El coraje del pueblo worked with untrained actors, many of them peasants themselves.
Andrei was played by Gabriel Huian (untrained actor, previously appearing in a video clip that caught the director's attention).
He regularly uses untrained actors.
(They often have musically untrained actors taught to perform complex compositions.)
He assembled a group of young, untrained actors, described the outlines of a scene, and told them to improvise.
Eleven year old Greg Rowe was an untrained actor, selected over 70 other applicants.
The untrained actors echo the screenplay's naturalism, and they have none of the feral posturing that often makes tough teen-agers seem glamorous on screen.
Yet students who have completed expensive training face the same difficulties as an untrained actor in qualifying for an Equity card.
Mr. Velasquez, who plays a character named Jonathan, is the prettiest and most prominently featured of the movie's untrained actors, all playing versions of themselves.
David Speck, who plays the younger brother in the film, was also an untrained actor.