be the manager and the caring, nurturing person too.”
Francis of Assissi and Benitez both blur the often rigid lines of traditional representations of faith and theology, especially when it comes to gender. A key theme of the film is the tension between faith in ideology and faith in practice, as evident by Cardinal Lawrence’s struggles with prayer. Benitez’s intersex identity brings a tangible struggle to this tension; this blurring of the expectations regarding papal representation confuses Lawrence. Benitez, on the other hand, finds power in his intersex identity, declaring “I am what God made me.”
A biblical allusion that comes to mind with the phrase “I am what God made me” is Jesus’ trial where his identity as son of God is put into question. Standing up against Pilate, Jesus says “I am what you say I am.” This allusion cements Benitez as a Christ-like figure. As Jesus carries in Him both the divine and the human at once, Benitez carries both the female and male. Jesus and Benitez also serve as saviors to their religion in the Bible and Conclave, promoting a new way forward marked by justice and love.
Benitez also alludes to a central tenet of Catholic theology: being made in God’s image. As Psalms 139:13-14 states, “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” With the choice not to get a hysterectomy, rejecting the notion that his intersex body should be easily understood by others, Benitez shows strength in his Catholic beliefs.
Diehz relates to Benitez being an outsider. “I'm an immigrant—an Other. I have another language, other traditions, another way to see and do architecture too, and that's actually one of my strengths…knowing what it is to be the outcast, the newcomer, the one everybody looks at with a bit of suspicion, like, ‘Who's this guy? What is he doing here? Why is he here?’ That's been in my life all the time, and this sense of alienation….Maybe this difference is what will make [me] more useful, this being between these two certainties of the black and white by the gender binomial and the traditional gender roles.”
Carlos Diehz describes Conclave as “a movie about choices. It's about the doubt, the leaps of faith that the characters take.” Through the varying beliefs and practices and missteps of the different cardinals, Conclave explores a path forward for the Catholic Church in Benitez, ultimately promoting a message of social justice and self-acceptance. At the end of the film, Benitez is at the peak of political and religious power in the world. Conclave presents an opportunity for power grounded in righteousness and careful study, two traits which Diehz exemplifies.
When talking about the characters in Conclave, Diehz remarks, “They're just human, and they succumb to different temptations, whether ambition, whether it's lust, or whether it is greed, or whatever you want to call it…and when you read the history of the Catholic Church, you can find many examples even worse than that.”
Diehz believes and Benitez proves “[t]hat there are people in the Church that are really committed to the principles of the gospel in a practical manner to bring hope and to bring justice to people.”
During the interview, Diehz praised novelist and screenwriter Robert Harris multiple times, particularly in how he captured the humanity of the characters so eloquently. “I think we all are a little bit of Tremblay, a little bit of Tedesco, a little bit of Benitez, a little bit of Lawrence. That's the beauty of this plot, they all cover several aspects of the humanity they chose to follow. The different path…which one do I choose to follow?”