Celebrity Biographies
Demian Bichir
After almost three decades of intense activity, few people outside of Mexico, except for Weeds fans , were clear about who Demián Bichir was. But the Oscar nomination for best actor for his work in A Better Life has improved his life and has put him in the limelight.
Born on August 1, 1963 in Torreón, Coahuila, northeastern Mexico, Demián Bichir Nájera comes from a family of Lebanese origin. His parents, Alejandro Bichir and Maricruz Nájera, were dedicated to acting, as well as his brothers Odiseo Bichir and Bruno Bichir . At the age of 3 he was already taken out in the theatrical performances of “El periquillo”.
At 14 she already appeared on television in the series Rina . When she was 19, Televisa offered her a contract to appear in numerous telenovelas such as Vivir enamora , Cuando los hijos se van o Guadalupe . He soon got the opportunity to star in another, El rincón de los milagros , where he was a foreigner who performed miracles.
But he always had his eyes on the cinema. He made his secondary debut in 1985, with Viaje al paraíso , and appeared with his brother Bruno in Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto , whose director, Agustín Díaz Yanes , recruited them again for Sin noticias de Dios . There, Demián was one of the protagonists, a boxer with a shady past who two angels tried to help. For this work, he received an MTV Mexico award in a category created especially with a certain sense of humor, called “Best Bichir in a movie.” Another Spanish filmmaker, Álex de la Iglesia , recruited him for Perdita Durango .
He swept Mexico with the comedy Sexo, pudor y lágrimas , which broke viewer records, and where he was a guy who returned to his native country to see his friends after a long absence.
His first American production was the telefilm In the Time of the Butterflies , with Salma Hayek , which was based on the true story of the Mirabal sisters, who opposed the regime of the Dominican dictator Trujillo. He was also Fidel Castro , in Che, the Argentine and Che, guerrilla , and he joined the series Weeds in the fourth season , where he played Esteban Reyes, the corrupt mayor of Tijuana.
His definitive consecration has come with his work in A Better Life , by Chris Weitz ( The Golden Compass ), where he plays Carlos Galindo, a humble immigrant who tries to survive as a gardener in Los Angeles and while trying to ensure that his adolescent son does not leave for the bad way He was the big surprise of the Oscar nominations by becoming the first Mexican to compete as an actor, since the days of Anthony Quinn .
“Surely Brad Pitt is on the terrace of his estate in Italy saying to Angelina Jolie ‘who is this guy?’ and that George Clooney will have asked his girlfriend,” the actor joked, after hearing the news. What worries him most is not winning – he is aware that he has few chances – but rather having made noise with his candidacy, so that the public can see the film and become aware of the problem of the undocumented. “Let’s see if Obama, after a couple of hours off, sees it and is also moved.”