LEONOR VARELA (Kella)
Leonor Varela made a strong first impression on American audiences in 1999, when she reclined across the monumental billboards advertising the epic ABC mini-series Cleopatra. Varela beat out thirty-five other actresses to win the title role in the critically acclaimed Robert Halmi, Sr. production, co-starring with Timothy Dalton (Julius Caesar) and Billy Zane (Marc Anthony). Daily Variety called Varela "a true find, inhabiting the role with a smoldering gusto born of defiant confidence." Varela was next seen in a blistering action role, kicking butt opposite Wesley Snipes in the New Line film BLADE II (2002), directed by Guillermo del Toro. She portrayed "Nyssa," the daughter of Blade's deadliest enemy, who approaches the vampire slayer to negotiate a truce.

Born in Santiago, Chile, of Chilean/French parentage, Varela had an international childhood with sojourns in Paris, Costa Rica, Germany, Chile and the U.S.  Fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Italian, she studied acting at Neils Arestrup's Ecole de Passage and the Conservatoire Superieur in Paris. She is currently studying with Ivana Chubbuck.

Varela's career has developed simultaneously in Spanish-, French-, and English-language productions. She is well-known to South American audiences for her starring role in the Chilean television series Tic-Tac (1997), and she both produced and starred in Nicolás Acuña's critically praised Chilean feature Paraíso B (2002).

Varela has appeared in several television projects and six feature films in France since making her French-language debut in Graham Guit's Le Ciel Est Á Nous (1997). Her French film vehicles include Philippe de Chauveron's Les Parasites (1999), John Lvoff's Les Infortunes De La Beauté (1999), with Arielle Dombasle and Maria de Medeiros, and Bernard Rapp's Pas Si Grave (2003). Varela's most prominent French role to date was the female lead, opposite superstars Jean Reno and Gérard Depardieu, in Francis Veber's blockbuster comedy, Tais-Toi! (2003). Varela played a double role, portraying both the love of Reno's life and the illegal Albanian immigrant he grooms as her replacement.

Varela has demonstrated her versatility in several major Hollywood productions, including Randall Wallace's The Man In The Iron Mask (1998), with Leonardo DiCaprio; John Boorman's The Tailor Of Panama (2001), with Pierce Brosnan and Geoffrey Rush; and Steve Miner's Texas Rangers (2001), with James Van Der Beek and Ashton Kutcher. She played the recurring role of "Marta" in the 2003 season of the groundbreaking comedy series, Arrested Development (2003), and will next be seen in a leading role in Kevin Noland's Americano (2004), co-starring with Joshua Jackson and Dennis Hopper.

CARLOS PADILLA LEÑERO (Chava)
Carlos Padilla Leñero was born in Mexico City where he got his start at the age of five making TV commercials. A year later, he won roles in the soap operas, El Amor De Mi Vida and Las Tres Sofías. At the age of ten, he got his first starring role in the motion picture, Innocent Voices. He lives with his family in Mexico City and is in the fourth grade.

GUSTAVO MUÑOZ (Ancha)
Gustavo Muñoz studied contemporary and acrobatic dance, ballet, clown art and acting at the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). He found a unique way to combine the different acquired disciplines creating a new scenic language, using emotion and movement as tools of expression. He worked in Theatrical Groups such as Utopía Dance and Theater, Asalto-diario, Piel de Salmón, Me-xih-co A.C., The National Theater Company and Raus Circus. He participated in Alejandro González Iñarritu's Amores Perros (2000) and Fernando Aparicio's El Mago (2004). Gustavo Muñoz passed away the 7th of March 2004, two weeks after Innocent Voices was finished shooting.

JOSÉ MARÍA YAZPIK (Uncle Beto)
José María Yazpik lived in Mexico City until he was twelve and then moved to San Diego with his family. After high school he decamped to Tijuana to attend law school; upon graduation he dove into an acting career. After studying at the Centro de Estudios de Actuacion de Televisa (CEA), he did most of his early work on television, in everything from conventional telenovelas to major productions such as Jorge Fons's Cara O Cruz (2002).

On the big screen he has appeared in Walter Doehner's La Habitación Azul (2002), Hugo RodrÍguez's Nicotina (2003), Carlos Sama's Sin Ton Ni Sonia (2003), Tiro De Gracia (2003), written and directed by his Innocent Voices co-star Jesús Ochoa, and Sebastián Cordero's Crónicas (2004).

Yazpik has also performed in several plays and in 2002 won the prize for the Best Comic Actor from the Mexican Association of Theater Critics.

OFELIA MEDINA (Mama Toya)
A legend in Mexican cinema circles, Ofelia Medina was born in Mérida, Yucatan, and later moved to Mexico City where she enrolled in the Mexican Dance Academy (INBA). She had the opportunity to meet theater director, Alejandro Jodorowski, with whom she founded the first Children's Pantomime Group in Mexico in 1967, subsequently starring with him in a show called H3O. Later she traveled to New York to study at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and to Denmark to perform with the Odin Theater Company.

Medina made her movie debut in 1968 in Wolf Rilla's semi-improvised, Pax?, filmed in and around the Mexico City Olympic games. She had her first starring role in Manuel Michel's Patsy, Mi Amor (1968) and also appeared in Jeremy Paul Kagan's The Big Fix (1978); as painter, Frida Kahlo, in Paul Leduc's Frida, Naturaleza Viva (1986); Matilde Landeta's Nocturno A Rosario (1992); and Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls (2000).

For the past ten years, Ofelia Medina has dedicated herself to improving living conditions in rural communities in Mexico.

DANIEL GIMÉNEZ CACHO (Priest)
Long associated with some of Mexican cinema's boldest talents and most innovative projects, Daniel Giménez Cacho graduated from the Philosophy and Literature School at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He has performed on the stage in ten different countries in South America and Europe.

Cacho's film credits include such national and international productions as Nicolás Echevarría's Cabeza De Vaca (1991), Alfonso Cuarón's Sólo Con Tu Pareja (1991), Jorge Fons's Midaq Alley (1995), and Agustín Díaz Yanes's Nadie Hablará De Nosotras Cuando Hayamos Muerto (1995). His imposing baritone was heard as the narrator of Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También (2001).

Cacho has won several awards: an Ariel in 1993 as Best Supporting Actor for Guillermo del Toro's Cronos, and Best Actor Ariels for both Arturo Ripstein's Profundo Carmesí (1996) and Agustí Villaronga's Aro Tolbukhin. En La Mente Del Asesino (2002), Mexico's selection for the 2002 Oscars®, which was also produced by Altavista Films. In 2004, he was seen with Gael GarcÍa Bernal in Pedro Almodóvar's La Mala Educaión.

JESÚS OCHOA (Bus Driver)
Jesús Ochoa graduated from El Instituto de Arte Escénico in Sonora, Mexico, and studied widely thereafter in Mexico and Europe. His acting career began in television with the program, La Tuba De Hoya Trejo. His very extensive theater career began with El Jefe Máximo in 1991, and he made his film debut in José Luis García Agraz's Desiertos Mares in 1995.

Ochoa played one of the title roles in Sabina Berman and Isabelle Tardán's Entre Pancho Villa Y Una Mujer Desnuda (1996) and has appeared in El Segundo Aire (2001), Ciudades Oscuras (2002), Nicotina (2003), Ladies' Night (2003), Man On Fire (2004), Zapato (2004), and La Sombra Del Sahuaro (2004). He also wrote and directed Tiro De Gracia (2003), in which he co-starred with Innocent Voices's José María Yazpik.