Jorge Perugorria (aka Pichi) was born on August 13, 1965 in Wajay, Havana. He is known as one of the most famous Cuban actors since his part as Diego in Strawberry and Chocolate (original title in Spanish Fresa y Chocolate (co-directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío). He recently acted in Steven Soderbergh’s Che, with Benicio del Toro. Today, he lives in Santa Fe, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana, with his wife Elsa Maria Lafuente de la Paz "Elbita" and their four children.
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Perrugorria studied civil engineering until he turned to theater. He played Shakespeare with the Olga Alonso troupe, and starred in The Glass Menagerie with the Ritan Mountainer troupe. In the early 1990s, Perugorria helped found Havana’s Public Theatre, which started with Jean Genet’s The Maids. In this play, Perugorria acted the difficult part of Clara, working on a real gestural dimension for this feminine character. And that led to his first opportunity in cinema.
Indeed, Perugorria played in several TV series or short films, but his first cinema success was Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate), in which he played the part of Diego, a gay young man who meets a straight university student named David. The movie, subtly dealing with tolerance and sexual politics, made Perugorria recognizable as one of Cuba’s most famous actor. From that moment, he has gone on to act in nearly 50 films, the most recent being Steven Soderbergh’s Che, and also directed a few of his own.