Jorge Perugorría

In 1994, Cuban actor Jorge Perugorria landed one of the most prestigious roles imaginable in his native country, with a lead in the penultimate work of celebrated director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. Although the film -- a gentle and thoughtful comedy-drama entitled Strawberry and Chocolate (1994) -- did not officially mark Perugorria's debut (several minor-league efforts had preceded it), it did catapult Perugorria from obscurity to instant stardom, thanks to his accomplished turn as Diego, a homosexual, bohemian iconoclast who falls hard for a heterosexual Communist (Vladimir Cruz). The effort also paved the way for extensive additional film work by Perugorria, in Cuba and around the globe. At this point, Perugorria -- a Havana native who grew up in the Wajay District and spent his early years as an actor doing Cuban nationalist theater -- moved squarely into features and maintained a prolific output; after a second collaboration with the late Alea (on Guantanamera), he quickly extended his reach into features produced in other Spanish-speaking countries. Efforts included the Mexican-Spanish co-production Edipo Alcalde (1996), the Spanish-Italian-French co-production Bambola (1996), and the Spanish-French effort Volaverunt (1999) as Francisco de Goya. Perugorria received a great deal of international attention when he teamed up with another top-tiered Cuban director, Humberto Solas, for a lead as a Cuban exile searching for information on his parentage in the 2001 arthouse hit Honey for Oshun. In the years that followed, Perugorria signed for a role that poised him for even greater global acclaim and recognition, as Joaquin in Steven Soderbergh's massive, ambitious three-hour Che Guevara biopic Che.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide