CDMX, Mexico.- the fourth passenger, a Spanish film directed by Alex de la Iglesia, has meant the return of Cuban actor Rubén Cortada after years of disappearance. Cortada vanished in 2018 just when his career was at its best and he had managed to make a space for himself among the most recognized Spanish performers.
Who is Rubén Cortada? The artist was born in 1984 on the Isla de la Juventud and started practicing sports from a young age, however he did not go to the tennis courts where he directed his future. Cortada was finishing his engineering degree when he decided to emigrate to Spain. There he worked as a model for the first few years. Little by little, he became known and collaborated with brands such as Guess, Custo Barcelona and Jean Paul Gaultier. At the same time, he distributed flyers and worked in other trades like any migrant.
However, his aspiration was to be able to act professionally. She had already begun to take her first steps in acting in Cuba with a theater group for amateur actors, directed by Humberto Rodríguez. On the island he acted in two productions and longed to develop in Spain, but Rubén did not count on his accent being the main obstacle to his career.
It was not until 2011 when he got his first role on Iberian soil. she was in the series Shoulder strap and two years later in The time between seams, although with rather small roles. She was still struggling to speak less “Cuban.” His origin earned him the “no” in several castings, such as in the television adaptation of the novel The queen of the south
In 2014 came the biggest opportunity of his career up to that moment. He was chosen for a leading role in the police series Prince, where he played Faruq Ben Barek, a dangerous drug dealer of Arab origin. With this role, Rubén was on the covers of the main Spanish spaces and most of the critics predicted a successful future for him. He made new series like What his eyes and elms and oaks hid. Everything was going well. But after that she disappeared for more than three years.
What happened? At the best moment of his professional life, the Cuban had to return to his country of origin due to the death of his father, which was added to his mother’s cancer diagnosis and his death after two years of fighting against disease. At that time Rubén had to pause all his professional plans. These personal tragedies coincided with a general one, the arrival of Covid-19.
In an interview with The countryThe actor explained about this stage: “I went through hell. It’s like someone said: ‘you’re doing well, ok, now you’re going to pay your toll.’
The next thing was that Cortada was trapped in Cuba without having a way to return to Spain because his status expired and he had to process new visas in the midst of the pandemic.
“In Cuba it was going down to the ninth circle of hell. I greeted Dante: ‘hello, how are you?, is everything alright?’”, he added.
Upon his return, the Cuban declared to the Spanish media: “I was in Cuba. I stopped working, because I left for some personal issues and things got more and more complicated. It got out of hand and I couldn’t leave the country for almost three years. It was a complicated situation. But I’ve come back strong.” His recent film is an example of this.
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