Daniel Hendler

Daniel Hendler (born 3 January 1976) is a Uruguayan film, television, and theatre actor and director, who has mostly worked in Argentina.

Hendler made his feature film debut, starring as the protagonist, Ariel Goldstein, in Daniel Burman's Jewish-themed comedy drama, Waiting for the Messiah (2000), for which he was nominated for Breakthrough Actor by the Argentine Film Critics Association. Prominent roles followed in 25 Watts (2001) and he again worked with Burman in Todas las azafatas van al cielo (2002), Lost Embrace (2004) and Family Law (2006). For his role as Ariel Makaroff in Lost Embrace, he was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 54th Berlin International Film Festival. Hendler was nominated for Best Actor by the Argentine Film Critics Association for both Lost Embrace and Family Law. In 2003, he starred as protagonist and neurotic architect in Damián Szifron's film, Bottom of the Sea, receiving a nomination for Best Actor from the Argentine Film Critics Association.

Prominent roles followed in The Paranoids (2008), Phase 7 and the box office smash, Mi primera boda (2011). In 2012, he starred in the telenovela, Graduados, which became a phenomenon in Argentina. He reunited with Burman for Argentina's first original Netflix series, Edha (2014).

He later starred in The Lost Brother (2017) and The Intruder (2020). He starred in two seasons of the acclaimed Netflix comedy series, División Palermo (2023-2025) by Santiago Korovsky.

He made his debut as screenwriter and director with the film Norberto's Deadline in 2010. He has since written and directed A Loose End (2025) and 27 Nights (2025).

Hendler is part of the generation of actors who revitalized the Uruguayan cinema with films like 25 Watts,

Early life Hendler was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1976, to a Jewish family. He was raised in the Buceo, Pocitos and Cordón neighborhoods. His father was a merchant and his mother a keen theatergoer. He attended the Jewish school Escuela Integral and played basketball at Hebraica Macabi.

Atypically, he had two bar mitzvah ceremonies because his parents were separated since he was five years old. While he's Jewish, he's not religious and does not believe in God. At 14, he began doing theater with some friends.

He was assistant professor and head of drama at the Catholic University of Uruguay in Montevideo. In 1994, he started to train in acting. He, with a number of friends, created the theatre group "Acapara el 522" (Here-stops the 522), a sort of inside joke and pun where the bus line stop in his hometown. They appeared at the "Youth Contest of Theater in Montevideo", competing with over a hundred plays, and won, "Since then, we made five works, of which three were written and directed by me, another by a friend, and the other by Leo Maslíah, who is like a friend of the group," said Hendler.

Hendler spent almost five years in the University of Architecture of Montevideo, In 25 Watts, Hendler plays a youngster from a quiet neighborhood of Montevideo who wanders without a clear direction while at the same time has to study for a test of Italian and has a crush on his tutor. Filmed in 2000 with a very low budget, the film revitalized the Uruguayan film and aided by the awards received in Europe (Best Film at the International Film Festival Rotterdam) marked the beginning of a new stage in the film scene of that country. Almost ten years after its release, Hendler said in an interview, "It was a novelty to see a Uruguayan movie that didn't submit the mate, the Palacio Salvo, and the promenade as a justification for being, was a story of some neighborhood guys." a character by which would be recognized for several years later. Subsequently, Hendler won the Silver Bear for Best Actor in the Berlin International Film Festival for his work in Lost Embrace and Best Actor in the Lleida Latin-American Film Festival for Bottom of the Sea. In Bottom of the Sea (2003), Hendler plays a paranoid architecture student who pursues his girlfriend's psychoanalyst suspecting she's being unfaithful.

"There's a part that I like, no doubt, because if not, I wouldn't be involved in acting. What happens is that the popularity that comes to you is not always what you expect: you wanna be greeted when you feel like it. But I never suffered that, because I've never exceed the line of massive popularity. It is difficult to learn that the more love, the more shade. That is, there is no ideal popularity, we must assume it, in the same way that many people will love you, many people will reject you." source=—Hendler on popularity In addition to his brief role in Every Stewardess Goes to Heaven (playing a taxi driver), he has worked in Waiting for the Messiah (2000), Lost Embrace (2004), and Family Law (2005). In those three films his characters are named "Ariel", considered Burman's alter ego; this is most noticeable in Lost Embrace, where Hendler plays a young Jew who research his Polish ancestry to get a passport and emigrate to Europe, as did the director in real life.

Burman and Hendler met each other in 1998 when the first was visiting Uruguayan theatres with director Marco Bechis looking for an actor for Garage Olimpo. and in the same play, entitled The amateur, was Hendler. After Hendler performance, they did a casting in a bar with a digital camera, with Burman playing a Jew and Hendler a Nazi. Finally he didn't get the role for Garage Olimpo, but months later Burman called him to make Waiting for the Messiah.

In 2007, The Paranoids was released with Hendler playing Luciano, a hermit and repressed children's parties entertainer who is based on film's director Gabriel Medina, who met Hendler during the filming of Bottom of the Sea. The New York Times critic Stephen Holden wrote, "Yet for all his infuriatingly neurotic self-sabotage, Mr. Hendler makes Luciano such a lovable loser that you root for him to get over himself." while Boxoffice wrote, "Hendler captures the heart of Luciano's anxieties: his fear of success."

