FEATURE
THE
ENTERTAINERS
By Daniel J. Vargas

No longer a rarity under Hollywood’s bright lights, Latino talent is on the rise. As we near year’s end, we have fashioned a lineup of our favorite Latinos in entertainment:
the established and the hopefuls; heartthrobs and beauties;
visionary directors and deft scribes; jokesters and gossip hounds. Each of our choices is deserving of a singular distinction, the result of an outstanding year for groundbreaking innovation.

Salma Hayek

The unparalleled natural beauty burst onto the U.S. scene in Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado and has since paved the road to Hollywood for other crossover Mexican actors. Hayek, 40, is a tabloid favorite because of her sublime looks, but she’s more than aesthetics. For her portrayal of Frida Kahlo in Frida, she earned an Oscar nomination in 2003 for best actress. Now, she is blazing a trail on the other side of the camera as executive producer of ABC’s Ugly Betty, an English-translation of the hit Colombian telenovela. The network has so much confidence in the dramedy that it’s paired with the sensation Grey’s Anatomy. It’s safe to say Hayek has made a flawless transition to producing.

Gael García Bernal

More artist than paycheck actor, Gael García Bernal is more concerned about the craft than the notoriety and stardom that other actors are seduced by. The Guadalajara-born heartthrob was a childhood actor in telenovelas before his breakout roles in Amores Perros and
Y tu Mamá También. Since then García Bernal, 28, gone on to star as a gender bender in Bad Education, a carnal-sinning priest in The Crime of Father Amaro, and a young Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries. Although an individual Academy Award nomination has remained elusive for this young actor, that could change with the Oscar buzz surrounding the upcoming movie Babel. Not that this idealistic thespian is pining for one.

Zoë Saldana

At the youthful age of 28, Saldana can boast having worked with such Hollywood heavy hitters as Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Ashton Kutcher and even pop-diva Britney Spears. The Dominican beauty is one of the busiest Latinas in film, with more than a dozen movies on her resume and several projects lined up through 2007. Saldana has tremendous range, able to traverse genres from comedies (Guess Who) to dramas (The Terminal) to action blockbusters (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl). Blessed with such boundless acting skills, Saldana should be gracing the big screen for many years to come.

Nadine Velazquez

In 2001, she left her native Chicago, armed with a marketing degree and sparse acting background, but Velazquez, now 28, was determined to succeed in Hollywood. Today, she’s on one of TV’s hottest (and quirkiest) sitcoms, My Name is Earl. Sure, she plays a thick-accented hotel maid named Catalina, who entered the country illegally. But her character provides a dose of common sense that the other mindless characters lack. As Catalina, Velazquez often steals scenes and hearts with her endearing performances. Next summer, she’ll appear in the big-budget film Rogue with Jet Li and Jason Statham. In our book, that spells success.

Perez Hilton
(Mario Lavandeira)

He’s notorious. He’s snarky. He’s an unlikely power player in Hollywood. Two years ago, Mario Lavandeira assumed the Internet alias/alter ego of “Perez Hilton,” an homage to his curious choice of idol, Paris Hilton. As Perez Hilton, Lavandeira, 28, dishes and blogs about the good, the bad and the ugly in Tinseltown on his website, perezhilton.com. His early claim to fame was breaking the story about Brangelina’s romance, and since then, entertainment television shows and magazines court him for his take on Hollywood happenings. The TV show The Insider dubs the site “Hollywood’s most hated website” but don’t tell that to the 1.7 million visitors who log on daily for the latest chisme.

Luis Guzmán

He may not have the name recognition, but Luis Guzmán, 49, has a cantankerous face you can’t shake from memory. He’s one of the hardest-working Latinos in a business that doesn’t consistently cast minorities. For the past three decades, Guzmán has methodically and ingeniously carved out a niche for himself, usually portraying the scoundrel or villainous sidekick in memorable movies such as Boogie Nights and Carlito’s Way and the HBO series Oz. His current workload includes bit parts in Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation and 2007’s action flick Rogue. Guzmán relishes those supporting roles, having once said: “Leading men crash and burn. Character actors are around forever.”

Alfonso Cuarón

Oscar nominee Alfonso Cuarón rose to industry prominence with his steamy, coming-of-age film Y tu Mamá También. But before that breakout hit, Cuarón, 45, directed a lesser-known tender movie called A Little Princess in 1995. So it was no surprise that he would take the reins of another family-fantasy project, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, largely considered the best of the Potter franchise. The Mexico City-born director is tackling another fantasy movie—this time with Oscar aspirations as big as its budget. Children of Men, an adaptation of P.D. James’ novel, is set for release in December and should solidify Cuarón among the crème de la crème of Hollywood helmers.

Guillermo del Toro

Of the new, dynamic crop of Mexican filmmakers, Guillermo del Toro has distinguished himself as a genre master when it comes to fantasy, horror and science fiction. It all began in 1993 when the vampire tale Cronos caught the film industry’s attention. Since then, the 42-year-old del Toro has directed Mimic, Hellboy and Blade II, injecting his distinctive sense of Gothic style. And now his latest picture, the visually stunning Pan’s Labyrinth (December 2006), is receiving festival circuit buzz. A slew of high-profile projects on the horizon such as Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, should solidify del Toro as one of the premier fantasy-horror directors in Hollywood.

José Rivera

José Rivera’s Oscar-nominated screenplay for The Motorcycle Diaries made him a household name. But before his foray into film, Rivera was (and is) an accomplished playwright, having won not one, but two prestigious Obie Awards for Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot. In contrast to his early years in Hollywood, the screenwriter-playwright—the first Puerto Rican to be nominated for a screenplay Academy Award—can now pick projects from a bounty of offers that come his way. Rivera has been busy penning screenplays for Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, in which he joins forces again with Diaries director Walter Salles, and the 2007 crime-drama Trade, to name a few. When it rains, it pours.

Carlos Mencia

TV’s most controversial, opinionated comic has popularized the inflammatory insults “beaner” and “Dee-dee-dee” the way Richard Pryor did the f-bomb in the 1970s. Mencia, 39, is a lightning rod for criticism via his Comedy Central show Mind of Mencia, but he stares down those detractors with sharp, witty sketches such as the side-splitting “Wetback Mountain.” As often as Mencia embraces ethnic or racial stereotypes, he’ll also spotlight the hypocrisies we all succumb to. And as long as Mencia keeps delivering the ratings, the hangover that has plagued Comedy Central since Dave Chappelle’s sudden departure should soon dissipate—revealing the next king of comedy who happens to be (as Mencia would say) a “beaner.”

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