Jorge de Juan

Early life and education

Jorge de Juan was born into a very artistic family in Cartagena, Spain, in 1961. At the age of 17 he decided to be an actor and entered the Royal School of Dramatic Art of Madrid in 1978, graduating three years later.

In 1979 he made his full debut, when he was still at the school, in Five hours with Mario, directed by Josefina Molina in the Theatre Marquina, Madrid. Then Miguel Narros cast him in Macbeth at the Teatro Español de Madrid.

In 1981 Jorge de Juan moved to London where he studied direction and production at the British Theatre Association. Michael McCallion was his voice teacher; he had classes with Clifford Williams and David Perry. Around the same time, he assisted Ian McKellen in directing Acting Shakespeare, at Teatro Español de Madrid.

Career

On his return to Spain in 1982, Jaime Chávarri, cast him in what would be his debut film, Bicycles Are for the Summer', and at the same time he was called by José Luis Gómez to appear in the very successful Oedipus Rex, directed by Stavros Doufexis.

Since then, Jorge de Juan has combined his work as an actor and producer in both theatre and film, and in the past decade as a director,too. He produced and performed in Kiss of the Spider Woman, directed by Felipe Vega.

From 1998, the success of the play The Woman in Black led him to perform it more than 400 times with Emilio Gutiérrez Caba. He produced the same play, in 2007, again appearing with Caba, and directed by Eduardo Bazo. They repeated their former success and reached a thousand shows over the two productions.

In 2009, he produced, co-directed and starred in the play The 39 Steps, in his own version of Patrick Barlow's adaptation of the Hitchcock classic. In 2012 he starred in Hay que Deshacer la Casa, in which Andoni Ferreño played the lead. And he starred in, produced and directed the second run of his The 39 Steps.

As a film and television actor his credits include a total of 36 films and TV series, with roles in El Mejor de los Tiempos, Nadie como tú, Manos de Seda, Aquitania, Otra Ciudad, La sombra de Caín, and Imaginario, amongst others. Then in Spanish or English, there have been Open your Eyes, One of the Hollywood Ten, Talk of Angels, Beltenebros, Las Razones de mis Amigos, and Bicycles Are for the Summer, etc.

Jorge de Juan was awarded the Francisco Rabal Film award for his starring role in El Mejor de los Tiempos by Vega, (winner of the San Sebastián International Film Festival). Furthermore, he received the Billboard Turia Theatre Award in 1998 for his performance in The Woman in Black'.

One of his most significant achievements was being the director of El Palenque in the Seville Expo '92 For three and a half years he coordinated the construction and design of the 10,000 square metres (110,000 sq ft) space, its programming, its staffing and management, the booking of shows. At the same time, he developed a specific plan of operations for the Expo period. Under his direction over a period of six months there were 1,162 performances, as well as official events for the 110 countries involved, their government agencies and businesses. He was personally responsible for receiving kings, heads of states, prime ministers, ministers and other personalities.

As a result of all this experience he created El Palenque Productions SL in Valencia with the aim of developing film and theatre projects. Their first jobs were the short film M de Amor and the production of the Miradas series: 48 30-minute episodes on different topics to do with the Valencian community, commissioned by the Government of Valencia.

He wrote and produced the feature film Bala Perdida starring David Carradine and Juanjo Puigcorbé. It was awarded Best Feature Film and Best Soundtrack at the Mostra de Valencia Cinema. Furthermore, he co-produced the feature film Imaginario with Dexiderius Productions. He was also associate producer on the film Kordon by Serbian director Goran Markovic (Montreal International Film Festival, The New Directors Award at the Montpellier Festival, Special Prize Festival Jury Orense).

More recently he co-directed and produced the theatre hit End of the Rainbow by Peter Quilter in the Marquina theatre in Madrid. Next he was the executive producer and co-director of Dracula.

He is a former member of the Board of Directors of AISGE (Management Society for Actors and Performers' Rights) and a former patron of the Foundation AISGE. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences of Spain. On two occasions, he was a member of the Expert Committee of the Ministry of Culture.

He now lives in London, where he is the artistic director of Spanish Theatre Company.

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Director and Producer

Awards

Semana de cine español de Murcia