Patrick Criado grew up in front of the cameras after being spotted in a theatre workshop aged 10. He played a troublesome aristocrat in the swashbucking series Red Eagle (Águila Roja) for RTVE for six years, while dabbling in films including Daniel Sanchez Arevalo’s comedy drama Family United (La Gran Familia Española), for which he was nominated for best new actor at the Goyas in 2014.
He went on to play a murderer in the series Plastic Sea, a computer engineer in Money Heist and the youngest member of a police squad in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s miniseries Riot Police in 2020. “I enjoyed the team spirit,” he says of the shoot. “I matured as an actor, being alert and reactive to what was going on.”
Criado has also had roles in Netflix features Below Zero and dystopian thriller Bird Box Barcelona. For the latter, he found his way into the role by walking around the streets of Barcelona wearing a blindfold. “I went out with a colleague, rehearsing our lines and faking an argument to the point that two women stopped to help us,” he recalls with a smile.
Criado further demonstrated his dedication to the craft by losing 10 kilos to play a prisoner in Atresplayer’s Las Noches De Tefía. The series tells the story of the Tefia penal colony on Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, that imprisoned homosexuals and other social groups that Franco’s dictatorship deemed not fit for Spanish society.
This summer the actor shot Paula Ortiz’s Hildegart, co-written by Clara Roquet about the 1930s progressive intellectual and child prodigy Hildegart Rodriguez, who was murdered by her own mother.
What Criado likes best about his work is “to be part of stories that spotlight realities for a broader audience, like in Las Noches De Tefía, that help us understand our past and why it’s important to fight for our rights”.
He shares this attitude with one of his acting inspirations, Javier Bardem. “I love his skill, hard work, beliefs and also the way he manages his career.”
Contact: Borja Vera, Borial Management
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