Demián Bichir

Info

Full Name: Demián Bichir Nájera
Date of birth: August 1, 1963 (63 years old)
Location: Mexico, Distrito Federal
Country: Mexico

Demián Bichir has been active for 30 years, participating in 23 movies that average a 6.3/10 score.

Videos eCartelera

Tráiler en VOSE de 'Harry Potter' T1

Biography

In 2012 a Mexican actor most of Hollywood had barely registered turned up on the Best Actor shortlist at the Oscars, alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt and the eventual winner Jean Dujardin. Demián Bichir had been working since he was three years old. Born 1 August 1963 in Mexico City as Demián Sandero Bichir Nájera, he made his stage debut as a toddler in 'El Periquillo Sarniento', joined Mexico's National Theatre Company at thirteen and was doing telenovelas at fourteen. Before all that he had wanted to be a footballer, and played in Club América's youth ranks at eleven.

A family business

The Bichirs are practically a guild. His father Alejandro directed theatre, his mother Maricruz Nájera acts, and both his brothers, Odiseo and Bruno, went the same way. As a child he spent long stretches touring with the family company, Trashumante.

At home the 1990s made him a star. He won the Ariel for Best Actor, Mexico's equivalent of the Oscar, for 'Hasta morir' (1994) and took it again in 2000 for the huge domestic hit 'Sexo, pudor y lágrimas'. Spanish cinema got to him early too, casting him in 'Nobody Will Speak of Us When We're Dead' (1995), Álex de la Iglesia's 'Perdita Durango' (1997) opposite Javier Bardem, and 'No News from God' (2001) with Penélope Cruz.

Fidel Castro, a gardener and an Oscar nomination

His international break came twice over in 2008, when Steven Soderbergh cast him as Fidel Castro in 'The Argentine' and 'Che: Part Two', playing off Benicio Del Toro's Guevara. Around the same time American television found him, and he spent three seasons of 'Weeds' as Esteban Reyes, the mayor of Tijuana with a cartel behind him, opposite Mary-Louise Parker.

Then came the role that shifted everything. In Chris Weitz's 'A Better Life' (2011) he plays Carlos Galindo, an undocumented Mexican gardener trying to keep his teenage son out of trouble in Los Angeles. Almost nobody saw it in cinemas, and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor anyway, the first Mexican born performer in that category since Anthony Quinn.

The subject isn't abstract for him. Bichir moved to New York as a young man to learn English and find work as an actor, and regularised his status through the 1986 immigration amnesty. He has talked about it often since, and serves as the ACLU's Ambassador for Immigrants' Rights.

Tarantino, a nun and a kaiju

He has barely stopped working in the United States since. There was 'Savages' (2012) for Oliver Stone, 'The Heat' (2013) with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, 'Machete Kills' (2013) for Robert Rodriguez, and Richard Shepard's British black comedy 'Dom Hemingway' (2013), where he's Ivan Fontaine, the boss Jude Law's safecracker did twelve years for without grassing.

In 2015 Quentin Tarantino shut him inside the haberdashery of 'The Hateful Eight' as Bob, the Mexican minding the place while Kurt Russell and Samuel L. Jackson refuse to believe a word of it. After that came Ridley Scott's 'Alien: Covenant' (2017), Father Burke in 'The Nun' (2018), George Clooney's 'The Midnight Sky' (2020), 'Godzilla vs. Kong' (2021) and 'Land' (2021), Robin Wright's directing debut.

His other big television part was detective Marco Ruiz in 'The Bridge' (2013), the Mexican cop chasing a serial killer along the border with Diane Kruger's American agent. He later led ABC's 'Grand Hotel' (2019).

Mexico still has a claim on him. In '7:19' (2016) he plays a man trapped under the rubble of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, and in September 2025 he headlined 'El dentista', a ViX and Movistar Plus+ thriller casting him as a forensic dentist tracking Jack the Ripper through nineteenth century Veracruz.

Behind the camera, and at home

He premiered 'A Circus Tale & A Love Song', his debut as writer and director, at the Morelia festival in 2016, with Jason Patric, Diane Kruger and Eva Longoria in the cast. It took years to reach cinemas, and by the time it did he was describing it as a tribute to his wife, the Canadian actress and model Stefanie Sherk, who appears in it.

Sherk died in April 2019. Bichir announced it himself and confirmed that she had taken her own life, and he has spoken plainly about the grief in interviews since.

He had been married to the singer Lisset between 2001 and 2003, and his daughter Gala was born in 2011. At the Toronto festival in September 2024 he announced he was going to be a father again, with the Italian dancer Victoria Aletta.

The pace hasn't dropped. He turned up in 'Black Phone 2' in 2025, and in May 2026 he started shooting 'Delphi' in Los Angeles, the Prime Video series spun off from the 'Creed' films, in which he plays the owner of a boxing gym in the east of the city.