Luis Tosar

Born in Xustás, Cospeito, a small town in Lugo, Luis Tosar began to consider being an actor when a high school teacher advised him to study acting. Since it was not clear to him that he could make a living with that trade, he enrolled in History at the University of Santiago. But on campus he began playing roles with amateur theater companies and found out which path he had to follow.

He started out in the cinema, taking part in many short films, especially by young Galicians, and later he went on to have a fixed role in the regional television series Mareas vivas , which made him a very popular face in Galicia. Although he has been a solvent secondary in titles such as Jealousy , Atilano, presidente or El corazón del guerrero , he owes his consecration to the director Icíar Bollaín , who gave him a prominent role in Flores de otro mundo, where he certainly played the role of Damián, a hard-working and respectful man who fell in love with a Dominican woman who had come to his town in a caravan of women. Although Damián’s mother was not entirely happy with the relationship… He was nominated for Best New Actor and although he did not win the award, he had caught the attention of great filmmakers who offered him various roles, such as Álex de la Iglesia ( La community ), José Luis Borau ( Leo ), the newcomer Manuel Martín Cuenca ( The weakness of the Bolshevik ) and especially Fernando León de Aranoa , who in Los lunes al solHe gave him the role of José, since he can’t stand being financially dependent on his wife, which sours his character. This time he did take the Goya for best supporting actor.

If there was still someone who had not appreciated the enormous talent of Luis Tosar, they were surely dazzled by his work in I give you my eyes , once again under the orders of his mentor, Icíar Bollaín, who gave him the opportunity to teach a real lesson interpretive. He embodied Antonio, an abuser who not only made the respectable’s hair stand on end, but also had a human side, because despite his brutality he sincerely tried to do something to regenerate himself because he was in love. He won another Goya, this time for the main actor, which no one disputed.

Even in Hollywood they have noticed his talent, since they gave him a small role, as a villain in Miami Vice (2006) . “I’ve earned more money for two minutes in this movie than with all my other movies combined,” the actor confessed to me impassively at the time.

And although he did great work in titles such as Unconscientes , Galatasaray-Dépor , La noche del hermano , Casual Day , Los límites del control (directed by no less than Jim Jarmusch ) or Lope (where he was a convincing friar), the character who has played the most Influenced in the last years of Luis Tosar is undoubtedly Malamadre, the tough prisoner of the thriller Celda 211 , for which he won his third Goya. At the delivery ceremony, Spain learned of the dedication “to his love” from him, from his co-star, Marta Etura, also ‘goyizada’, that both are a couple and are very much in love. When he later went up for his, she made it very clear: “I had already won a while ago,” she said. “Oh, what a moment!”