NEW YORK, NY.- At 24, two years into a degree in physics, Daniel Gim閚ez Cacho received a casual invitation to attend a singing class. To the initial dismay of his engineer father, that unexpected offer derailed a planned career in science and ignited a lifelong zeal for performance.

“It was a physical discovery, a rebirth for my body,” Gim閚ez Cacho said in Spanish during a recent interview at a Mexican restaurant on historic Olvera Street in Los Angeles.

Born in Madrid but raised in the heart of Mexico City, the acclaimed actor, now 61, has amassed an eclectic list of credits displaying both his gravitas and comedic chops over nearly four decades.

Beginning Friday on Netflix, he can be seen as director Alejandro G. I襻rritu’s alter ego, Silverio Gama, in “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,” a dreamlike fantasia of personal and political ruminations.

After starting in theater, Gim閚ez Cacho found broader exposure via television in 1989 with the popular soap opera “Teresa,” opposite a young Salma Hayek in the title role.

At the time, only a handful of films were being produced in Mexico each year. But slowly, a young cohort of filmmakers started making waves with audacious narratives on screens big and small. The actor found himself running in the same artistic circles and growing his career parallel to those behind the camera.

Testament to his crucial role in laying the foundation for the emergence of the new Mexican cinema, Gim閚ez Cacho is the rare actor to have collaborated with each of the Mexican Oscar-winning directors collectively known as the Three Amigos: first Alfonso Cuar髇, then Guillermo del Toro and now I襻rritu. I襻rritu said with a boisterous laugh, “We should erect a statue of him because he is the only survivor of the Three Amigos.”

Outside of Mexico, he has been summoned by titans of cinema like Pedro Almod髒ar (“Bad Education”), Lucrecia Martel (“Zama”) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (“Memoria”).

I asked Cuar髇, del Toro and I襻rritu to recall their first meetings with the actor and experiences working with him.

Alfonso Cuar髇: ‘Not only a collaborator, but a co-creator.’

The actor and the director first met on the set of Luis Estrada’s “Camino Largo a Tijuana” (1988), where Cuar髇 was a producer and camera assistant.

Cuar髇 said he regretted that even though he was impressed with the actor’s precise, dancerlike body language, he didn’t immediately consider him to star in his first feature, the 1991 screwball comedy “S髄o Con Tu Pareja.”

“I was afraid that I hadn’t seen all the options, when in reality that was really dumb because the best option was in front of me,” Cuar髇 said by phone.

Gim閚ez Cacho wound up starring in the film, and Cuar髇 considers himself lucky. Recalling a dinner guest once likening the actor to Marcello Mastroianni in that he could inject levity into rather emotional dramas, the director explained that his debut feature “hinged on the performer; he had to carry the movie with humor and lightness.” Cuar髇 added, “Daniel became not only a collaborator, but a co-creator of what the movie ended up being.”

Gim閚ez Cacho remembers being hesitant. It was his first lead role in a film.

“I always had a lot of doubts” about the role of a philanderer whose antics catch up with him, Gim閚ez Cacho said. “I still have them, but now I’m 61. I had a lot of insecurity, so it was really nice to discover my comedic vein.”

After “S髄o Con Tu Pareja,” Cuar髇 encouraged Gim閚ez Cacho to try Hollywood and helped set up meetings with agents.

“I came but I thought, ‘This is not for me.’ They asked, ‘Do you want to be rich and famous?’ and I said, ‘I want to make great movies of which I can be proud,’” the actor recalled. “The people at William Morris Endeavor” — as it was known at the time — “sort of understood and they told me, ‘OK, go back to Mexico and we will send you things.’ That never happened, and I didn’t pursue it after.”

For his poignant road trip movie “Y Tu Mam� Tambi閚” a decade later, Cuar髇 wanted a male narrator to evoke those in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Masculin F閙inin” and “Band of Outsiders.”

As he searched for an objective voice to add ironic context, he considered someone with a Spanish accent and asked director Fernando Trueba to try.

Eventually, Cuar髇 enlisted Gim閚ez Cacho — even though he thought the actor’s tone might be too warm for the task — and was surprised by the organic match between voice and images. The actor recorded the text before ever seeing any footage.

