Gael García Bernal is in Cannes to help get the word out on his latest movie, No, a gripping (if un-Google-able) drama about the campaign that brought down Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1988. More on that soon, but while we were in Bernal’s presence we asked for an update on two other projects he’s linked to: rapier-slashing reboot Zorro Reborn and Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating epic, Silence.
**Zorro **would be a change of pace for Bernal, given that his IMDb page is currently devoid of Hollywood blockbusters. Is he worried he might be selling out? “You know, I feel like an outsider now, more than ever,” he says. “I make career deisions that are not necessarily in accord with the expected narrative. But I don’t want to be the boring guy that always says, ‘I don’t want to do a commercial movie”, so I might challenge that by doing one! Why not?”
That said, Zorro’s rebirth is far from a sure thing. While some online sites are reporting that South American director Ricardo de Montreuil has the job, Bernal says, “There’s no start date and I don’t think there’s a director yet. I don’t know if it will happen.”
And he’s just as unsure about Silence, the tale of a missionary sent to the Far East which Scorsese has been trying to get off the ground for over a decade. The director has picked The Wolf Of Wall Street, with Leonardo DiCaprio, to do next, but Bernal says he and Scorsese are still in contact about their possible collaboration.
“It’s about Jesuit priests in Japan in the 18th century. A lot of emotion. A lot of martrydom. We are still talking about it and they are getting the money together. It is an expensive film, so I don’t know if they will manage it. I really hope they do.”