Gastón Pauls

In Nine Queens (2000), Gastón Pauls makes talking to Ricardo Darín look easy, though the plot gives both men plenty to keep straight. As Juan, the less experienced partner to Darín’s Marcos, he is alert without making their exchanges feel rehearsed. Director Fabián Bielinsky needs those conversations to carry a carefully plotted con-man thriller, and Pauls helps them sound like ordinary talk. We recommend the film with a reservation about its plotting; the partnership is a large part of why we forgive it.

Darín supplies the charm that makes dishonesty seem sociable, and his greed remains apparent beneath it. Pauls gives him a responsive partner rather than leaving him to entertain us alone. We laughed at the small swindles, then felt slightly ashamed of how readily we had enjoyed seeing people treated as sources of cash. That response depends on the pleasure of watching the pair together. Pauls deserves credit for helping to make their business agreeable without making the acting conspicuous.

Juan brought Pauls international recognition, but his subsequent work did not stay with the inexperienced-partner role. In Blessed by Fire (2005), he played Esteban Leguizamón across youth and middle age, a different task from keeping pace with Darín. Television’s Todos contra Juan (2008–2010) gave him Juan Perugia, and he also served as a producer. The later film work includes Nobody Knows I’m Here (2020). These parts make it worth looking beyond Juan, though the ease of the Bielinsky partnership remains our strongest reason to seek him out.

There is a risk of being taken for granted in the younger-partner roles with which Pauls has been associated. Making an exchange feel unrehearsed can look like doing less than the actor with the more obvious charm. Nor should that ease excuse everything: Nine Queens occasionally asks us to believe too much, however well the pair get on. Start there, but watch Pauls as closely as the man doing the charming.