Steven Bauer makes a persuasive man to have at a criminal’s side. We rate his ability to support a forceful lead without disappearing, though the succession of lieutenants and cartel figures has given him familiar work rather too often.
Fi1m perspective
Al Pacino’s ferocity in Scarface (1983) gives Steven Bauer plenty to contend with. As Manny, Tony Montana’s loyal lieutenant, Bauer helps make the criminal company around the leading man credible. His grounded delivery gives us someone believable beside a leading performance with little interest in restraint. We rate him as an ensemble actor who can hold our attention without disrupting what the lead is doing.
We were gripped by Scarface, and Bauer’s persuasive work as the man Tony trusts helped keep us there. Brian De Palma’s film has stretches of unnecessary insistence, but its vulgarity serves its account of criminal ambition. The Miami Cuban experience Bauer brings to Manny is useful here: it gives a deliberately excessive film a little everyday credibility. Manny was his breakthrough and remains his defining part, though the subsequent run of henchmen and crime-film supporting roles suggests how narrowly that success was understood.
The path from Joe Peña in the bilingual sitcom ¿Qué Pasa, USA? (1977–1979) to those crime roles is worth remembering. The later casting can make the career look more uniform than its beginnings suggest. Traffic (2000) gave him another crime-drama ensemble, as Carlos Ayala, before television again gave him continuing roles. Don Eladio in Breaking Bad (2011), reprised in Better Call Saul (2017–2022), cast him as a cartel leader rather than a lieutenant.
Ray Donovan (2013–2017) returned him to the trusted associate’s job as Avi Rudin, alongside Liev Schreiber. Such work suits his ability to support a strong lead, but familiarity is also the reservation: being convincing in these roles does not make each casting decision interesting. We would like to see more parts that ask something other than criminal competence of him. For a starting point, choose Scarface, with patience for De Palma’s excesses and some attention left over from Pacino.
Biography
Steven Bauer is a Cuban-American actor. Born Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson on 2 December 1956 in Havana, Cuba, his family emigrated to Miami, Florida, in 1960. He began his career on the PBS sitcom ¿Qué Pasa, USA? (1977–1979) and studied acting at the University of Miami and with Stella Adler in New York.
Bauer is best known for playing Manolo "Manny" Ribera in the 1983 film Scarface, a performance that earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He has since appeared in films including Traffic (2000) and television series such as Breaking Bad (2011) as Don Eladio Vuente, its spin-off Better Call Saul (2017–2022) in the same role, and Ray Donovan (2013–2020) as Avi Rudin.
