How Iñaki Godoy Became Luffy of 'One Piece'

There were multiple straw hats for different scenes.

There was a specific type of straw hat for the wide shots.

There was like a another type of straw hat for the closeups.

Sometimes they had to change straw hats.

There was a fight scene straw hat.

Every single straw hat felt special to me.

Hi, I'm Iñaki Godoy and this is how I became

Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece.

[dramatic music]

I remember that for my audition

and I played this YouTube video that was like,

Oh, who is Monkey D. Luffy? Let's analyze this character.

And I just listened to that video for like an hour,

and I realized that the main thing

about Luffy was his smile.

So I thought to myself, If I can have that smile

in my audition, I think I have a good shot

at making this character.

And hey, I think it worked.

I remember that for my audition scene,

I was talking with Koby.

I didn't know it was Koby at the time,

but my audition scene was the scene where at the dinghy,

after fighting Alvida, I remember when I did my first read

of that audition, I was a little bit more serious.

There's like a boat in flames behind me,

that sounds like some serious stuff.

And I sent that audition and then I got some feedback,

and it was like, I know there's a boat on fire,

but your character, he's chilling, man.

He's like fine.

So I send the audition again, this time no drama at all.

And hey, that's how I got my callback.

My mom received a WhatsApp and it was like,

We want you to play Monkey D. Luffy.

I was really, really excited.

And then it hit me like,

Wow, this is gonna change my life.

And then I got a little bit nervous.

And then I got really excited again.

I didn't get to meet with Oda during the audition process.

I did get to meet him later down the line,

and I remember I asked him that question, like,

Why me? Why did you like me?

And he said that I made him laugh in my audition.

[dramatic music]

Getting into character with Luffy was a big challenge.

He is very explosive, very optimistic.

He's a crazy guy in a lot of ways, but he's also kind

and he doesn't speak too much.

He listens a lot.

To me, it felt like Luffy was an optimistic big dreamer

who cares about his friends.

No one messes with my friends.

Who's brave, who's committed,

and who will do anything for his dreams.

So understanding that was a key factor

for me to play this character.

And then after that, it was finding a balance

between how can I be fun, energetic, and crazy,

but also keep this real, how do I find that balance?

And honestly, that was just a lot of work with my directors.

I had this director called Mark Jobs

of the first two episodes, amazing director.

And he used to tell me that he was my parachute,

so I could try things.

Let's make a funny face on this one.

I'm gonna really open my eyes here

and I'm gonna scream out loud,

and if you think it's too much, you let me know.

So knowing that I could trust my team

to get out of my comfort zone really gave me a safety

to try to be unique, because Luffy is extraordinary,

so you need to be different.

I immediately knew who Luffy was in the Alvida fight.

I was watching the anime and it didn't take me long

to understand who this guy was.

He sees a person who has been mistreated,

he doesn't really know them,

and yet he decides to help them.

And when he does that, he does it with a smile.

He gets into a fight

and is smiling because he enjoys being a pirate.

I think growing up I was a lot like Luffy in some ways.

I had no worries in the world. Everything was so much fun.

And I think Luffy is like that too.

Luffy is a rubber man. This was new to me.

It was a challenge how that would work.

I use the anime as a reference

for how the rubber buddy reacts.

I would see Luffy's fight scenes the way he stretches,

and in the live of action, I would try to replicate

as much of that as I could.

In the manga, in the anime, when Luffy throws out a punch

and then it snaps back, he always puts his hand right here.

That's like a thing that he does.

So that's a thing that I can literally translate

into live action with no problem, so I can keep that.

I watched the anime, I mainly saw the Japanese dub.

Mayumi Tanaka has been voicing Luffy

for a very long time, since 1999.

[Luffy speaks in Japanese]

And what she has done is amazing, amazing.

And I would never try to replicate any of that

because that's her own thing.

She created her own version of this character

and I have to do my own thing with the live action too.

So more than paying attention

to what the dub actors were doing, I really just

paid attention to what the character was all about.

[Luffy speaks in Japanese]

The anime is great as it is.

I would never try to replicate it.

I mean, that's why it's been going for so long.

And live action needs to stand by its side.

My voice in Spanish is a lot deeper.

[Iñaki speaks in Spanish]

So yeah, my voice in Spanish is like way deeper

than Luffy's voice in English.

I found his voice just with time. It just appeared.

I'm feeling so... That's so pirate-y.

And slowly with time I started to speak more like this,

more like, Ah, oh, wow.

And being a little bit more loud and it just came natural.

The script is so good

that it just pushes you to say the lines in a certain way.

I remember the first time I put on the straw hat.

It felt like, Oh wow, it's happening.

It was a realization that, for the next 10 months,

that character would be my life.

While I was filming, I had a One Piece journal,

so I had this little book.

I put some pictures of Luffy in that book.

And I also put some pictures of me when I was a little kid

because Luffy reminds me a lot of me

when I was a little kid.

