It was in 2016 when The Colombian Kepa Amuchástegui embodied a Jorge Mario Bergoglioportraying its path to the Vatican. In the documentary The rebel Popeby Natgeo, the actor represented the adult version of Pope Francis.
Kepa Amuchástegui, who for years was known for his roles in Colombian theater and television, faced challenges in the last years of his career, due to the difficulty of getting acting papers. Pope Francis’s character was his last leading role.
In a Colombian production, Amuchástegui played Bergoglio from his early years as an adult in Argentina to his election as the high pontiff, on March 13, 2013, reflecting his proximity to believers and the depth of his faith.
In a detailed interview on the Kienyke portal, it was declared that, despite being atheist and not believing in the Catholic Church as an institution, he did find an interesting character and full of goodness, qualities that, according to him, only the Argentine Pope reflected.
Anyway you have to appreciate the character, Pope Francis is a wonderful being. His way of being, his love for humanity and everything he is doing to modify certain things seems fantastic to me. That facilitated things. More than believing in the Church as an institution, I believe in the goodness of the Argentine, said Amuchástegui for international media.
Kepa Amuchástegui highlighted: “I was baptized and all that, but after a few years I stopped believing. I don’t believe much in the story of the Church, in God, paradise or hell”. Despite this, he confessed that his role as an actor led him to enter the character, study him and put himself into his skin.
Directed by Patrick Ream, Natgeo’s documentary was released in 2016 to portray the life of Pope Francis. The actor stressed that it was a rigorous production in terms of perfection to be achieved with the project, Kienyke reported.
“The triple of the time was delayed that would normally have delayed, but for me, as an actor, it was very gratifying to see that the time needed to do something that was excellent” was allocated “he declared to international media.
Amuchástegui and the difficulties in getting papers
After his role in The rebel Popeactor Bogota faced difficulties in getting a role on television, since he suffered unemployment and lack of opportunities, a situation that attributed to working conditions in the acting field in Colombia.
“The years go by and we are becoming old, there are less and fewer characters for people of our age”he said in 2019.
The actor retired from the world of performance in 2024, after participating in Betty the ugly, the story continuesfrom Amazon Primedue to health problems. Despite his retirement, he maintained closeness with his audience through his YouTube channel, where he shared poetry and literary stories.
Finally, on April 28 of this year, the actor confessed that he had been diagnosed with cancer and that he underwent surgical intervention in December 2024. However, tests performed in January revealed that the tumor was malignant, which complicated his state of health.
Means like The millennium They detailed that the actor would undergo a treatment to delay the expansion of cancer, a situation that moved him away from the screen until the announcement of his death, this Wednesday, May 28.