Fresh off his victorious Super Bowl half-time show, Bad Bunny will take on his first lead acting role. The rapper and sometime actor will star in Porto Rico, a love letter to his home of Puerto Rico directed by the veteran rapper René “Residente” Pérez Joglar.

As announced by Deadline, the film boasts a starry cast including Viggo Mortensen, Javier Bardem and Edward Norton, as well as executive producer Alejandro G Iñárritu, director of Birdman and The Revenant.

The project has been in the works since 2023, when it was announced as a historical drama centering on the life of José Maldonado Román, a late 19th and early 20th century revolutionary. Known as Águila Blanca (White Eagle), Maldonado Román fought against Spanish colonizers on the island and led uprisings against the authorities.

In 1897, Maldonado Román participated in the Yauco Uprising as one of about 300 rebels who aimed to storm the barracks of the Spanish civil guard. It marked the first time that the modern Puerto Rican flag was publicly raised on the island. With a reputation as a bandit, he was imprisoned for his political actions multiple times between 1898 and 1909, yet his skill at escaping from jail led him to be known as a “magician”.

Upon the film’s initial announcement in 2023, a press release promised that the production will “blend historical scope with a visceral, lyrical approach and a gripping narrative inspired by true events”.

“I have dreamed of making a film about my country since I was a child. Puerto Rico’s true history has always been surrounded by controversy,” Residente told Deadline. “This film is a reaffirmation of who we are – told with the intensity and honesty that our history deserves.”

Bad Bunny has appeared in multiple supporting roles over the past decade, but Porto Rico marks his biggest film project to date. In 2022, he starred in the action thriller Bullet Train as a gang leader who faces off with Brad Pitt in a bloody knife fight. Last year, he appeared in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing as (another) gang leader who threatens to shoot Austin Butler.

“This film sits in a tradition of films we deeply love, from The Godfather to Gangs of New York, that both thrill us with visceral drama and iconic characters and eras while also forcing us to face up to the shadow story under the American narrative of idealism,” Norton said. “Everybody knows what a poet of language and rhythm René is. Now they’re going to see what a visual visionary he is as well. And bringing him and Bad Bunny together to tell the true story of Puerto Rico’s roots is going to be like a flame finding the stick of dynamite that’s been waiting for it.”

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time show drew 128.2 million viewers on 8 February and set a record for social media views, with over 4 billion people watching clips of the performance on social media. In the Guardian’s review, Stefanie Fernández described the show as “a dizzying reminder of the many pantheons of Puerto Rican legends … that Benito is succeeding and never letting history forget.”