daily-castaneda

[daily-castaneda]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Ballerina (2025) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Javier Macarro/OFC Characters: Javier Macarro, OMC, OFC Additional Tags: c'mon I gotta know more about this assassin Romeo and Juliet!, backstory for Eve’s dad Summary:

At work, Javier Macarro is the definition of professional. The Ruska Roma know he’s trustworthy, a safe pair of hands, and anyone who works under the Table knows that he’s a good man (by their definition). But on a night off, his friends know that he’s a little bit of a player, too. He likes to cut loose, have a few drinks, find a girl he digs…

But it’s just a good time, some meaningless fun - nothing important, nothing life-changing.

…Right?

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DAVID CASTAÑEDA as JAVIER MACARRO BALLERINA (2025) dir. Len Wiseman

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David Castañeda as Javier in John Wick: Ballerina

I'm so used to seeing David with knives because of Diego - he's a good gunman as well

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😮‍💨🔥

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watched ballerina tonight for ana and keanu obviously but instead got pleasantly smacked in the head by longhaired and kicking ass david castaneda gracing the screen within the first 3 minutes. godbless

[daily-castaneda]

My non-spoilery review of Ballerina: I really enjoyed it! It was of course nonsense, but that’s a feature not a bug – there were lots of excellent set-piece fight scenes, fast and brutal and using every available tool (cool factor favourite: flamethrowers vs water hose; ridiculous favourite: just smashing plates over each other’s heads). I thought the first two thirds were better than the last third, which focused a little too much on John Wick Giving This Spinoff His Blessing (Ana de Armas was doing just fine, guys, trust your lead!), but the whole thing was basically what you’d expect from the John Wickiverse.

Spoilery details below the cut, especially about David Castañeda’s role:

Okay, first off: the assassin’s village was incoherent, what even was going on with that? At first I thought it was a retirement home for ex-assassins, but that made no sense when you see the age ranges (younger kids and their parents, and their getting-older-but-still-going-strong grandparents), plus they all still seemed to be getting out there into the world and killing people, so I guess it’s like…like migrating birds. They go home to the Village to breed, and then back out once the chicks are independent enough to be taking on their own murder contracts. And they die before making it to true old age, apparently, because there were zero old people, other than Gabriel Byrne. But were they killing for fun or for profit? The rest of the assassin world seemed pretty judgemental, but they mostly seemed to kill their own people, so…I guess they’re bad news because they’re a cult, and not for the killing part? Sort of like cults in the real world, except here everyone’s an assassin. It’s barmy, honestly.

And the retrofit with the Ruska Roma was also nonsense - suddenly they’re there to protect people? They use rubber bullets??? This is the Wickiverse, people. Everyone is an assassin. That’s the basic concept. You don’t have to be all coy and ‘oh but these ones are GOOD, not like those BAD people who kill you if you try to leave (okay yes we also do that but it’s not personal)’. How do they even fund that – it can’t be all contracts to stop assassinations. That’s basically just security – which they suck at, by the way: you can’t just beat up a bunch of dudes in a club (cool setting tho!) and say you’re safe now, and act like that’s dealt with the problem. Did you even escort that woman home?!

That said, I liked how it fitted with Eve’s motivation, and I especially loved the potential setup for a Romeo and Juliet love story for her parents. I wanna know how Javier met the unnamed mum (let’s just pick a random name for her, oh, how about Lila), and how they managed to fall in love despite their different backgrounds (he’s an assassin! She’s also an assassin but for a totally different group they’re so totally different guys you gotta believe me you just don’t even know!)…and what disloyalty she was killed for (trying to leave with her husband and babies?)…and why he was like, yeah my 9yo daughter just has Bad Vibes so I’m ditching her…and everything! I want THAT movie!

And despite the fact that he literally does only get 15 minutes of screentime – which was totally expected, I mean he got cast after they’d finished shooting the main movie – I am so, so proud of David and the way he held the screen for that whole time! He got to show off his range: he can do cute young father, he’s great with kids, he can dance (oh, my heart, Diego - I mean Javier - dancing with his daughter!), and fight like a hero in a John Wick movie, he can do the stare-off with the villain when he’s bloody and on his knees, he can do dramatic death scenes, and he can be so fucking loveable in a short space of time that the entire movie, which rests on the main character wanting to avenge his death 12 years later, makes full emotional sense… Casting directors, take note.

(Am I thinking of going to see it again, just for those first 15 mins? Shush, stop asking questions.)

And hats off to @lochrannn , who called it as soon as she saw his poster – I mean, I’d been thinking, maybe he'll be another assassin, maybe an older mentor, maybe a love interest, maybe an enemy – but she took one look at his vibe, and absolutely nailed where he fitted into this movie. XD

[daily-castaneda]

Ko-fi 🩰

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HE KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOINGGGG SHUT UPPPPP

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I'm just saying, y'all should listen to Gasolina (new audiobook by Gabriel Urbina) if you want THIS tickling your eardrums.

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Some of my fav (as-yet not AU'd) pics of the bestest birthday boy!

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hi omg i just wanted to ask where the new pictures of david came from that photoshoot? i can't find the original post for it

Hey, I'd found the ones I reposted on David's instergram. I didn't see the additional photos anywhere either initially, but I just did a quick search for the magazine and found the rest of the photos with an interview as well.

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DAVID CASTAÑEDA

by David Higgs for Numéro Netherlands (September 2024)

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David Castañeda photographed by David Higgs for Numerous Netherlands

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David Castañeda for InStyle Mexico photographed by Storm Santos

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castanedawong: Fun fact. Steve Blackman and I decided that once diego took the marigold, he’d get more and more fit as the episodes went along.