I also had notes on every episode on like,

Oh, these are like the key moments.

Like, This is important, this is important,

this is important.

Like, This is where I'm coming from,

this is where I'm heading to.

And I also did some little exercises like,

if Luffy did homework for his school

about what is his dream, how would that look like?

Well, it would be like a drawing of him and his boat.

It would be a horrible drawing, and they're all together,

and it's like, My dream is to be a pirate,

the king of the pirates.

And then I just did like silly exercises like that.

And I think they worked.

[dramatic music]

A normal day for me on set. Here we go.

I wake up. Normally the pickup time would be around 5:00 AM.

We wanted to film on sunrise, so we had to wake up early.

I would get to set, I had this massive sweatshirt/blanket

that I would put on the entire time.

And sometimes I would just go to set on my pajamas

because I was too lazy to put something on.

I would get to set, I would go to the makeup trailer.

At the first months of shoot, I remember I would go

in the makeup trailer and we would blast music,

and I would talk and chat and blah, blah, blah.

By the last four months,

I would sit on that chair and I would be gone.

I would be exhausted.

So I would normally take a nap in the chair

while I was getting the makeup on, my scar.

Then after that, I would put on my costume,

and I would head to set where we would film.

And I remember I did this thing.

I would go to set and I would arrive with a theme song.

So I thought to myself,

What is the most important part about Luffy?

Well, he has fun, right?

So what is my goal here

as an actor to embody this character?

Well, I wanna have fun

and I want to help create a fun environment.

So every time I arrived on set,

I would blast the John Cena theme song from the car.

Sometimes it was the John Cena one,

sometimes it was The Rock.

Sometimes I used to make The Undertaker, but not too many.

John Cena was like the main thing.

So I would arrive on set and people would know it was me

because it was the John Cena song.

They would greet me and we would do some dances,

and then we would block the scene and we would shoot.

There were scenes that took longer than others,

but I don't think we ever did more than three scenes a day.

By the time we were finishing, we got a little bit better,

maybe we would five scenes a day.

You not only have the actors but you have stunt people,

you have extras, you have the sets,

you have special effects.

There is so much going on.

And if we wanted to be the best version it can be,

we have to focus, so we did take our time with our scenes.

There were many sets that were very impressive.

The ships are great. Buggy's tent is amazing.

When we were filming in Shells Town,

I couldn't believe I just walked

into a town just made for this show.

The production designers on this show are insanely talented.

They created, I mean this super, super interesting world,

and I am just so grateful that I get to play inside of it.

I remember one time Emily and I had to film a scene

where we are holding to a safe

and then my character pulls the safe out

from where it is to a window, and we go flying in the air.

So they had to lift Emily and me up in the sky with a crane.

And if it was like some bungee,

they just like let us drop, with a camera filming us.

I think it was in that moment where, when I was suspended

meters above the ground, I think it was in that moment

when I realized like,

Oh wow, I have never filmed a scene in the sky.

Or when I filmed underwater, that was also really wild.

I would open my eyes and there would be divers,

with cameras, filming me, and I have to act, underwater.

Oh wow, that is something new.

The underwater scene was pretty hard, physically,

because the water was freezing,

but that was not the hardest scene to film.

I think for me, the hardest scene to film,

I had this one scene with Koby in a dinghy

when where we're talking about dreams

and that he wants to be a Marine.

That scene particularly,

it was one of my first scenes that I filmed.

It was a very important scene

because Luffy is all about dreams.

So I knew I had to get this scene right.

This is what the character is all about.

And there were a lot of things that I did

in that scene at the beginning that I changed.

I did rehearsals for that scene with my director

and I think it worked out pretty well.

But it definitely was a process getting to that point of,

Oh, there's this side of Luffy

that he is very kind and nice.

He's not just a ball of energy.

He's a ball of energy who listens.

So for Luffy's powers, this is all the special effects team.

They are the ones that really made that magic come to life.

I would punch in the air, and that was it.

I would throw a punch in the air,

the other actor would have to react like two seconds later

because the punch was stretching in post-production,

and that was what I did for those special effects scenes.

At the beginning of the show, we were trying a lot

of different things, and I remember I did have like this...

They created like this long, stretchy arm.

I don't know if they ever used it.

I know that me personally I never used

that long stretchy arm that they built.

It was amazing, though.

If I could, I would keep that thing in my house.

Just this a souvenir.

[gentle music]

If there is one piece of advice... Oh, one piece.

If there is one piece of advice I could give

to any young actor,

anyone who supports you will tell you just have fun.

You need to have fun

because you don't know where life is gonna take you.

I really just do what I do because I enjoy it.

And if it was with Luffy,

if it was with any other character, big production,

small production, I know that I'm gonna find a way

to have fun because I got into this business

and into acting because I love it.

So my advice to you would be,

regardless of where life takes you, just enjoy it.

Enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it.

Because you get to do something that you like,

and it doesn't matter if it takes time

when you're doing what you love, so have fun.

[gentle music]