Guillermo "Willy" Toledo Monsalve (born 22 May 1970) is a Spanish actor and producer. Besides his stage career he is also noted as polemicist and for his

political activism Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fr ...

Biography

Guillermo Toledo Monsalve was born in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

on 22 May 1970, to a well-off family, son of a prestigious surgeon pioneer in thoracic surgery. He studied at the

Colegio Estilo Colegio Estilo is a private secular school in Madrid, Spain. It was founded in 1959 by Spanish writer Josefina Aldecoa, who was the Principal of Colegio Estilo for 52 years. The current Principal of Colegio Estilo is Susana Aldecoa. Colegio Estilo ...

El Viso El Viso is a village located in the province of Córdoba, Spain. According to the 2006 census (INE), the village has a population of 2,849 inhabitants. It is next to Belalcázar, Hinojosa del Duque, Villaralto Villaralto is located in the p ...

. He trained as actor in Spain and the United States. Together with

Alberto San Juan Alberto San Juan Guijarro (born 1 November 1968) is a Spanish film, stage and television actor. Biography Alberto San Juan was born on 1 November 1968 in Madrid, son to cartoonist and radio announcer Pilar Guijarro Ortiz de Zárate. He spen ...

Nathalie Poza Nathalie Poza Maupain (born 7 March 1972) is a Spanish actress. Her credits include '' Todas las mujeres'', ''Hispania, la leyenda'', ''Football Days'', '' Un lugar en el mundo'' and '' The Weakness of the Bolshevik''. Early life She was bor ...

and

Ernesto Alterio Ernesto Federico Alterio Bacaicoa (born 25 September 1970) is an Argentine-Spanish film, theatre, and television actor. Early life Alterio is the son of psychologist Modesta Ángela Bacaicoa Destéfano and actor Héctor Alterio Onorato. His ...

, Toledo founded in 1996 the theatrical group ''Ración de oreja'', which presented the theatrical staging ''Animalario''. ''Ración de oreja'' later merged with Andrés Lima's ''Riesgo'' to create the theatre company , named after ''Ración de orejas debut work. His

breakout role A breakthrough role, also known as a breakout role, is a term in the film industry to describe the performance of an actor or actress which contributed significantly to the development of their career and beginning of critical recognition. The si ...

came in 1999 with his performance as 'Richard' in the television series ''

7 Vidas ''7 Vidas'' is a Spanish sitcom which aired on Telecinco from 1999 to 2006. Its title translates as "7 lives" and the symbol of the sitcom is a cat, in reference to the belief that cats have 7 lives (in contrast to English-speaking countries, whe ...

'' from 1999 to 2002. His performance in the 2002 musical film ''

El otro lado de la cama ''The Other Side of the Bed'' ( es, El otro lado de la cama, links=no) a.k.a. ''The Wrong Side of the Bed'' is a 2002 Spanish musical comedy film directed by Emilio Martínez Lázaro and written by David Serrano, which stars Ernesto Alterio, Pa ...

'' earned him a nomination to the

Goya Award for Best New Actor The Goya Award for Best New Actor ( es, Premio Goya al mejor actor revelación, links=no) is one of the Goya Awards, Spain's principal national film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (s ...

, whereas his performance in

Álex de la Iglesia Alejandro "Álex" de la Iglesia Mendoza (born 4 December 1965) is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, producer and former comic book artist. De la Iglesia's films combine grotesque and very dark elements such as death and murder: most of his ...

's '' Crimen ferpecto'' (2004) earned him a nomination to the

Goya Award for Best Actor The Goya Award for Best Actor (Spanish: ''Premio Goya a la mejor interpretación masculina protagonista'') is one of the Goya Awards, Spain's principal national film awards. Actors that won or were nominated for this category have had a significa ...

. After years of an alleged "veto" of the Spanish film and TV industry on granting roles to Toledo, Toledo returned to fiction in the

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...

's series '' The Minions of Midas'', premiered in November 2019.

Activism

He was noted for his activism in Spain against the Iraq War and for his support to the Sahrawi liberation movement. Distinguished as deliverer of controversial statements and for the "disrespectful" way of defending them, he has also voiced himself in favour of the Cuban regime, against the

Spanish monarchy , coatofarms = File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Spanish_Monarch.svg , coatofarms_article = Coat of arms of the King of Spain , image = Felipe_VI_in_2020_(cropped).jpg , incumbent = Felipe VI , incumbentsince = 19 Ju ...

, against Podemos and against

La Sexta La Sexta (; "The Sixth"; stylized as laSexta) is a Spanish free-to-air television channel. It is privately owned and was originally founded on 18 March 2001 as Beca TV that began broadcasting on 1 April 2001, that same year. By 21 July 2003, the ...

. Toledo was arrested for allegedly causing "damage" during the . He was released and the case against him was closed. In November 2020, he was acquitted after being tried for blasphemy by the Catholic far-right lobby Abogados Cristianos, after writing a Facebook post "shitting on god and the virgin" as way of criticising the opening of oral proceedings against three women who in 2014 paraded a large vagina in Seville under the banner "The Unsubmissive Pussy".

Filmography

;Film

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Toledo, Willy 1970 births Living people Spanish male film actors Spanish male television actors Male actors from Madrid 20th-century Spanish male actors 21st-century Spanish male actors Anti–Iraq War activists Spanish male stage actors