Last spring, Jason Fernandez received the phone call of which Spanish actors dream — the one telling him he had been cast in a Pedro Almodovar project. The film was Strange Way Of Life, a western short starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal that the filmmaker shot in Almeria.
During the audition process, Fernandez was not told who was directing. “The first day we started working, I still could not believe it,” he recalls. “[Almodovar] is a god in the world of cinema — and so generous. He listens, he is open, and makes you feel part of the team. Rehearsals were gold.”
Born in Madrid to a British mother and a Spanish father, Fernandez began acting at six — his mum ran a children’s theatre company in the Spanish capital — and made his debut as a child actor in 2007’s The Heart Of The Earth (El Corazón De La Tierra). “I owe my start in this profession to my mother,” says Fernandez, whose brother Neizan is also an actor. He later studied theatre at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art, and is fluent in Spanish and English. “I’m two completely different actors when I’m working in Spanish and when I play in English,” says Fernandez, who is polishing his US accent.
After appearing in Spanish TV series such as La Que Se Avecina in 2019, Fernandez was cast as one of the main characters in 2021’s Libertad. The series also had a theatrical release and proved a turning point in his career. Next came Netflix’s Alba, about a young college student who wakes up on a beach with no memory of how she ended up there, eventually realising she has been the victim of a sexual assault.
“Having grown up in a feminist family, a project like Alba made me even more aware of the male chauvinist acts we witness every day — how some guys behave like animals, entitled to do whatever they please,” says Fernandez. “I cried in my bedroom the day after filming the rape scene.” Nevertheless, he sees it as part of his learning process. “I am very proud of being an actor, embodying and feeling different emotions and expanding my knowledge through my work.”
Contact: Alejandro Madrid, Garay Talent
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