Julian Fernandez as Beny Moré in The Lost City (2005)

The Lost City includes Beny Moré as a character, and Julian Fernandez is the actor credited with playing him. In a film about the nightlife of Havana in the last years of the 1950s, the part carries a particular weight. Moré was the voice that Cuban popular music of that decade is still measured against.

The film, directed by Andy García from a screenplay by G. Cabrera Infante, follows Fico Fellove, played by García himself. Fico owns El Trópico, Havana’s classiest music nightclub, and tries to hold his family together as the Batista regime gives way to Fidel Castro’s revolution. Its cast includes Inés Sastre, Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray. Fernandez’s Moré belongs to the music that surrounds Fico.

Who Beny Moré was

The man Fernandez had to evoke was born Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré in Santa Isabel de las Lajas, Cuba, on August 24, 1919. He died in Havana on February 19, 1963. He received no formal musical training. He was known as “el bárbaro del ritmo,” admired for the range and richness of his voice and his precise timing.

After years in Mexico he returned to Cuba in 1950 and formed his Banda Gigante in 1953. The band toured North America and the Caribbean. Among his songs are “Qué Bueno Baila Usted,” “Bonito y Sabroso” and “Dolor y Perdón.” He was a singer, bandleader and songwriter all at once, which made him a natural presence in a story set in a Havana music club.

Playing a legend in a small part

Moré is a supporting figure here, not a lead. The film’s story belongs to Fico and the Fellove family. The role is a portrait of a real artist inside a fictional family drama, and the job is to suggest a presence rather than tell a biography.

Moré’s own image helps. His established look was a wide-brimmed hat, long jackets, baggy pants tapered at the ankles, suspenders and a long, wide tie. A performer who evokes that silhouette on a nightclub stage tells an audience who he is without a line of dialogue.

Moré’s music also runs through the film. One commentator noted that the soundtrack features Beny Moré, Bola de Nieve, Rolando Laserie and nearly 20 other Cuban musical acts. The character of Moré sits inside that soundscape, and the film uses real recordings of the era for much of its musical identity.

The film around the role

The Lost City was called Andy Garcia’s love song to his homeland, and it was 16 years in the making. García wanted to put the music and glamour of pre-revolutionary Havana on screen, and Moré’s presence connects that ambition to a real figure. That is probably why a Cuban singer who died in 1963 is part of the story at all.

Reception was divided. TV Guide lists a Metascore of 47 for the film, and critics were split on its politics and pacing. Another writer called it a film of great moments and uneven quality, made for less than $10 million. The music and the period atmosphere drew the most consistent praise.

What came after

The Lost City remains the film in which Julian Fernandez is best recorded in the credits, as Beny Moré. Moré himself has never faded from Cuban music, and the film is one of the places where English-language audiences can meet him as a character. García went on to other projects. Deadline reported in October 2025 that he was returning to directing with Diamond, with Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray in the cast.

The header image is an AI-generated illustration, not an actual photo or film still.