Gael García Bernal's Many Roles

"If there's artistic expression it's because there's a necessity for that artistic expression to exist."
- Gael García Bernal.

Gael García Bernal, along with musician Santigold and artist Xu Bing and Mariko Mori, is helping bring awareness and funds to The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles' educational programs. Gael's an actor and a director known for emotionally intense performances. In his words, "acting forces you into an emotional empathy of The Other." His T-shirt design is an amorphous diagram that seems to illustrate duality. "Si" and "No" occupy segments of a red and green shape.

The design evokes an idea of citizenship and patriotism. It's in the colors of Gael's native Mexico, and as he told The Ultrabook™ Experience, "being patriotic in the best sense is questioning what the hell your country means." In Gael's latest role in Pablo Larrain's film, No, the toppling of Chile's dictator Pinochet is chronicled along with the marketing and media effort that surrounded it. Could this be the tug between yes and no that Gael's design describes?

He might also be referring to the way film can transport, inform, and manipulate. And technology, according to Gael offers "another access point to have these conversations."

Take a look at Gael's career, and you'll find an artist striving to bring his chosen craft—cinema—to new and unexpected places by furthering the awareness of the popularity of Mexican Cinema and proving that Mexican Independent films can find local audiences as well.

Having worked as an actor in his native Mexico since childhood, Gael García Bernal made his feature film debut in Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu's Academy Award®-nominated Amores Perros. His breakthrough performance in the universally acclaimed film earned him a Silver Ariel Award (Mexico's equivalent of the Oscar) as well as a Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, both as Best Actor.

Gael García Bernal's next film role was in another globally celebrated feature, Alfonso Cuaron's Academy Award®-nominated Y tu mamá también, starring opposite his lifelong friend Diego Luna. For their performances, the two friends were jointly voted the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the Venice International Film Festival. In 2008, he starred alongside Diego Aluna again in Rudo y Cursi.

He subsequently starred in the title role of Carlos Carrera's Academy Award-nominated romantic drama El Crimen del padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro). His performance earned him the Silver Goddess Award for Best Actor from the Mexican Cinema Journalists, as well as a nomination from the Chicago Film Critics' Association for Most Promising Performer.

Since 2004, Gael García Bernal has starred in important films like The Motorcycle Diaries, directed by Walter Salles, La mala educación (Bad Education) directed by Pedro Almodóvar and Babel directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu.

In addition to acting, Gael García Bernal has taken on the roles of both director and producer. He founded the production company Canana, with his close friend, actor Diego Luna and producer Pablo Cruz to help bring independent Mexican cinema to local and international audiences.

In 2009, Bernal starred in Limits of Control (Los limites del control) with Tilda Swinton and directed by Jim Jarmusch as well as Mammoth (Mamut) with Michelle Williams and directed by Lukas Moodysson. In 2010, he starred in Even the Rain directed by Icíar Bollaín and Letters to Juliet (Cartas a Julieta) with Amanda Seyfriend. Gael then went on to starr in Casa de Mi Padre with Will Ferrell and Diego Luna as well as A Little Bit of Heaven alongside Kate Hudson and Kathy Bates. Most recently, Gael starred in the film No directed by Pablo Larrain, which premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.