Jaenada to Star Opposite Amy Schumer & Goldie Hawn in Mother-Daughter Adventure Comedy

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

Oscar Jaenada has a little blonde ambition…

The 41-year-old Spanish actor will star opposite Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn in the still untitled mother-daughter adventure comedy in a yet-to-be-revealed role.

The 20th Century Fox pic is directed by Jonathan Levine and written by Katie Dippold, who drew inspiration from her relationship with her mother.

Jaenada won a Goya Award for his portrayal of legendary flamenco dancer Camaron de la Isla in Camaron: When Flamenco Became Legend, and will next be seen opposite Blake Lively this summer in the Cannes Film Festival thriller The Shallows, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.

His other credits include the lead role in Cantinflas, Mexico’s 2015 foreign language Oscar submission, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Steven Soderbergh’s Che.

Jaenada to Star Opposite Blake Lively in “The Shallows”

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Tom Castaneda

Oscar Jaenada is heading to the shallows…

The 40-year-old Spanish actor has joined the cast of Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Shallows opposite Blake Lively.

Jaenada, a Goya Award winner, is crossing over into the mainstream after bringing beloved Mexican comedic icon Cantinflas to the screen in the 2014 movie of the same name.

He has a small, but book-ended role in The Shallows.

Written by Anthony Jaswinski, the story centers on a young woman (Lively) who is grieving the loss her mother and surfing in an isolated area when she gets stranded on a buoy. Things take a turn for the worse when a gigantic great white shark comes between her and the shore.

The film was known as In The Deep when Sony Pictures won a bidding war for the spec script in September 2014, and brought Collet-Serra aboard in June.

Jaenada, who appears in The Weinstein Company’s 2016 offering Hands Of Stone opposite Robert De Niro, will play Carlos in the film, described as a workman who drives Lively’s character to the beach and then shows up again at the end of the film to check on her.

The film is casting now and has three other small supporting roles that are earmarked for Hispanic actors.

Jaenada won the coveted Goya (Spain’s equivalent of the Academy Award) for his portrayal of Camaron de la Isla, the legendary Spanish flamenco dancer, in 2005’s Camaron: When Flamenco Became Legend.

Cantinflas was Mexico’s 2015 foreign-language Oscar submission.

In addition, the actor had a starring role in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and a critically praised appearance in Steven Soderbergh’s Che.

del Toro Comes Aboard as Executive Producer of “Viva”

Posted on September 7, 2015 by Tom Castaneda

Life’s a drag for Benicio del Toro…

The 48-year-old Puerto Rican actor and Oscar winner has come aboard as executive producer of Viva, director Paddy Breathnach’s new film having its World Premiere here at the Telluride Film Festival.

An Irish production shot in Cuba en Español, the film is about Jesus, a young man growing up in Havana who works as a hair and make up artist for drag acts. What he REALLY wants to do is perform on stage himself, a development that leads to major conflicts with his father who has just been released from prison.

Hector Medina stars as Jesus with a supporting cast including Jorge Perugorria and Luis Alberto Garcia. Screenwriter Mark O’ Halloran also is featured in the film.

del Toro was most recently an executive producer of Escobar: Paradise Lost, a film in which he also starred that had its World Premiere at last year’s Telluride Film Festival.

He has produced other films in which he had roles including Che and The Wolfman, but his participation in a behind-the-scenes role on Viva appears to be his first in a film he does not appear since Lovesickness in 2007.

del Toro next appears in Lionsgate’s Sicario, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and will have its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival later this month in advance of its September 18 release.

He’s already getting Oscar buzz for his intensely searing role in the film.

del Toro to Receive Heart of Sarajevo Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Tom Castaneda

Benicio del Toro has a little extra heart…

The 48-year-old Puerto Rican actor, an Academy Award and Golden Globe winner, will receive the Heart of Sarajevo Award for his contribution to the art of cinema at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival.