Following The Paranoids, Hendler made his first incursion on television appearing on an episode of the series Mujeres Asesinas ("Killer Women"), and in 2008 was seen on the comedy series Aquí no hay quien viva, playing a lazy janitor named Roman. "I wanted to bring myself to do television and, as time passed, not having traveled that path was increasingly weighing on me," said Hendler in an interview for Clarín.

His first work as writer and director was Norberto's Deadline (2010), about a shy and unemployed salesman named Norberto who start to study acting to gain confidence on himself. As screenwriter, he had previously collaborated on the script for Daniel Burman's El nido vacío (2008). The film was filmed in Uruguay and produced by both countries from the Río de la Plata, "The crew that I chose is my 'dream team'; it's the people I dreamed to work with, beyond nationality, and ended up being a very mixed team, a mixture from Uruguay and Argentina," said Hendler. He had never studied filmmaking before, he says, "Many times we begin with the assumption that the problem of film is on the technical knowledge, but the technical rules are the quickest to learn and the least you use. Experience in the use of certain resources is what gives you the possible solutions or shortcuts at the time of transporting to the screen what you imagined. The more knowledge you have, the easier you reach it, but 'the truths' about cinematic technique are the easiest to solve as a director. There were things I already knew how to do, and some others I didn't, and depend on what you're looking in each movie." By 2003, Hendler had started writing an ensemble story called "The Day Ends at 10," he dismissed the story but the characters were kept for another ensemble film, "The Move", which included a character named Norberto, a role that started to have more and more prominence, until the story finally became Norberto's Deadline.

Daniel Hendler played the character Andrés Goddzer in the 2012 telenovela Graduados, which proved a big success. He received a Tato Award and a Martín Fierro award for his work.

In addition to his work in film and TV, Hendler is also a stage actor, "That's where I think I feel more comfortable, where I feel that you're a real actor. On television and in film, you play to be an actor, but in theatre you're there, with all your implements," he said. The couple have two children together. 27 Nights (2025)

Awards and nominations

Year Award / Festival Category Work Result 1996 Cutcsa Prize – 13th Young Theatre Showcase Special distinction for text and visual proposal Crímenes y Resfríos Won 2000 Premios Morosoli Silver Morosoli (theatre work) — Won 2000 Clarín Awards Breakthrough Actor Waiting for the Messiah Won 2001 Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (BAFICI) Best Actor 25 Watts Won 2001 Asociación de Críticos de Cine del Uruguay (ACCU) Best Actor 25 Watts Won 2001 Argentine Film Critics Association Breakthrough Actor Waiting for the Messiah Nominated 2002 Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival Innovation Award Perro perdido Won 2002 Huesca International Film Festival Best New Director Perro perdido Won 2004 Lleida Latin-American Film Festival Best Actor Bottom of the Sea Won 2004 Berlin International Film Festival Silver Bear for Best Actor Lost Embrace Won 2004 Toulouse Latin American Film Festival Tribute Award — Won 2004 Argentine Film Critics Association Silver Condor Award for Best Actor Bottom of the Sea Nominated 2004 Clarín Awards Best Actor Lost Embrace Nominated 2005 Argentine Film Critics Association Silver Condor Award for Best Actor Lost Embrace Nominated 2006 Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences Awards Best Actor Family Law Nominated 2007 Argentine Film Critics Association Silver Condor Award for Best Actor Family Law Nominated 2008 Biarritz International Festival of Latin American Cinema Best Actor The Paranoids Won 2009 Lima Film Festival Best Actor The Paranoids Won 2009 San Sebastián International Film Festival TVE Award Norberto’s Deadline Won 2010 Premios Morosoli Silver Morosoli – Moving Image — Won 2010 Locarno International Film Festival Golden Leopard – Filmmakers of the Present Norberto’s Deadline Nominated 2011 Mexico City International Film Festival Best Screenplay Norberto’s Deadline Won 2011 BAFICI SIGNIS Award Norberto’s Deadline Won 2011 BAFICI Best Film Norberto’s Deadline Nominated 2011 Lume International Film Festival Best Film Norberto’s Deadline Nominated 2012 Tato Awards Best Actor in Fiction Graduados Won 2012 Argentine Film Critics Association Best Ibero-American Film Norberto’s Deadline Nominated 2013 Martín Fierro Awards Best Actor in a Telenovela Graduados Won 2016 ACCU Awards Best Director El candidato Nominated 2016 ACCU Awards Best Screenplay El candidato Nominated 2016 ACCU Awards Career Achievement Award — Won 2017 BAFICI Best Film El candidato Nominated 2017 Miami International Film Festival Best Director El candidato Won 2017 Havana Film Festival New York Best Screenplay El candidato Won 2018 Argentine Film Critics Association Best Ibero-American Film El candidato Nominated 2021 Argentine Film Critics Association Best Supporting Actor The Intruder Nominated 2025 Argentine Film Critics Association Silver Condor Award for Best Film A Loose End Nominated 2025 Martín Fierro Awards Best Actor in a television series Los mufas, suerte para la desgracia Nominated 2026 Argentine Film Critics Association Silver Condor Award for Best Actor 27 Nights Nominated 2026 Argentine Film Critics Association Silver Condor Award for Best Adapted Screenplay 27 Nights Nominated