Mexican actor and director who became known for his work in films that portrayed men and women in taboo or nonconformist relationships.

Bernal's parents—his mother was an actress and his father a director—involved him in theatrical productions at an early age. In 1989 he was cast in a Mexican soap opera, and in 1996 he appeared in the short film De tripas, corazón (“Take Courage”). When he was 17, Bernal traveled to Europe and won a scholarship to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. In the middle of his studies, he returned to Mexico to film Amores perros (2000; “Love's a Bitch”) with director Alejandro González Iñárritu. Bernal's performance as a poor teenager who turns to dogfighting to finance an affair with his sister-in-law won rave reviews and launched his career. Amores perros was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film and brought Bernal to the attention of another acclaimed Mexican director, Alfonso Cuarón, who cast the young actor as a colead in the coming-of-age film Y tu mamá también (2001; “And Your Mother Too”). The movie, which followed two adolescent boys and an older woman on a road trip through Mexico, aroused controversy with its frank depiction of the sexual relationship between the three primary characters.

Bernal's next major role came in El crimen del padre Amaro (2002; The Crime of Padre Amaro), in which he played a priest who falls in love with and impregnates a 16-year-old girl. The film garnered record box-office sales in Mexico and was nominated for a best foreign film Academy Award, but Bernal's risqué turn led to threats of excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. The protests did little to affect Bernal, who called himself “culturally Catholic, but spiritually agnostic,” and he continued to take on challenging and potentially contentious roles, such as a young Che Guevara (Guevara, Che) in Diarios de motocicleta (2004; The Motorcycle Diaries), a sexually abused altar boy in La mala educación (2004; Bad Education), and a murderous and incestuous loner in The King (2005). His turn in the eclectic comedy La Science des rêves (2006; The Science of Sleep) showed that Bernal was also adept at exploring the lighter side of human nature.

In 2007 Bernal directed his first feature film, Déficit (“Deficit”), and the following year he starred in Blindness (2008)—a film adaptation of José Saramago (Saramago, José)'s novel Ensaio sobre a cegueira (1995; Blindness)—in which residents of a city suffer from an epidemic of instant blindness.