¡Feliz cumpleaños Gael!

  
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México City (30 November 2008) – They say that 30 is a difficult stage because many have confliction about what they’ve done in their life. Nevertheless, Gael García Bernal can be calm since he not only is an actor who has worked with film makers like Pedro Almodóvar, Walter Salles and Fernando Meirelles, but he’s also a producer, a director, a defender of social rights and soon he’ll be a dad.

Practically from birth the “tapatío” [a person from Guadalajara] was close to sets because of his parents. Patricia Bernal and José Ángel García are actors. With time, Gael decided to follow the steps of his parents and debuted at age 11 in the soap opera Teresa which stared Salma Hayek.

Later he obtained his first star role in El Abuelo y Yo (Grandfather and Me) along side Diego Luna who has become one of his best friends.

“Thirty, what he’s not 35? He seems older, no?” mentions Diego jokingly about the birthday boy.

Although he had success in television, Gael decided to try his luck in cinema. Towards the end of the 90’s he moved to London to study acting in the Central School of Speech and Drama and then returned to Mexico to his first movie role in Amores Perros under the baton of Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Later came Y Tu Mamá También, El Crimen del Padre Amaro, La Mala Educación that positioned him as an actor that liked taking risks, since in these films he gave life to strong characters: in the first one – a boy who kisses another man; in the second one – a priest who embarrasses a young woman, and in the third one – a transvestite. Then there came The Motorcycle Diaries by Walter Salles; The Science of the Sleep by Michel Gondry; Babel by Alejandro González Iñárritu; El Pasado by Héctor Babenco; Blindness by Fernando Meirelles, and on December 19 the movie Rudo y Cursi by Carlos Cuarón will be released.

“I love how he chooses interesting projects with actors that he’s going to be able to share and learn from, although sometimes they are not the most commercial movies. I admire him very much in every respect, sometimes without giving him the chance of being understood. Nevertheless, he has gone forward with his projects. He tackled the project to open a production company (Canana), an enterprise where he promotes cinema (mainly documentary). He seems enormous to me,” says Ann Claudia Talancón, who starred with Gael in El Crimen del Padre Amaro.

In search of more challenges, this year the actor tackled directing with Deficit, a movie that placed him before the scrutiny of the media, an area that he does not feel very comfortable, since he has always preferred staying removed from public life.

So zealously he has protected his privacy that many romances are not known. Only his relationship for a couple of years with actress Natalie Portman and now with the Argentinean Dolores Fonzie, whom he currently lives with in Madrid and is awaiting the birth of his first son.

With all his achievements, surely Gael will be happy, especially now that he’ll be a father, a role that undoubtedly will mark a difference between earlier and after he is 30 years old.

Source: Agencia Reforma

Article translated by Heather~