DIEGO EN FUEGO – MEXICAN HEARTTHROB BURNS UP THE SCREEN IN NEW FLICK

LISTEN up, chicas! Diego Luna, the pretty-boy actor from “Y Tu Mamá También,” is looking for a girlfriend.

“Is there something else to do in life than have a woman close to you?” Luna asks over the phone from Mexico City, where he lives when not making movies in the United States.

“I’m working a lot, so it’s tough to have some time to look for a girlfriend. But definitely, we came into this world to be in love, to make someone happy.”

And what does he look for in a woman?

“Some one who enjoys life, someone who loves to have fun. It’s all about enjoying where you are and having someone who has her own life and wants to share that with you.”

Luna, now 24, started acting in Mexico when he was 7, doing theater and TV.

He made his first movie when he was 12, but it took “Yu Tu Mamá,” directed in 2001 by current “Harry Potter”-helmer Alfonso Cuarón and co-starring his longtime pal Gael Garcia Bernal, to bring Luna to international attention.

One of his latest, the Mexican black comedy “Nicotina,” in which he plays a hacker who gets involved with jewel thieves, opens in New York Aug. 20.

And in September, he’ll be on the big screens again in the L.A.- set “Criminal,” playing a smalltime hustler.

What’s the difference between making movies in Mexico and the States?

What they spend in food, we spend on the whole movie. The people in the States know they can live and pay the rent from movies, and here you do movies and you have to do something else to pay the rent.

Do you prefer working in the States or Mexico?

I don’t prefer one or the other. I just like movies. I’m not going to stop working here, because I like working in my language. And there are lots of people I want to work with in Latin America.

How was it to be directed by Spielberg (in “The Terminal”)?

It was a great chance to meet such an important director and a guy I admire a lot. He’s fantastic, very sweet and intelligent.

How did “Nicotina” do in Mexico?

Very well, and I hope it does well over there because we need our movies to travel more. And to be screened all over the world. I think there’s a huge audience for movies in Spanish.

In “Y Tu Mamá También,” you have an affair with an older woman. Have you ever done that?

I think every young guy should do it. It’s like acting, you can always learn more things and be better in love. But I’m not going to say if I did it or not.

What do you do for relaxation?

I love soccer, I love being with my friends, I love eating with my friends, those long lunches that become dinner, and you’re just there eating and talking and chatting and drinking.

Do you have brothers or sisters?

I have a sister. She lives in Mexico, and she’s a mother and I’m an uncle.

Would you like to be a father someday?

Yes, definitely. Although I don’t know if I’d bring someone here. That’s my only problem. I open the newspapers and I say, why would I like to bring someone here to this world?

And who’s the sexiest woman you’ve ever kissed in a movie?

Why to choose? Why to promote it? That’s just for me, that’s just for me.

Diego files:

* “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights” (2004)

* “The Terminal” (2004)

* “Open Range” (2003)

* “Before Night Falls” (2000)

* “Frida” (2002)