Akademik

(1968- )

   Although relatively inactive in recent years, Jordi Mollá was one of the most promising performers of the 1990s. He was first noticed in the role of a young man with oedipal problems and an obsession with food and women in Bigas Luna's Jamón, Jamón (1992). This was the start of a series of consistently accomplished performances ranging from his shrill gay man in Perdona bonita pero Lucas me quería a mí (Sorry, Darling, But Lucas Loved Me, Dunia Ayaso and Félix Sabroso, 1997) to more contained ones in comedies and period dramas, as in La celestina (The Matchmaker, Gerardo Vera, 1996).

   In 1997, he won critical recognition in Ricardo Franco's La buena estrella (The Good Star, 1997). Mollá gave a raw, intense, sympathetic reading of a part that could easily have become either dull or caricaturesque of a young criminal with strong sexual magnetism. He was nominated for the Goya that year, but lost to the more restrained and central performance by Antonio Resines.

   After enjoyable parts as a student in Los años bárbaros (The Barbarian Years, Fernando Colomo, 1998); as Godoy, advisor to the King in the 19th century, in Volavérunt (Bigas Luna, 1999); and as a psychopathic criminal in Nadie conoce a nadie (No One Knows No One, Mateo Gil, 1999), he was featured as a closet homosexual in Gerardo Vera's Segunda piel (Second Skin, 1999). It was a misguided effort in a misguided film. The character was difficult to pin down, and Molla's unfocused combination of charm and psychopathy was hard to enjoy.

   With the new decade, he tried the international scene, participating in Blow (Ted Demme, 2001), his Hollywood debut; The Alamo (John Lee Hancock, 2004); the Peter Greenaway project The Tulse Luper Suitcases (2003-2004), and as King Philip II in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Shekhar Kapur, 2007), but he has yet to find another role that allows him the intensity and intelligence of his early career.

   Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema by Alberto Mira