Manuel Jesús Fernández Serrano was born in Algeciras on 11 January 1964. His parents were teachers. His father died when he was a toddler. He was raised in neighbouring Los Barrios until age 6, later moving to Seville with his family. The missing of his father influenced on the choices of the stage name Manolo Solo ('alone') when he started a musical career when he was 16–17 and on his university degree, even if he never worked as a teacher.
Part of the Sevillian musical scene in his youth, he was bassist-singer of Hacienda Somos Todos and Libertad Provisional. He later joined Arden Lágrimas and became the vocalist of rock band Los Relicarios, sharing stage with Santi Amodeo. In 1991, Los Relicarios released the album Detentebala.
Solo earned a licentiate degree in Education Sciences from the University of Seville and trained his acting chops at the Seville's Instituto de Teatro.
Acting career
After debuting as a stage actor in 1989 and making a number of television appearances, he landed his feature film debut in the drama Everything in Place, released in 2002.
In addition to screen performances, he also worked as a dubbing actor in Dragon Ball, providing the voices for characters such as Tao Pai Pai, Mr. Popo, Android 17, and Beerus.
He appeared as the subordinate of the cruel Captain Vidal in Pan's Labyrinth (2006).
His only Goya Award came for his supporting performance as El Triana, a small-time dealer, in The Fury of a Patient Man (2016). He employed a dysphonic voice he improvised during one of the first readings of his lines that the director Raúl Arévalo liked so much that he was asked to keep it.
For his role in the comedy film The Good Boss (2021) as Miralles, the right hand of businessman Julio Blanco (played by Javier Bardem) and working as a sort of conscience for the latter, he landed another nomination for the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Víctor Erice's Close Your Eyes (2023) earned him recognition as a leading actor. His role was that of film director Miguel Garay (described as an "obvious Erice stand-in"), so shaken by the missing of a friend that he quit filmmaking. Critic Glenn Kenny observed that, in the film, his "deep-set eyes convey universes of worry and sadness". The performance landed him his first nomination for the Goya Award for Best Actor.
In 2025, he collaborated again with Alberto Rodríguez in the miniseries The Anatomy of a Moment (another exploration of the February 1981 coup attempt), portraying General Gutiérrez Mellado. According to Solo, the greatest challenge he faced in order to play the role was understanding Gutiérrez Mellado's complex evolution "from being someone who helped carry out the coup d'état in '36 to becoming someone who tries to stop another coup 40 or 50 years later".
He starred in the drama film Nothing Personal (2025) opposite Sonia Almarcha as an embittered online hater who meets in person the celebrity television host he abuses online. He describe his character as "a person who deeply despises himself and is in a process of regression".
Solo died in Madrid on 30 July 2026, at the age of 62, after a prolonged illness caused by cancer. He was shooting Las vecinas. His wake was held at the funeral home of San Isidro in Madrid and was attended by colleagues such as Raúl Arévalo, Melina Matthews, Malena Alterio, Álex de la Iglesia, and Carolina Bang.
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