“Daniel hadn’t come to mind because I was searching for voices, I wasn’t thinking of actors, and, again, that was a silly mistake,” Cuar髇 admitted. “He knew perfectly that he had to have a certain Brechtian distance but at the same time not make it dry.”




The actor said with a smirk: “I’ve never been his first choice. But once he doesn’t like anyone else, he has no choice but to say, ‘OK, let this cabr髇 do it.’”

Guillermo del Toro: ‘The best actor of our generation.’

A special effects makeup artist long before becoming a director, Del Toro first met Gim閚ez Cacho in 1990 while applying fake dirt and an artificial beard during the shooting of Nicol醩 Echevarr韆’s desert period piece, “Cabeza de Vaca.”

With incisive curiosity, Gim閚ez Cacho asked del Toro detailed questions about the transformation process. The future auteur realized the actor had an obsessive commitment to every aspect of his work, something he could relate to. The two became instant friends.

Del Toro nicknamed him el Ni駉 Sapo (the Toad Kid), recognizing a kindred otherness in Gim閚ez Cacho. “We would say we were a pair of freaks,” the filmmaker recalled via video call. Not long after, del Toro would craft a replica of the actor’s arm for a scene in Cuar髇’s “S髄o Con Tu Pareja.”

Early on in the actor’s career, del Toro said, he and filmmaking peers like Estrada, Cuar髇 and Carlos Marcovich “all agreed that he was the best actor of our generation — and I still think that.”

Based on their relationship, and the actor’s work with the vanguard theater group El Milagro, del Toro offered him the now emblematic role of Tito, a foul-mouthed yet dedicated mortician in his debut feature, “Cronos” (1994).

“I’m so grateful he invited me to do this small role in ‘Cronos,’ because even if it’s a bit part, it was a really shiny, memorable one,” Gim閚ez Cacho said.

Today, after more than 30 years of friendship, del Toro marvels at how the intensity of Gim閚ez Cacho’s youth has evolved into an admirable humbleness considering his talent.

“There’s a gift that some actors have, which cannot be cultivated, which is that the camera follows them, the audience is attentive,” the director said. “That’s a virtue that Daniel has.”

Alejandro G. I襻rritu: ‘I knew he’d make my job easy.’

It was at a party after the Los Angeles premiere of Cuar髇’s “Great Expectations” in 1998 that Gim閚ez Cacho and I襻rritu first intersected. But it would take a long time before a film partnership would emerge.

I襻rritu described their first meeting about “Bardo” as a “cosmic connection.” A shared affinity for meditation and a mutual understanding of their similar inner journeys became the unconventional foundation of their work together.

While I襻rritu hadn’t written the role of Silverio Gama with a particular actor in mind, he knew Gim閚ez Cacho would nail it even before he had read a single page of the screenplay.

“I realized he was in the same place as me on a personal level, philosophically, spiritually and intellectually,” I襻rritu said during a video call. “Beyond his artistic gifts, which are plenty, I knew he’d make my job easy because he shared the sensibility of what I was looking for.”

Although I襻rritu poured intimate details from his own recollections into Silverio, a documentary filmmaker navigating both his mortality and his Mexican identity in fanciful vignettes, he saw the character as a fictional entity, not an exact reflection of himself.

The director asked his star not to react to the situations, but only to observe: The goal was a dissonance between Silverio and the bizarre world around him because the story is told from the character’s consciousness within a dream.

That search for identity resonated with Gim閚ez Cacho, who in the early 2000s tried to establish a career in Spain only to discover he couldn’t see himself as anything other than Mexican. Inhabiting Silverio, he didn’t impersonate I襻rritu but channeled his own concerns and questions.

“What I do with every character is bring to it what I am, my experiences and my memories, but even more so here,” Gim閚ez Cacho said. “Since the character wasn’t designed, I had to try to find him within me.”

The actor communicates through his penetrating gaze and the hyper-sensual body movement on display in a scene set to David Bowie’s isolated vocals in “Let’s Dance.”

I襻rritu likens Gim閚ez Cacho to British actor Peter Sellers for the flexibility of his range, and describes him as a haiku incarnate because with minimal modulation he can achieve maximum emotion.

“In ‘Bardo’ he does what few actors are capable of doing, which is to erase the artifice of acting to reach the essence and the presence of something honest and truthful,” I襻rritu said. “You need a lot of inner confidence for that. That’s the highest peak in acting.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.