The first official trailer for Gael García Bernal’s sports biopic Cassandro premiered online Tuesday (August 22) and from the looks of it, Bernal is headlining a narrative that movie audiences have never seen before.
The film tells the true story of Saúl Armendáriz (Bernal), a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, Texas, who rises to international stardom after he begins to perform in the ring as an “exótico” (wrestler in drag). When Saúl creates the character “Cassandro,” AKA “The Liberace of Lucha Libre,” he causes a major shakeup in the world of wrestling and in his own life.
In the opening of the trailer, we see Cassandro strutting around the center of the wrestling ring dressed in an ornate red and gold cape and a gold leotard and boots. Fans are cheering his name as he plays to the crowd.
The scene cuts to Cassandro, then known as Saúl, as a young boy watching wrestling with his father. Saúl explains that it was his father who got him into the sport as a kid. Now, a wrestler himself, Saúl is trying to make a name for himself, but isn’t taken seriously. Audiences also get a glimpse of Bad Bunny when he walks up to Saúl and asks him if he’s a wrestler. They seem to share a couple intimate moments together as they get to know each other.
When Saúl’s trainer and friend Sabrina (Roberta Colindrez) asks him if he’s ever thought about becoming an “exótico,” his entire imagination opens up to the possibilities it could bring to his career and how it could change his life.
Cassandro was directed by Academy Award winner Roger Ross Williams (Music by Prudence). It will premiere in select theaters on September 15, 2023, and will stream globally on Prime Video on September 22, 2023.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Cassandro being covered here wouldn’t exist.