Alfonso Cuarón’s Mexican film Roma is so good it crossed over to the United States to lead the Oscars race with 10 Academy Award nominations. But one of its featured actors, Jorge A. Guerrero, will probably miss out on the U.S. awards season altogether. He can’t get a visa.

Guerrero, who skillfully plays the scene-stealing Fermín in the film, says he has been rejected three times in his request for visa to legally travel to the States, despite having recommendation letters from an executive at Netflix and Oscar winner Cuarón. One of the times, the US Embassy in Ciudad de Mexico thought he was applying for a worker’s permit. They didn’t know he was an actor applying for a travel visa, Guerrero told reporters.

The 31-year-old actor and master of kung fu told Mexican morning variety show De Primera Mano that he hasn’t been given a specific reason for the denials. “All they say is that I haven’t been approved,” Guerrero explained. “The last time I went with the letters, they basically just gave it right back to me and rejected me right away.”

“The letters don’t really have much of an impact on my application if you refuse to read them,” he added. “But I get it. It’s part of the process. And maybe I’ve been getting people that happen to be having a bad day or something.”

In the film, Guerrero plays the love interest turned antagonist of Academy Award-nominated actress Yalitza Aparicio. His character Fermín is training to join a paramilitary group known as Los Halcones.

The passive-aggressive Fermín allowed Guerrero to show off some his kung fu training. Guerrero said he’d been studying kung fu for more than seven years before the role.

The Oscars takes place February 24.

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