For more than a decade, Marcus Ornellas built his career as one of Mexican television's most recognizable leading men. Since making his acting debut after leaving Brazil for Mexico, the actor has become a familiar face in telenovelas including El precio de amarte (2024), Eternamente amándonos (2023), Mujer de nadie (2022), and Si nos dejan (2021). and, most recently, Doménica Montero. Off-screen, he is equally well known as one half of one of Mexico's favorite celebrity couples, alongside actress Ariadne Díaz, with whom he shares a son.
His latest role couldn't be further from that polished image.
In ViX's Una Familia Complicada, Ornellas plays Arsenio Navarro, a man whose compulsive gambling addiction has left him drowning in debt and bad decisions. A member of the influential Navarro family, Arsenio constantly disappoints the people who love him most, becoming one of the emotional centers of a series that examines addiction, generational trauma, and the impossible expectations families place on one another.
For Ornellas, that complexity was irresistible.
"I always try to find characters that are different," the actor told this reporter. "Even when I play characters that may seem similar, I try to move away from what I've done before. That's the magic of this profession, being able to explore the diversity of human beings."
He doesn't hesitate when asked where Arsenio ranks among the dozens of characters he has played.
"Without a doubt, he's in my top three," Ornellas said. "Those are the characters that let you throw yourself into the void. You can play so much more because they don't have limits."
That freedom is evident from the moment Arsenio appears on screen. Gone is the clean-cut romantic hero audiences have come to expect. Instead, Ornellas wears an overgrown beard and mustache that reflect a man who has slowly given up on himself.
"The beard was my idea from the beginning," he explained. "Originally, I wanted an even bigger mustache, but production preferred the beard. I wanted him to look like someone who has many shortcomings, someone who's neglected himself and is hiding behind all that hair."
The physical transformation was only part of becoming Arsenio.
The actor says the character's gambling addiction immediately resonated because it reflects a growing problem in real life.
"It's such a current issue, especially today with so many online betting platforms," Ornellas said. "Unfortunately, I know people who are addicted to gambling. It's a very serious problem."
Ironically, he says he has never been tempted to bet on himself.
"Fortunately, Arsenio and I are very different," he said with a laugh after being teased about wagering on soccer matches. "I don't gamble."
Premiering on ViX, Una Familia Complicada centers on the wealthy Navarro family after the death of patriarch Alberto Navarro forces each family member to confront long-buried secrets. At the center of the storm is Telma Orozco de Navarro, played by Oscar nominee Adriana Barraza, whose fierce determination to protect her family often causes as much damage as it prevents. The ensemble also includes Marco Treviño, Marisol del Olmo, Mayra Batalla, Eduardo Maruri, Oka Giner and Alberto Estrella.
Working opposite Barraza proved to be one of the highlights of the project for Ornellas, even if it meant enduring repeated slaps from one of Mexico's most respected actresses.
"Poor Marcus," Barraza joked during the interview. "Every scene we had together I slapped him. I'd tell him, 'Marcus, I'm sorry. Here I come again.'"
Ornellas embraced every take.
"I'd tell Adriana, 'Don't hold back. Arsenio deserves it,'" he recalled. "Working with her for the first time was wonderful. She's extraordinary."
Barraza, whose career spans acclaimed films including Babel and Amores Perros as well as Hollywood productions such as Blue Beetle, believes audiences will recognize pieces of their own families in the Navarros.
"I think people are going to identify with these characters," she told Latin Times. "These things really happen inside families. Sometimes you'll think, 'How can she treat her children that way?' But she believes she's helping them according to her own way of thinking."
The veteran actress even sees shades of her own upbringing in Telma.
"I grew up with two grandmothers who were completely different," Barraza recalled. "One would tell me to lower my skirt because it was too short, while the other would say to raise it because that's what was fashionable. I lived with those contradictions."
Those contradictions are precisely what drew both actors to the project. Rather than presenting heroes and villains, Una Familia Complicada explores how love, guilt and obligation become tangled inside a family where everyone believes they're acting for the right reasons.
"It's very easy for people to identify with someone in this family," Ornellas said. "Sometimes it's easier to recognize your own mistakes when you see them in somebody else."
For an actor whose career was built playing desirable leading men, Arsenio represents something much more satisfying: a man who is broken, frustrating and painfully human.
Those are exactly the roles Marcus Ornellas hopes audiences remember him for next.
