Going Gaga Over Gael

If there’s a face I don’t get tired of looking at, it’s Gael Garcia Bernal’s. So he’s super short, but he’s also wicked smart and an incredibly gifted actor. And now he’s become a key behind-the-scenes player in Latin American cinema with his own company Canana, which produces and distributes smaller-scale films by emerging filmmakers. Gael founded Canana in 2005 with his friends Pablo Cruz and Diego Luna. Now there’s someone who understands the concept of longevity and making a contribution to the arts that doesn’t revolve around ego. But when he does go for a role, Gael always goes for the multi-layered, complex guys, never the predictable ones. They’re always characters who are looking to discover something about themselves in the process. And honestly, aren’t we all?

“I try and think, ‘why is making films important?’ You can argue that it’s really a luxury. But the importance that I get from it is that you get to interpret another person’s reality. The production company is a wonderful thing because it’s just seeing other people’s realities come to life. I prefer to see films than to be in them,” he told Latina in the May 2009 issue as he was promoting Rudo y Cursi at Sundance.

Shortly after I saw Rudo y Cursi I watched Fernando Meirelles’s Blindness on demand and believe me, Gael was pure evil. And that’s just his gift—that he can shapeshift so smoothly from comic to heartthrob to villain.

Apparently, there is someone equally as intrigued by our beloved Gael. Portico just released Jethro Soutar’s Gael Garcia Bernal and the Latin American New Wave, a biography which chronicles Gael’s career trajectory and offers insight into a cinematic movement and its leading man. Released back in April in the U.K., it’s finally available this month in the U.S.

Enjoy!