Gael Garcia Bernal: The Modern Mexican Heartthrob

A difficult challenge for any actor, Mexican or not, Gael Garcia Bernal has managed to become a strong representative figure for his country's entertainment industry. Having worked with many of the best directors available in this era, he has even managed to cross over from acting, to do some directing as well. Considered handsome by many, he also has the brains and talent to leverage his assets into being Mexico's modern-day heartthrob.

Beginning his career as a toddler, Gael worked in various telenovelas (Mexican soap operas), throughout his teens, and was nurtured by his actress mother and director father, as he was growing up in Guadalajara.. He has spent his off time working with local cultures to encourage literacy in remote areas of his home state, and also studied at the International Baccalaureate level doing advanced work.. Despite having captured the hearts of every teenaged girl with a television by the age of 19, Garcia Bernal was called to Europe.

Garcia Bernal still considered his dramatic career to be only supplemental employment, even after he had been accepted into the acting program at London's Central School of Speech and Drama.. His original post-secondary aspiration was to study philosophy, but during his time in England, he was offered a role in a film by legendary Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez. The production, 2000's 'Amores Perros', has been equated to Quinten Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction', and was nominated for a Best Foreign Film Academy Award.

This exposure of Garcia Bernal's remarkable talent resulted in roles in films helmed by some of Mexico's best directors. The 2001 drama 'Y tu Mama Tambien' garnered the highest opening box office weekend in Mexican film history; Gael also earned critical praise for portraying a conflicted lovestruck priest in 'El Crimen del Padre Amaro', and a transsexual actor in Pedro Almodovar's 'Bad Education'.

Garcia Bernal has also struck out into Hollywood films as well, in movies such as 'The Science of Sleep' and 'Blindness'. He directed a feature, 'Deficit' (released in 2007) and also portrayed the young Che Guevara in 'The Motorcycle Diaries' (2004).. He is set to don the black mask and cape in a new Zorro production (the original Zorro-like character actually a real-life Mexican bandit that operated throughout the state of California in the USA) and is also projected to star with Daniel Day Lewis in a new Martin Scorsese-helmed work. Not bad for a pretty-faced kid from the telenovela world!

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