In one of the year’s most buzzed about Hollywood films, SICARIO, meet one of the most dimensional rising Hollywood stars, actor Bernardo Saracino who portrays a character that could be plucked from the headlines – fictional cartel boss Manuel Díaz in the Lionsgate film. Rolling Stone reviewed, “In Spanish, “sicario” means “hitman.” In film terms, Sicario is sensational, the most gripping and tension-packed spin through America’s covert War on Drugs since Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic 15 years ago…”
Beverly Hills Magazine: What is your process as an actor?
Bernardo Saracino: I try to find the humanity in every character. I believe the human spirit is constant in each of us, and I find that spirit in each role as a way to relate and then translate the deep humanity in what has affected them up to the point in which I play them. Whether I portray a vicious criminal or a loving spouse, I think the human condition is always sparked by love or a lack of it. Once I understand them, then I just let the character flow through me. In Spanish we call it, “Duende,”…It means to let the spirit go through you.
Beverly Hills Magazine: What do you think of Hollywood?
Bernardo Saracino: I think the real Hollywood is made up of people who are working their butts off. There’s the Hollywood stereotype of partying hard, but the people who are professional artists and who are making things happen, they are working 16 hours a day. It’s inspiring. The fact is, no matter what you’re looking for in the world, you’ll find it. So it’s up to you, and what you want.
Beverly Hills Magazine: What’s your favorite part of the business?
Bernardo Saracino: Definitely the storytelling and being with other creative people who also want to tell a story. The powerful cohesiveness it takes to tell a story and get it done, just so a family 5 years from now can sit and enjoy the movie for 2 hours. It takes hundreds and hundreds of people to be able to create those moments for the people watching it. It’s amazing.
Beverly Hills Magazine: Worst part?
Bernardo Saracino: When a project wraps, there’s a certain mourning period as those relationships move on and then as an actor you’re on to the next project or audition in hopes of the next role. It can be feast or famine in this business.
Beverly Hills Magazine: Have you discovered your purpose in what you do?
Bernardo Saracino: I believe we all want to in some way change the world. And I truly do. I want to give faces to things that don’t have faces; to experiences or characters that people may never know in their own lives. I have a disabled sister who passed away and not many people will ever know she existed, but she lived. She suffered pain, she enjoyed laughter, and she endured the human experience. It’s not always pretty, it’s gritty and dirty. It’s not always as beautiful as Hollywood can package it to be sometimes, but the truth is perfection exists in your own existence. You are already perfect when you are born, you don’t have to strive for it.
Beverly Hills Magazine: Tell us about your role in the film.
Bernardo Saracino: I play a character named Manuel Diaz. Manuel is a prominent business owner in Arizona who is also a cartel leader – he operates out of the United States but is still in control of a major drug Cartel in Mexico. He is a family man – father, husband, very devoted to them; he also has the ability to impersonalize everything – he has a job to do, a family to feed and is able to operate in a place where work is impersonal.
“Sicario is a masterpiece in exposing mankind’s ability to see where they’d cast themselves in the battle of good vs. evil. It will take the viewer on a ride that will leave them haunted and questioning their own moral compass and discussing it weeks later,” he added.
For Saracino, Sicario is his latest role; having portrayed the youthful swagger of millennial’s with the intellect of old souls in previous roles. With his deep insight into the beautiful tragedy of life, Saracino brings to his characters a depth of empathy and sense of inner turmoil met with inner peace that makes us want to keep watching him. He has a natural ability to draw you into the innermost world of his characters, you’ll instantly want to understand them, whether you like them or not. We’re certain Bernardo Saracino has just begun his ascending journey as one of the newest rising Hollywood Stars.