Gael García Bernal
GAEL GARCIA BERNAL
Date of Birth: November 30, 1978
Born in Mexico, Gael García Bernal began acting when he was a child. His parents, Patricia Bernal and José Angel García, were already established actors. He performed in plays with them and by the time he was 10, he'd landed a role on the TV series Teresa.
After studying acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, he made his feature debut at 21 in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's acclaimed Amores Perros, which won the Audience Award at AFI Fest as well as the Critics Week Grand Prize and the Young Critics Award at Cannes. Nominated for an Academy Award, the film would go on to win the BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film. Gael's performance in the film earned him a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and a Silver Ariel Award in Mexico.
His appearance in Alfonso Cuaron's equally celebrated coming-of-age tale Y Tu Mama Tambien earned him even more acclaim. Along with his longtime friend and co-star Diego Luna, Gael shared a Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice Film Festival. The film won many awards and rocketed its two young stars onto the international stage. Gael was chosen to play Che Guevara in Showtime Network's miniseries Fidel (2002). Returning to his native language, Gael played the lead role in El crimen del padre Amaro (2002), which was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. For his performance in the film, Gael won Best Actor from the Mexican Cinema Journalists and Most Promising Performer from the Chicago Film Critics Association.
He went on to play Gabriel in the romantic comedy I'm With Lucy (2002) alongside Monica Potter; Kit in the British film Dot the I (2003) and Ricky in Dreaming of Julia (2003) with Harvey Keitel. He again portrayed Guevara in the Spanish language film The Motorcyle Diaries (2004), which won three prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and was subsequently released in over 20 countries around the world. Gael starred in Almodovar's Spanish-language film Bad Education (2004) and the American feature The King (2005), co-starring William Hurt.
He continued to win praise for his work in movies such as Babel (2006), Blindness (2008), Letters to Juliet (2010), the comedy Casa de mi Padre (2012) and while playing the role of famed masked hero Zorro in the 2014 sequel Zorro Reborn.
More recently, Gael starred in Zoom (2016) and lent his voice to the animated film, Coco (2017). He also starred alongside Maggie Gyllenhaal in the drama The Kindergarten Teacher (2018).
Named one of People en Espanol's 25 Most Beautiful in their June 2002 issue, Gael can speak English, Italian, Spanish and French.