Gael García Bernal (born November 30, 1978) is a Mexican film actor and director.García Bernal was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, the son of Patricia Bernal, an actress and former model, and José Angel García, an actor and director. His stepfather is Sergio Yazbek, whom his mother married when García Bernal was young. He started acting at just a year old and spent most of his teen years starring in telenovelas. Gael studied the International Baccalaureate, with chemistry being unquestionably his favorite subject. When he was fourteen, he taught indigenous peoples in Mexico to read, often working with the Huichol Indians. In his later teens, he took part in peaceful demonstrations during the Chiapas uprising of 1994.
García Bernal was becoming a soap opera heartthrob, but at age of 19, he left Mexico's television world to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, becoming the first person from Mexico to be accepted into the program. In the brief period beforehand, he had begun to study philosophy at UNAM, Mexico's national university, before a strike closed the college and he then left for London. Describing his time in London as 'life forming', he considered acting merely an 'odd job profession' until the Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu offered him a part in Amores Perros. Subsequently, García Bernal starred in some of Mexico's most celebrated recent films, including 2001's Y tu mamá también, and El crimen del Padre Amaro (2002). He has also done some theatre work, including a 2005 production of Bodas de Sangre, by Federico García Lorca, in the Almeida Theatre in London. His debut as a working-class dreamer in the Oscar-nominated Amores Perros, however, was what first grabbed Hollywood's attention.
García Bernal also portrayed Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara twice, first in the 2002 TV miniseries Fidel and then, better known, in 2004's The Motorcycle Diaries, an adaptation of a journal a 23-year-old Guevara wrote about his travels across South America. García Bernal has worked for acclaimed directors including Pedro Almodóvar, Walter Salles, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Michel Gondry, among others. He recently took on roles in English language films, including the Gondry-directed The Science of Sleep, the Alejandro González Iñárritu-directed Babel, and The King, for which he earned rave reviews. He has been nominated for a BAFTA in 2005 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for The Motorcycle Diaries and, in 2006, was nominated for the Orange Rising Star award which acknowledges new talents in the acting industry.
