A multilingual actor who is primarily based in Spain, Sergi Lopez left high school as a teenager to pursue theatre. He received professional training in Barcelona and France, and soon began performing on stage. His first step into cinema was in 1992, playing the protagonist in French director Manuel Poirier's racially charged drama "Antonio's Girlfriend," which garnered widespread praise from critics. Lopez teamed up with the same Poirier again for Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize-winner "Western," a buddy road movie set in France. Lopez's talent as a leading man was again highlighted in the romantic drama "Une liaison pornographique," another French film which brought Lopez international acclaim. Broadening the scope of his oeuvre, Lopez took a role in the poetic mystery thriller "With a Friend Like Harry..." and continued to star in disparate, major European films, including a notable turn opposite starlet Audrey Tautou in the dark thriller "Dirty Pretty Things." After his numerous critical successes in the 1990s, Lopez continued to take the lead in romantic and comedic films during the first half of the next decade, but eventually broke stride for Guillermo del Toro's hugely successful fantasy film "Pan's Labyrinth," which found the actor in an uncharacteristically villainous role.