7 Actors Who Never (Or Rarely) Star In Bad Movies

Gael García Bernal

For audiences looking to explore some of the best world cinema of the 21st century, it is inevitable that the terrific (and handsome) Gael García Bernal will end up in your viewing queue. One of the reasons for the Mexican actor’s diverse selection of quality roles is that he picks exceptional directors to work with.

Among the esteemed creative minds he has worked with are Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu (twice), Michel Gondry, Pedro Almodóvar and Pablo Larraín, to name but a few. The actor has a knack for learning new accents and dialects to adjust to the various ethnicities and nationalities of roles he has had to portray. Most recently, he took the role of Maziar Bahari in Jon Stewart’s directorial debut, Rosewater – even though he is neither Iranian nor Canadian, like the journalist he portrayed.

Bernal’s production company, Canana Films, is focused on stories with social and political subject matter. Appropriately, the actor likes to choose engaging stories that deal with pertinent issues – titles that draw the praise of both audiences and critics. Even though the final products received mixed reviews, would any actor have turned down working with City of God’s Fernando Meirelles (for Blindness) or alongside Will Ferrell in the Spanish-language Casa de mi Padre?

Certified Fresh Films: Amores Perros, Y Tu Mamá También, The Motorcycle Diaries, Bad Education, The Bourne Ultimatum, Even the Rain, No, Rosewater

A Spot of Bother: Blindness, Letters to Juliet, Casa de mi Padre

Up Next: Desierto, the directorial debut of Gravity screenwriter Jonas Cuarón (son of Alfonso); Zoom, a half-animated, half-live action comedy from Brazilian director Pedro Morelli; Deserted Cities, a Mexican romantic comedy