'I'm an actor - you're supposed to do that. 'I don't have any issues with sexuality, ever,' he insists. All our holidays are tied to the Catholic year, but really it's just about fun.' He pauses, then adds quickly: 'I do take the national Day of the Dead more seriously than the others, but that has nothing to do with the Catholic religion it is something very different.Īs both Zahara and Juan, Bernal is required to portray some fairly explicit gay sex scenes, something that he's surprised to have found himself having to discuss. 'The synchronism of the indigenous cultures in Mexico creates a kind of cultural Catholicism,' he suggests, adding with a grin: 'But it's more an excuse just to make a party. His own attitude to religion is unapologetically flippant.

Not like in the United States, where Bush says: 'God is on our side.' That would be completely unthinkable.'

'If the president of Mexico said anything related to God, it would be the worst thing he could do. 'In Mexico, the church cannot have any political influence at all and education is completely secular,' he explains. In Bad Education, the Spanish Catholic church exerts a powerful and abusive influence, but Bernal is eager to point out that its position is very different in his homeland. In Brazil,' he digresses, 'there are six football beaches, and once a month everyone dresses as girls and plays in drag there.' He flashes a toothy smile: 'It's nice to be anarchic with yourself and just enjoy it, you can learn a lot.' 'It's like finding the clown you have inside you that's only particular to oneself. 'Yeah, it was liberating to be out on the street,' he enthuses. In fact, Bernal embraced his inner woman so completely, he went out on the town in drag. His thick black hair is chopped about in the most modern of mullets. On a blistering Cannes day, Bernal looks enviably cool in fitted jeans, cowboy boots and a mucho trendy black cotton jacket. He also has all the physical makings of a movie star. Hollywood can only be a heartbeat away.Īnd they'd be a fool not to snap him up: Bernal is seriously good. The King, a US independent production starring Daryl Hannah and Sam Shepard, is in post-production. An actor since childhood, when he hit the boards with his thespian parents, Bernal's star has been steadily rising since he came to international attention in Amores Perros in 2000 and built on it the following year with Y Tu Mama Tambien.

But then, Bernal is the hot prospect at this year's festival the 25-year-old Mexican actor stars in two of the biggest films - Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education and Walter Salles's The Motorcycle Diaries. His face stares down from posters and magazine covers his booty has been seen shaking it on the dance floor. Gael Garcia Bernal is all over Cannes like a rash.

Amores perros sex scene