Image Credit: Instagram, @ricky_martin
Fresh off his role as Dickie Alderman in Apple TV+’s Palm Royale, Ricky Martin is returning to the big screen for a major milestone: Hombre Al Agua, a surreal dramedy written and directed by Gael García Bernal.
The project marks the Latin music icon’s first fully Spanish-language acting role in over two decades, and he isn’t just acting—he’s executive producing, too.
The film follows Camilo (García Bernal), a Cuban lifeguard who saves a wealthy Mexican businessman named Abel (Jorge Salinas) from drowning. Abel brings Camilo to Mexico, installs him as his right-hand man, and marries him off to his daughter, Juana (Esmeralda Pimentel).
What starts as a dream quickly unravels into a dark web of political manipulation. In a meta twist, Martin plays Roby, a self-absorbed actor hired to play Camilo in an in-universe biopic funded by Juana.
García Bernal admitted that casting Martin felt like “too wild of an idea” at first, keeping the pop icon’s involvement secret until the release of the film’s trailer. Martin flew to Mérida, Yucatán, for a whirlwind one-day shoot and fell so in love with the surreal concept that he officially signed on as an executive producer.
Produced by La Corriente del Golfo – the production banner led by García Bernal and Diego Luna—the film features a stacked supporting cast including Manuel García-Rulfo and Natalia Oreiro. Following high-profile festival premieres at Venice and Toronto, Hombre Al Agua hits Mexican theaters on September 24, 2026.
