Michael pena

Born in Chicago (United States) in 1976, Michael Peña grew up in a humble family of Mexican immigrants. These complicated origins meant that, until he graduated from high school, he did not make his ‘first steps’ as an actor, since he had to combine his studies with small and various jobs that brought him some income to help at home. .

Productions of little depth, such as Running Free (1994) or Rebellion in the classrooms 2 (1996), were the cane on which Peña leaned to start his career, and it helped him, at least, to be able to make the leap to Los Angeles. . There he would find a mine to exploit. First, she participated in My Dear Countrymen (1996), a comedy starring Jack Lemmon and James Garner ; then the independent film Star Maps (1997) would come; and later La Cucaracha(1998), where a writer desperately flees from the clutches of the Mexican mafia. In none of the referenced titles until 1998 Peña was the protagonist. However, with great skill, he knew how to position himself in the industry using the secondary role for it. And applying that formula would bring you a relentless pace of work from there.

That list of projects led him to take part in 60 seconds in 2000 , a film in which stealing cars had never been so pleasant, or Buffalo Soldiers (2001), a satire on the US army. Intrepid boxer in the fake documentary The Calcium Kid (2004), managed to break the disturbing silence of anonymity after appearing in Crash (2004), a drama in which different stories intertwine and which won, among others, three Oscars including best film and three BAFTA awards. Although in Crash he followed that high school path, his face already began to become more familiar to ordinary viewers.

From goose to goose is the expression that best qualifies his year 2004. The good relationship with Paul Haggis , scriptwriter and director of Crash , led him in a matter of months to participate in Million Dollar Baby , a film in which Haggis worked as a scriptwriter, and which would win four Oscars –also for best film– and two Golden Globes. Already in 2006 it would acquire greater relevance in a plot, co-starring with Nicolas Cage in World Trade Center , inspired by the terrorist attack of 9/11, the two actors were some heroic New York firefighters who are buried under the rubble of the Twin Towers. Another little step in the outline of his good name was Shooter: The shooter(2007), where Peña would do the work of a rookie FBI agent.

And without separating from the police suit, he played a security guard in the hilarious comedy Security Corps (2009), as well as a detective in the psychological thriller My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009). In The Innocent (The Lincoln Lawyer) (2011), without any problem, he would go to the opposite extreme, since he was a prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder that he did not commit.

After the comedy 30 Minutes or Less (2011) and the sophisticated robbery comedy A Heist (2011), he has presented the quite credible No Truce (2012), co-starring with Jake Gyllenhaal , where both are policemen patrolling the streets of Los Angeles and they run into one of the drug cartels. For this role, Peña has already been nominated for best actor at the Spirit. “ Without truce it has helped me to discover new things about the police. The greatest desire of my character is to protect the neighborhood from him, not to go around issuing fines. It is a very realistic portrait”, Peña pointed out.

Married since 2006 and the father of a child, he has also been immersed in the television universe, after appearing sporadically in series such as ER (1992), Touched by an Angel (1994), Felicity (1998) or in the fourth season of The Shield . .