Diego Boneta’s new book is all in the family – from the inspiration behind the tennis-centric thriller to the team behind it.
The actor, producer, singer and now author wanted his new book, The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco to serve as “a little window into my heart and my soul,” he tells PEOPLE of the project, which is also under development with Amazon Studios as a limited series. It takes place at the opulent Velasco estate, where the handsome Julian Villareal (who Diego will play in the series) arrives to pay his respects to his close friend and tennis rival, the late Alejandro Velasco.
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It’s not long before he becomes entangled in the family’s glamorous, tangled web of lies and deception, with a little help from Alejandro’s conniving sister Sofia. Her secrets collide with Julian’s own in a match that will keep your head on a swivel through the very end.
Amazon Publishing
‘The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco’ by Diego Boneta
The story is set in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico where Diego and his family used to vacation, and centers around tennis in part as a tribute to his dad, a former national tennis champion who met Diego’s mom in college through the sport.
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“I literally would not be here without tennis,” Diego says, adding that he began playing more consistently during the pandemic. “It’s like my therapy, and I really wanted tennis to be embedded in the book in a metaphoric way as well … How they play tennis informs you of these characters and and their backgrounds, and where they come from, and their their personalities.”
His sister, Natalia Boneta, also helped him get inside the head of the main female character, Sofia. “As much as I can try, I’m never going to have the full female perspective because I’m a guy, right?” The author explains. “It was really important for me for that character to be really multidimensional, smart, unpredictable. And she was amazing with that.”
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Natalia and Diego Boneta in 2021
It was equally important for Diego that the book and the series showcase the “aspirational side of Mexican culture,” something his production company Three Amigos, made up of the Boneta siblings along with John Glick, considers central to their mission.
“You’ve seen all the drug stories and all the border crossing stories but Mexico is so much more than that,” he explains. “And I’m not saying that’s not part of our culture, but there’s so much more to that. There’s so much cultural richness and history and art and this almost oligarchy of families who live there and run the whole country.”
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That commitment to showcasing his culture is part of why Diego recorded the audiobook in both English and Spanish. “I’ve spoken both both languages basically since I was born because my mom’s American,” he says. “But there’s something about the adjectives in Spanish, certain words that literally have no translation to English, that the vibe and the world is just different, you know, and I love being able to give readers the choice.”
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Diego Boneta in Mexico City in 2024
And now that the book is on shelves, the Three Amigos can turn their attention to the original idea — the show. The Three Amigos production company, first established in 2017, signed an overall deal with Prime Video in 2022 — and it was Natalia’s idea to make The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco into a novel first. Her brother, who had been working on the script for awhile, was initially hesitant about the idea.
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“She was like, ‘I think we’re going to turn this into a novel,’ and I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I’ve never written anything in my whole life — it’s like hard enough to try to write a script!’ ” They brought the idea to Amazon Publishing, who loved it. When Amazon studios wanted in on the fun, the team began putting together both.
“So we were developing simultaneously the novel and the TV show the last four years,” Diego says. “And it’s so crazy to see the book finally printed, like materialize and I’m so so excited.” Besides, he adds with a laugh, “Nothing smells better.”
The Undoing of Alejandro Velasco is on sale now, wherever books are sold.
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