Unax Ugalde

Unax Ugalde
Ugalde at Premios Forqué 2011
Born	Unax Ugalde Gutiérrez (1978-11-27) 27 November 1978 (age 38) Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1999–present
Partner(s)	Ingrid Rubio (2005–present)

Unax Ugalde Gutiérrez (born 27 November 1978) is a Spanish actor born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Álava, in the Basque Country.

Unax Ugalde, son of a worker at the Altos Hornos and a housewife, was born in 1978 in Vitoria-Gasteiz. While a student, he had the ambition of becoming a marine scientist and started taking interpretation classes. In order to pay for his studies, he worked in a supermarket where he dressed up as a chocolate ball. He got his very first job in a TV series named Entre dos fuegos for ETB basque television.

In 1999, he left the Basque Country to start an acting career in Madrid. Thanks to series like A las once en casa (where he played Coyote, boyfriend of a girl named Lucia), El grupo or Periodistas he achieved certain notoriety in Spain. The Unión de Actores nominated him for the Best Actor Award for El grupo (2000)- in which a Unax played a drug addict who wanted to resume family ties- and Best Supporting Actor for Periodistas (2001), where he was also nominated for Fotogramas de Plata Awards. He completed his work on TV with an appearance in Compañeros, in which he played a robber who dies in a school while trying to flee police.

He made his debut in the cinema in Báilame el agua, for which he also wrote some parts of the script. His first main role came with Volverás (2002). In that film he played a good student who is about to leave home, when he met his criminal brother (Tristan Ulloa), thus leaving the "right way" and trying to help him to reach emotional maturity during a night. In that year, 2002, Ugalde had a supporting role in the film Bellas durmientes by Eloy Lozano. And year later, 2003, Ugalde starred in the controversial film Diario de una becaria by Josecho San Mateo, director of Ugalde's first film (Báilame el agua).