Roger Príncep

Simón’s imaginary friends are troubling in The Orphanage (2007) because Roger Príncep makes the child himself so credible. He plays the vulnerability directly, giving J. A. Bayona room to make ordinary childhood innocence feel unsettling. We were uneasy watching him because his vulnerability makes those imaginary companions harder to dismiss as harmless play. It is good child acting, and it helps the familiar business of imaginary friends retain the power to frighten.

Belén Rueda’s distress is what makes the ghost story work, and Príncep can hold a scene opposite her without competing for our attention. His quiet intensity matters here; a more conspicuous performance could have made the child feel like another piece of horror machinery. Bayona gets useful work from that emotional directness, even when the storytelling needs a firmer hand. The middle needs tightening, but we recommend the film for the feeling these performances make convincing.

Working with established actors was a feature of the early parts that followed. In José Luis Cuerda’s The Blind Sunflowers (2008), he played Lorenzo alongside Javier Cámara and Maribel Verdú. His other child roles included Manuel in Ventura Pons’s Forasters (2008) and Miguel in Paper Birds (2010). These parts gave him experience beyond the ghost story, though they offer no reason to expect every subsequent role to reproduce Simón’s particular mixture of innocence and unease.

Work slowed during adolescence, when the available parts left him between age brackets. He later returned to features and television, including playing Nico in Regreso a Las Sabinas (2024), though his reputation remains chiefly attached to Simón and the adult roles have received less critical attention. We would be cautious about grand claims for either his development or his limitations on that basis. Start with The Orphanage, but judge the adult actor without expecting him to remain that boy.