Juan Minujín

It took him almost two decades to get the industry to stop seeing him as a niche actor. Juan Gervasio Minujín was born in Buenos Aires in 1975, spent his childhood in Mexico due to his family's exile, and returned to an Argentina in the midst of a democratic revival. He never fit the typical mold of the Buenos Aires leading man.

His training came from physical theater and the alternative circuit of the 1990s. He studied with stage directors such as Cristina Banegas, Alberto Ure, and Pompeyo Audivert, combining acting technique with the physical risk of the El Descueve group. In that environment, dramatic text meant nothing if the body didn't respond with force on stage.

His move into film came with supporting roles in titles such as El abrazo partido (2004) and the independent drama Un año sin amor (2005). But his impatience to tell his own obsessions led him to devote 2011 to directing and starring in Vaquero.

Nobody expected him on the red carpet.

That film sharply dissected the neuroses and resentment of actors rejected at auditions in Buenos Aires. It took four years to raise the independent financing for a project that earned him unanimous critical respect and no commercial concessions.

From the Mud of Caseros to the Vatican Cassock

Argentine free-to-air television tried to pigeonhole him as a comic actor after the impact of Dos más dos in 2012 and daily dramas like Solamente vos. But Minujín broke that pattern in 2016 when he agreed to step into the ruins of the former Caseros prison.

To play former police officer Miguel Palacios in El marginal, he had to lose weight at a forced pace and spend weeks surrounded by humidity, dust, and real cold. The production spread worldwide through the Netflix catalog after airing on Argentine public television. Minujín shot torture and mud scenes without stunt doubles during fourteen-hour days.

And the character changed his schedule forever.

Three years later, Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles cast him to play the young Jorge Mario Bergoglio in The Two Popes (2019). Minujín shared the bill with Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, taking on an introspective role in a restrained Spanish that opened the doors of the international market for him without having to move to Los Angeles.

The Blond Wig and the Orders in English

In 2024, he took on the most high-profile challenge of his career in the series Coppola, the Agent. Directed by Ariel Winograd, Minujín spent five months mimicking the mannerisms, high-pitched tone, and gestures of Guillermo Coppola, Diego Armando Maradona's manager.

He spent three hours a day in the makeup department fitting a prosthetic nose and a white wig before shooting. So the final result avoided parody and offered a direct portrait of the nighttime excesses of the 1990s in Buenos Aires.

That same year, he presented the war drama Without Blood at the Toronto Film Festival, shot at the Cinecittà studios under the direction of Angelina Jolie. Minujín shared face-to-face scenes with Salma Hayek and Demián Bichir, speaking English on a set closed off to the press.

The production did not grant interviews on set.

For her next film project in 2025, she moved to northern Spain to shoot Los domingos under director Alauda Ruiz de Azúa. The contract required forty days of location filming in Bizkaia in constant rain, along with an absolute exclusivity clause that kept her from taking on theater commitments for four months.