Previous recipients for the award, which was designed by French designer, filmmaker and festival patron Agnes B, include Angelina Jolie, Gael Garcia Bernal and Steve Buscemi.

del Toro will present Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s drama A Perfect Day, in which he has a starring role alongside Tim Robbins and Olga Kurylenko, at the festival’s open-air screening venue, where del Toro will receive the award in front of a 3,000-strong crowd. The film premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

The actor will also hold a master class for the participants of Talents Sarajevo, a networking and training platform for emerging film professionals from South-East Europe and the Southern Caucasus.

del Toro won an Academy Award for supporting actor for his role in Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, and an Oscar nomination for his work in Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu’s 21 Grams.

Reteaming with Soderbergh to star in Che, the biography of Che Guevera, del Toro’s performance won him the best actor award at Cannes in 2008.

Del Toro can be seen next starring in Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, alongside Emily Blunt and Josh Brolin, which is scheduled for a September 18 release by Lionsgate in the U.S.

del Toro Accepts Lifetime Achievement Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Benicio del Toro is a film don(ostia)…

The 48-year-old Puerto Rican actor accepted the Donostia Award for lifetime achievement at the San Sebastian International Film Festival on Friday.

In his acceptance speech, del Toro paid homage to his native Puerto Rico.

“I want to dedicate this award to the piece of land where I come from, where I was born, where I learned to throw rocks and had them first thrown at me,” del Toro said at the award ceremony. “Where I learned to take risks and where I learned not to do things just to do them.”

Cuban actor-director Jorge Perugorria introduced the Oscar-winning actor as a “rebel of the profession [of acting],” just before del Toro thanked the festival.

Del Toro received the award before the screening of his latest project, Andrea DiStefano‘s Escobar: Paradise Lost in the festival’s Pearls Selection.

Earlier in the day, he spoke to journalists about how he respected the actors and actresses who came before him, how Steven Soderbergh‘s Che was his most “complicated” role and how not to be thin-skinned in Hollywood.

“An actor has to have a short memory. There’s a lot of rejection, and you can’t wallow in it. You have to have a short memory,” del Toro said.

But del Toro proved to have a long memory when he told an anecdote about seeing a picture of a haggard fisherman and upon asking what had happened to him was told, “the effort.”

“I look at this prize and I answer the same to myself — the effort,” he said.

del Toro to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at San Sebastian International Film Festival

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Benicio del Toro is about to add another award to his collection…

The 48-year-old Puerto Rican actor and film producer and Oscar-winner will receive the Donostia Award for Lifetime Achievement at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

del Toro’s latest film Escobar: Paradise Lostwill close the Pearls Selection at the festival, which runs September 19-27.

Escobar, written by Andrea di Stefano, tells the story of young surfer Nick who thinks he has landed in paradise when he falls in love with a Colombian girl on a visit to see his brother who is living in the South American country only to have it change when he meets her uncle, Pablo Escobar.

del Toro has confirmed that he’ll come to San Sebastian to present the film and receive the Donostia at the closing ceremony. Di Stefano, Josh Hutcherson and Carlos Bardem will also be present for the film’s Spanish premiere.

del Toro is a favorite at San Sebastian where he has accompanied films from his career.

del Toro won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic as well as an Oscar nomination for his work in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s 21 Grams.

del Toro re-teamed with Soderbergh to star in the biography of Che Guevera Che. The performance won him the Best Actor award at the Palme D’Or Closing Ceremony at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008, and again the following year at the Goya Awards in Madrid, Spain.

He starred opposite Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins in Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman and as Lado in Oliver Stone’s Savages.

del Toro was starred as Jimmy, the lead in Jimmy P. The film was screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. He was last seen in Guardians of the Galaxy a sci-fi action film for Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Enterprises, which was released in the beginning of August 2014.

Next year he’ll play Mambru in Fernando Leon’s A Perfect Day and Sauncho Smilax in Inherent Vice, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

The actor is currently in production on Denis Villeneuve’s Sicaro.

Sandino Moreno Replacing Rosario Dawson in “Incarnate”

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Catalina Sandino Moreno could be called “The Replacement”…

The 32-year-old Colombian actress will star opposite Aaron Eckhart in Incarnate, the new franchise hopeful from Jason Blum‘s Blumhouse Productions.

