GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL, AN INTERNATIONAL ACTOR FAITHFUL TO HIS ROOTS – Q Magazine

The Mexican actor, who is celebrating his 45th birthday, has recently shared a fictional romance with Bad Bunny in “Cassandro”, where he plays the professional wrestler and LGBT icon.

“When I started working in film, I didn’t even suspect that I would have a career, to be honest,” confesses Gael García Bernal, a Mexican actor, in an interview with Efe.

And then he explains why: “We are talking about the late 90s, when in Mexico, in Latin America, cinema was made… but it was an effort more than anything, a kind of gesture of rebellion.”

Today, that rebel, turned internationally famous actor, celebrates his 45th birthday.
Lineage of actors.

Acting is in Gael García Bernal’s blood: son of actors José Ángel García and Patricia Bernal, Gael was born on November 30, 1978 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, although he grew up in Mexico City.

He has three brothers, also actors. Two from her mother’s side, Tamara and Darío Yazbek Bernal, and one from his father’s side, José Emilio García Ríos. In addition, he is the cousin of the actor and producer Michel Bernal Meral.

Thus, it is not surprising that his awakening as an actor was very early: with only one year he was already “working” as such. Furthermore, due to his family influence, Gael began to take his first steps in the theater and, Since adolescence, he began working in soap operas.

That path came in 1986 with a small appearance in the successful soap opera “Cuna de lobos.” And, three years later, her first leading role came in the children’s soap opera “El grandad y yo”.

Furthermore, Gael began studying philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, but abandoned his studies on a pilgrimage to Europe in search of continuing his career as an actor, becoming the first Mexican to be accepted as a student at the Central School of Speech and London Drama.

But for his film debut, Gael García Bernal had to wait for the turn of the century. The opportunity came with “Amores Perros” (2000), which was successful and earned an Oscar nomination for best foreign film.

From Mexico to the Golden Globes.

And, since then, his filmography has been increasing in film and television: “And your mother also” (2001), “The crime of Father Amaro” (2002), “Fidel!” (2003), “The Motorcycle Diaries” (2004), “Bad Education” (2004), “The King” (2005), “Babel” (2006), “Rudo y Cursi” (2008) or “The Limits of Control” (2009).

In the following decade, García Bernal continued with films such as: “Letters to Juliet” (2010), “A Little Bit of Heaven” (2011), “Casa de mi padre” (2012), “Rosewater” (2014), “ Neruda” (2016), “Coco” (2017), “The Kindergarten Teacher” (2018) o “Wasp Network” (2019).
Furthermore, at this stage Gael was the protagonist of the Amazon Prime Video series “Mozart in the Jungle” (2014-2018), which earned him the Golden Globe in 2016 in the category of Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy Television Series. .

His works in this decade have been “Old” (2021), “Station Eleven” (2021-2022), “Werewolf by night” (2022), “The Mother” (2023) and “Cassandro” (2023). And “Holland, Michigan” and “The Ballad of the Phoenix” are pending release, in which he provides his voice.
In his most recent release, “Cassandro” (2023), Gael plays the Mexican-American professional wrestler and shares a love story with Felipe, played by Bad Bunny.

For Gael, as he told the entertainment website “Collider”, the physical training to prepare for the role “was incredibly exhausting” and he confesses that “wrestling was not on the wish list” of films to make: “but I am a Mexican actor, one day I had to do it,” he clarifies.

Look for yourself in the characters.

Furthermore, the actor explains that “Cassandro’s is a very modern, archetypal story of a man who had to play a character in order to be himself,” as he explained in GQ. And there is the link between actor and character: “I also play other characters to discover who I am.”

“I did not invent the term ‘hetero’,” Gael reflects on his own sexual orientation, “I have never allowed society, family or whoever to impose the definition of hetero on me,” although he clarifies: “I like women… But At the same time, being an actor allowed me to explore.”

As for his personal life, although not many remember it, Gael García Bernal had a romance in the past with Natalie Portman. However, in 2008, after breaking up with the American actress, he made his relationship with the Argentine Dolores Fonzi official, whom he met in 2001 during the filming of “Private Lives.”

García Bernal and Fonzi had two children, in 2009 and 2011. Their relationship ended in 2014. And already in 2019, the actor began dating the Mexican journalist Fernanda Aragonés, with whom he had a son in 2021: “yes, he was born during the pandemic… people will think that their parents did not respect social isolation very much,” he told GQ.

Faithful to his roots, despite his international fame, Gael García Bernal reaches his 45th birthday without having definitively left his homeland: “People ask me where I live and when I answer that in Mexico they say ‘still?’”.

He is clear: “many people are afraid of going to Mexico City, but I am afraid of going into Walmart (American hypermarkets) and, I don’t know, that someone will get angry and take out a gun.” So, with family, success and a long career ahead of him, Gael celebrates his birthday in which he will always be his home.
By Nora Cifuentes.
EFE / Reports.

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