Steven Bauer

American actor of Cuban origin, Esteban Ernesto Echevarria of his real name, first committed to studying music, to finally take the turn of the seventh art by integrating the Miami-Dade Community College, then the Department of Theater Arts. from the University of Miami where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts for Acting.

He came to prominence in the late 1970s in America's first bilingual television series, "Que Pasa USA?", Where he played Joe Pena, the young son of a family of Cuban exiles.

Married to the actress Mélanie Griffith in 1982, on the professional side he obtained in 1983 the only notable role of his career, in the ultra-violent remake of Scarface, where he is the Cuban thug Manolo "Manny" Ribera, and best friend of the drug lord Toni Montana. A performance that earned him a Golden Globe nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category, but which he would never repeat in the cinema. The following year, it turns again under the direction of Brian De Palma, in the thriller Body Double, then in 1992 in the evil The Spirit of Cain.

After Brian De Palma, it is another director with a brutal and sulphurous signature that he joined in 1997: Abel Ferrara, who called on him for The Blackout, the story of a movie star's descent into hell. , with Matthew Modine and Claudia Schiffer.

In 2000, after playing alongside his now ex-wife Mélanie Griffith in the romantic comedy Love at first sight forever, he joined the cast of Traffic, in which Steven Soderbergh took stock of the drug trafficking rampant between the Mexico and the United States. The latter won the Oscar for best director in 2001.

Steven Bauer runs continuously and his career fluctuates, oscillating between little gangster films (Dead Lenny, Charlie Valentine), productions confined to exotic Latin roles ("Ladrones y mentirosos", From Mexico with Love, Zenitram), and television appearances (South Beach, New York - Special Unit, "Hacienda Heights"). His Cuban origins are used on numerous occasions, notably in the historical fresco Farewell Cuba (2005), by and with Andy Garcia, where he plays Captain Castel in a Cuba in chaos.

Almost thirty years after his iconic role as a feverish little thug in Scarface, the producers of Breaking Bad give him a similar role in season four, that of Don Eladio Vuente, a boss of a Mexican drug cartel. In 2013, he starred in Five Thirteen, a high-tension thriller starring Danny Trejo, and continued his career on the small screen in the crime series Ray Donovan, where he remained true to his reputation as the man of hand Avi.

Marie Ponchel