Rosario Dawson was initially cast to play the role, but the Sin City and Seven Pounds actress left the project due to scheduling reasons.

The film is set to begin production in November in Los Angeles.

Brad Peyton is directing the micro-budget film, which tells of “an unconventional exorcist — with the ability to tap into the subconscious of the possessed — who meets his match when a 9-year-old boy is possessed by a demon from his past,” according to Blumhouse.

Moreno broke into the industry with her acclaimed performance in 2004’s Maria Full of Grace, a role that earned her an Oscar nomination.

She most recently was one of the stars of FX’s crime show The Bridge and counts, among her feature credits, Steven Soderbergh’s two-part Che films.

Bejo: From Oscar Nominee to Academy Member

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Tom Castaneda

She received her first Oscar nomination earlier this year for her scene-stealing role in The Artist… And now Bérénice Bejo will be helping select future Oscar nominees and winners.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has extended an invitation to the 35-year-old Argentinean actress to join the organization. Bejo—who has appeared in The Artist, OSS 117 and Cairo, Nest of Spies—is one of the 176 artists and executives to receive an invitation for their distinguished contributions to theatrical motion pictures.

But Bejo isn’t the only Hispanic artist to receive an invitation … Here’s a look at the other Latinos to make the list:

Actors
Demián Bichir – A Better Life, Che
Clifton Collins, Jr. – Star Trek, Traffic
Diego Luna – Milk, Y Tu Mamá También

Directors
Rodrigo Garcia – Albert Nobbs, Mother and Child

Music
Alberto Iglesias – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Constant Gardener

Short Films and Feature Animation
Jonas Rivera – Up, Cars

”These film professionals represent some of the most talented, most passionate contributors to our industry,” said Academy President Tom Sherak. “I’m glad to recognize that by calling each of them a fellow Academy member.”

Those who accept the invitation will be the only additions in 2012 to the Academy’s roster of members.

New members will be welcomed into the Academy at an invitation-only reception in September.

Martin to Perform at the Tony Awards

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Tom Castaneda

Following his triumphant return to The Great White Way in Evita, Ricky Martin will be performing on Broadway’s biggest night.

The 40-year-old Puerto Rican singer/actor will bring his role as Ernesto “Che” Guevara to life at the upcoming Tony Awards, which will be hosted by How I Met Your Mother’s Neil Patrick Harris.

Martin, who made his Broadway debut in Les Miserables, has wowed audiences on Broadway alongside his Evita co-stars Elena Rogers, who plays Eva Perón, and Michael Cerveris, who plays Juan Perón.

To get in character as the controversial revolutionary icon—in a role that has taken him to “another place mentally, physically, and spiritually”—Martin has grown a moustache. But the experience has had more than a physical impact on him.

“I’ve felt emotions onstage that I never felt before, it has strengthened me as a person and as an artist,” Martin said in a press conference in March. “It’s been a great journey. I’m here to grow and to learn. It’s been a fascinating trip,” he added.

In addition to Martin, the list of performers at this year’s Tony Awards include

Cuban-American Broadway star Rául Esparza, Audra McDonald, Matthew Broderick and the casts of Godspell and Ghost The Musical, among many others.

The Tony Awards will take place on Sunday, June 10.

Santoro to Reprise Iconic Role in “300” Sequel

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Tom Castaneda

He captured the attention of audiences as Persian “god-King” Xerxes in 300… And, now Rodrigo Santoro is set to reprise his creepily iconic and blinged-out role in the sequel.

Known as the “Brazilian Tom Cruise,” The 36-year-old half-Brazilian actor has signed on to appear opposite Eva Green in the still-untitled 300 sequel from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures.

The film will begin shooting this summer, with Santoro and Green playing the villains this time around.

Santoro next stars opposite Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz in the upcoming comedy What To Expect When You’re Expecting, and he appears opposite Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen in the upcoming HBO feature Hemingway & Gelhorn.

Santoro, who rose to fame in Brazilian telenovelas, previously starred in Love Actually, Che and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.

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