Daniel Guzmán

Daniel Guzmán, whose full name is Daniel García-Pérez Guzmán, was born in Madrid on 21 September 1973 and grew up in the working-class neighbourhood of Aluche. Before he ever dreamed of film sets, he earned a certain notoriety painting graffiti under the tag "Tifón"; he later trained as an actor at the prestigious William Layton laboratory and even studied for the firefighter entrance exams as a backup, until his bet on acting finally paid off.

From Bardem to fame on 'Aquí no hay quien viva'

After his first steps in cinema with Hi, Are You Alone? (1995), his real calling card was co-starring alongside Javier Bardem in Ecstasy (1996), followed by titles such as Barrio (1998) and Aunque tú no lo sepas (2000). But it was television that turned him into a hugely popular face: after cutting his teeth on series such as 'Menudo es mi padre' and 'Policías', he won over the whole of Spain as Roberto Alonso in the phenomenon Aquí no hay quien viva (2003).

A neighbourhood actor

Far from being typecast, he kept alternating film and television with that authentic, streetwise charm of his. He passed through A golpes (2005), Mia Sarah (2006) and Arena en los bolsillos (2006), played a hilarious municipal policeman in My Great Night (2015), appeared in Under the Same Roof (2018) and was Lucas in the hit period series Velvet (2013).

The graffiti artist who became a filmmaker

But what has truly rounded off his career is his work as a director. He won the Goya for Best Short Film with 'Sueños' (2003) and made the leap to features with Nothing in Return (2015), a tender, semi-autobiographical portrait of a working-class Madrid kid that earned him the Goya for Best New Director. The film also gave rise to one of the loveliest anecdotes in recent Spanish cinema: he discovered his lead on the street, a then-unknown Miguel Herrán, who took the Goya for Best New Actor and went on to become a star. Later came Canallas (2022) and La deuda (2025).

His is the kind of cinema that comes straight from the gut: his beloved grandmother, who played a decisive part in raising him, even appeared in Nothing in Return. From the walls of his neighbourhood to the glory of the Goyas, Guzmán has never forgotten where he comes from. Isn't that loyalty to his roots exactly what gives his films such a genuine heartbeat?

The earliest credit MovieNCo has for Daniel Guzmán is Hi, Are You Alone? (1995); in all, 13 films and 2 TV shows over 30 years. They have worked as actor in 14, director in 3, writer in 3 and producer in 3. Their title most voted by MovieNCo readers is Aqui no hay quien viva (2003), with 510 votes. Their busiest decade is the 2010s, with 5 titles. The person they have worked with most is Juan Vicente Córdoba, on 4 films, among them A cambio de nada and Fisticuffs.