Jorge Perugorría | |
---|---|
Born |
Wajay, Havana, Cuba |
13 August 1965
Other names | Pichi |
Occupation | Actor, Film Director and Painter |
Website | http://www.jorgeperugorria.com/ |
Jorge Perugorría Rodríguez (aka "Pichi") (born 13 August 1965) is a Cuban actor, Film Director and Painter. He is well known for his part as Diego in Strawberry and Chocolate (original title in Spanish Fresa y chocolate (co-directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío). He recently acted in Steven Soderbergh's Che, with Benicio del Toro. He lives in Santa Fe, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, with his wife Elsa Maria fuentes de La Paz and their four children.
Perrugorría studied civil engineering until he turned to theater. He played Shakespeare with the Olga Alonso troupe, and starred in The Glass Menagerie with the Ritan Mountainer troupe. In the early 1990s, Perugorría helped found Havana’s Public Theatre, which started with Jean Genet’s The Maids. In this play, Perugorría acted the difficult part of Clara, working on a real gestural dimension for this feminine character. And that led to his first opportunity in cinema.
Indeed, Perugorría played in several TV series or short films, but his first cinema success was Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate), in which he played the part of Diego, a gay young man who meets a straight university student named David. The movie, subtly dealing with tolerance and sexual politics, made Perugorría recognizable as one of Cuba’s most famous actors. From that moment, he has gone on to act in nearly 50 films -showing his full frontal nudity in some as Boceto directed by Tomás Piard and Derecho de asilo by Octavio Cortázar-, the most recent being Steven Soderbergh’s Che, and also directed a few of his own.
Recently was released successfully in Havana his last film as director and actor Se vende (For sale), a black comedy about the selling of bones of dead people.