By Anand HollaThe faint winter morning sun bears down gently on the busy sea-facing garden of The St. Regis Doha. In a shaded corner, enjoying occasional wafts of moist breeze and a steaming cup of cappuccino, sits Gael Garcia Bernal; his angularly sculpted face dissolving into that signature boyish grin as he recalls a dream.“It came to me around three weeks ago,” he says, still smiling, “It was a very happy dream. But now when I think about it, I feel a little melancholic.”That’s because, in his dream, the celebrated actor-director-producer, often dubbed the Mexican multihyphenate, was a rural paediatrician — an elusive real-life role that he has forever aspired for.“It’s what I really wanted to be,” Bernal continues, “In my dream, we were being called from one site to another. There would be a lot of kids around and I would be chatting with them, which I really love because I get along superbly with kids. I was still talking to them when I woke up, feeling very happy. But now, I feel a little sad because that could have been my life.”Even if for a deeply contemplative moment, such a lament is hardly expected of the most successful Mexican actor in showbiz today. But then, it’s that sincerity towards his personal journey as an artiste-activist that seems to define GGB, the superstar.Fifteen years since his big screen debut, the man who has been regarded as everything from a brooding powerhouse of an actor to the intellectual woman’s heartthrob, continues to chisel out his spectacular filmography aided by an evolved political consciousness and an uncompromising search for meaning in matinee madness.It’s rather easy to see how Bernal has compensated for that void by stretching himself beyond his image as the impassioned ambassador of Mexican cinema.Around 12 years ago, he set up the production house Canana Films with his buddy Diego Luna, to ‘document what’s truly happening in Mexico today’. Last year, he joined hands with Luna to sponsor another passion project, Ambulante — the not-for-profit documentary festival that travels to around 18 cities in Mexico over nearly three months a year.“It’s the best thing we have ever done because documentaries have a real social function. They eliminate the single discourse and open up discussion. The festival has become a fulcrum of social change in Mexico,” the 36-year-old explains, “So maybe, yeah, I have tried (compensating the void) in many ways.”Even Chicuarotes, his second directorial feature — he debuted as a director with Deficit (2007) — which he hopes to begin shooting early next year, is essentially a heartfelt ode to the spirit of his people. Centred on a group of teenagers from poor families growing up happily by Xochimilco Lake in Mexico City, the dark comedy follows their ambitions to rise up in life.As one of the five ‘Masters’ at the Doha Film Institute’s (DFI) recently-held Qumra — Qatar’s first international film and creative industry gathering — Bernal wowed the audience with his talk and upcoming filmmakers with his mentoring. It’s the day before he would leave that he is sipping on his morning cuppa, talking shop.“The good thing about being an actor is that you get to live many lives. And you get to say things,” Bernal says, referring to the opportunities he gets to voice his views, in support of Mexican immigrants to the US, for instance.“That said, part of why I wanted to be an actor was to be close to the girls, you know, get to know all the actresses,” he says, laughing mischievously, “Acting is one of the few jobs in the world that you can actually admit to be doing for that reason.”If there’s one word to describe Bernal’s acting, it would have to be intensity. One wonders whether it’s natural in his case. “I don’t think about these things,” he says, the gaze of his clear green eyes darting in and out of the garden to his right, “Maybe it’s a good thing to not be aware. I was born into a family of actors. So it’s tough to say I was ever outside of this.”Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, to a director father and an actress mother, Bernal was only three when he made his acting debut; as baby Jesus in a nativity play. Theatre embraced him but it was starring in the hit Mexican telenovela El abuelo y yo (1992) that got him his first lick of fame at 14.Clearly, destiny had left a trail of signs for Bernal, which he wouldn’t notice. “I struggled a lot to not be part of this. Rather, I knew I was always going to be part of this. Therefore, I wanted to do something else,” Bernal explains.However, Bernal had begun self-administering film education quite early on. He skipped school to catch films of greats such as Wim Wenders, Akira Kurosawa, Theo Angelopoulos, Rainer Werner Fassbender and Werner Herzog at the local Cineteca.“Going to cinema and not knowing what you will see, was a novel experience then, unlike now when you know the plot beforehand via Google. It opened up a whole world to me,” he reminisces.Then, one day, at age 19, Bernal forsook his soap opera glory and moved to London to study acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama for three years. “That’s when I realised I would like to do this. Also, I realised how difficult acting was and how there was a whole world beyond what I thought I knew. So that’s as far as my doctor aspirations went, unfortunately,” he says.In the first year, the hallowed institute considered chucking Bernal out for being “lazy and stubborn.” He admits, “I came in thinking there was nothing I was going to be taught. I was really wrong, like most of us are.”Soon, Bernal’s know-it-all nonchalance dissipated. “They deconstructed me. In the second and third year, I was flying more, feeling freer and more energetic,” he says.Unbeknownst to Bernal, a cinematic dream-break was catching fire. A celebrity radio DJ in Mexico, by the name of Alejandro González Iñárritu — who recently picked up a bunch of Oscars for Birdman — called him up to offer the part of Octavio in Amores Perros (2000). Bernal got the script in his mail, read it and loved it — not because the writing was mind-blowing, which it certainly was, but because it was the first script he had ever read and didn’t know any better.“I really wanted to do the film,” Bernal said, during his talk at the Qumra Masterclass, “We shot it during Easter Holidays. I had to fake a tropical illness to miss a week of school so as to complete filming it in Mexico.”“I had said no to three other films, so it was destiny,” he continued, “It’s important to learn how to say no early on. If I hadn’t, Amores Perros wouldn’t have been my first film, and it was important that it was my first film.”It sure was. The devastating triptych of three tales connected by a car accident in Mexico City blew the audience away, won heaps of acclaim at film festivals, and has acquired cult status over time.“It almost certainly changed Mexican cinema which was at its lowest point then. It was a landmark in world cinema,” Bernal told the audience.The follow-up — which, too, was nominated for an Oscar — was just as powerful. Bernal starred in the celebrated road movie Y Tu Mamá También (2001), directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who would make go on to make Gravity (2013).After bursting into World Cinema in such style, the international nature of Bernal’s prolific career has seen him work with top contemporary filmmakers, as he repeatedly chose important films over vapid money-spinners.Perhaps Walter Salles’ fabulous The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), which chronicled Che Guevera’s life-altering road trip in his youth, familiarised Bernal to millions like no film else could.“The Motorcycle Diaries made me realise how big my home is. It was like an anthropological experiment where we travelled 50 years after to see what has changed and what hasn’t,” he said, “It’s the film that made me realise that I feel absolutely at home everywhere in Latin America; I feel the whole continent is my country.”Ever since, the man who has played Che Guevara twice — the first was in the TV film Fidel (2002) on Fidel Castro’s rise to power in Cuba — has plunged into political films like a duck takes to water: Pablo Larrain’s Oscar-nominated No (2012) that tells the story of the advertising campaign that defeated Chile’s dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1988 referendum; Who is Dayani Cristal? (2012) which throws light on Honduran migrants desperately trying to get to the US; or last year’s Rosewater, which tells the true story of Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari’s wrongful incarceration in Iran for 118 days.
“In places of conflict, it’s impossible to escape the political complexity of things. Every day you live has a political dimension to it and you can’t escape it,” Bernal said, when an audience member asked him why politics often figures at the core of his work.Given his easy charm and an affable persona, it’s understandable why Bernal is as much loved by the global film circuit — he has also been a member of the jury at Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals — as he is by fans and auteurs alike.Offering his light-hearted two bits on the industry, he shared, “Pedro Almodovar (Acclaimed Spanish filmmaker, with whom he worked on Bad Education) meticulously starts his shoot at 10am, while working with Iñárritu means you have to sleep with the phone next to you as he can call you at any time of the day… or night.”Skimming through some mental notes of his globe-trotting shoots, Bernal said, “In Italy, they don’t know when to shut up. In Spain, a guy will come up to the production unit and say — If you sack her, we all go. It’s like suddenly your film is kidnapped.”As the hall broke into a wave of laughs, Bernal went on. “In Sweden, you work only for eight hours a day, including lunch, and the shoots, therefore, go on for 15 weeks. And in Mexico, oh, you experience the best of the best of everything,” he said, openly patting his homeland on the back.When a Brazilian lady in the audience asked him if he knows why people all over the world have this stereotypical image of Latin Americans always having fun, he said, “Maybe because those people are not having fun.”Back in the St. Regis lounge area, Bernal, who is a father of two children from his ex-partner, Argentine actress Dolores Fonzi, talks about something else that is a lot of fun — acting. “I was once told that an actor must concentrate on two or three specifics of his character, and the rest will follow,” he says.Case in point could be his portrayal of Octavio in Amores Perros. “I just focussed on matching the rhythm of my breath to that of my dog’s, in the film,” he says, “Also, to me, shoes are the most important part of the character, and I prefer to pick the pair my character will wear.”The most harmonious point an actor arrives at is when he knows how the character will behave in a given situation, feels Bernal. “A good director will tell you to throw yourself in it more,” he explains, “That’s when you start losing yourself in it and magic happens.”With ownership of the character, the actor feels empowered to improvise within that realm, he feels. “You have to know who the character is. In life, we are changing all the time. So it’s easier to answer who the character wants to be than who he is,” Bernal reasons, “Who he is, is stagnant, a mere description.”There is no mistaking the passion coursing through his personality when he discusses acting, politics or films. Has that passion made him extremely picky about his choice of projects? “Yes, I have been more selective because there are more options. But I think I have always been spoiled,” Bernal says.That may indeed not be an exaggeration. “I mean, if you begin with films like Amores… and Y Tu…, it’s very difficult to stay cool. I was more careful with my decisions thereafter but I made a few mistakes, of course,” he says, taking a final swig from his cup.It may not be too out of place here to mention that he has starred in two forgettable Hollywood romantic comedies, “just because he wanted to see how it works”. “So, I have certainly become more selective. Also, I know that if I have to do certain things, I simply have to do them,” Bernal says.And when he puts so much into it, some of it continues to stay inside of him. “You leave a bit of yourself in each film — a bit of your epidermis. There are a few characters I feel roam around here,” he says, half-smiling, pointing to his head. Well, the more, the merrier.