Mexicans Alejandro González Iñárritu, filmmaker, and Gael García Bernal, actor, are among the 100 most influential people in the world, according the yearly list published by Time Magazine.
The filmmaker and the actor were the only two Mexicans on the list, which includes figures such as Pope Francis, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, United States President Barack Obama and candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Fellow Mexican and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, wrote in a featured article that in his opinion González Iñárritu is, like the character from his last film, a true “revenant”, due to something inside him “that never gives up in the face of adversity or despair.”
The text pointed out that González Iñárritu has the necessary mixture to successfully navigate the cinematographic world of the United States, with “a strange mixture of fragility, as an artist, and resistance, as a professional”, always seeming to maintain the balance.
Del Toro expressed that on the human aspect, unlike other filmmaker friends that only want to talk about cinema, González Iñárritu takes the time to discuss family, cooking and taking care of children, which reflects “that he is voraciously interested in life.”
“The principles and the profound humanity that animate his movies also animate his daily interactions. That is why he has filled my hearth with love and admiration as a filmmaker and friend”, stated del Toro.
Another Mexican filmmaker, Alfonso Cuarón, wrote about García Bernal that the actor had trouble shaving his legs for a role in a Pedro Almodóvar movie, because a spider had laid egos in one of his legs, probably during his portrayal of Che Guevara.
Removing the spider eggs, Cuarón stated “was a simple procedure, but very revealing of the commitment of Gael with his characters and his causes. They get under the skin, and you need a scalpel to remove them.”
Other people on the Time’s list were Lin Manuel Miranda, the creator of the musical “Hamilton”, basketball player Stephen Curry; Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan; social critic and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and mysterious italian writer Elena Ferrante. Other people on the list included FMI director Christine Lagarde and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
