Interview: Gustavo Heredia

Next in our line of By the Dawn’s Early Light interviews is Gustavo Heredia, who plays Miguel in “Los Embrujados.” It was the voice of Gustavo, in fact, that Mel had in his head when he was writing the play for us. When you see the show, you will immediately see the similarities between Gustavo’s journey and the character he so dynamically portrays.

Why did you decide to pursue acting?

I come from a very small village in Ecuador of about 100 people.  My thought back then was either go to the army and pursue a career in the Armed Forces — I was attracted to it — or finish high school and go America.  But I ended up doing neither one (if I he had gone to the Army, I would not have stayed anyway, for I realized just a few years ago that I have flat feet).

So it was written in my destiny that at the tender age of 16, I should migrate to the United States of America, or New York… however you wish to call it.  However, the story of this unforgettable odyssey of what one goes thru to make it to America… is suited for another time and place. To answer the question of how I became an actor I will fast forward a few years.

As you might know, the most usual place where an immigrant can find a job is in a restaurant.  I used to work in a restaurant on the Upper West Side as a busboy, a waiter, etc.  During those years many clients would ask me if I was an actor.  I’d say a WHAT!!???  I would say “No,” and their reply would be, “You should.”

I could care less what they were talking about.  I didn’t know what it was about, but most of these people asking if I was an actor were actors themselves.  Some of them were in American soaps such as One Life To Live, Passions or movies… one of them was in the movie True Lies with Arnold…

Anyway, I really didn’t pay much attention to those comments or suggestions for that matter.  All I wanted to do was work to make enough dinero and go back.

So after many years had gone by and I had decided to stay (for by now, I had made America my Home), I started thinking that I should do something with my life.  My motivation for this decision (or was it destiny once again?) was when I had realized how little I enjoyed working as a waiter… but what I can pursue?  What can I be?  Or what should I be? 

Then something hit me.  I said to myself, hmmmm… maybe ACTING!!  But how do I begin?  Or where do I begin?  Do I need a college degree to be an actor?  Who should I talk to?  I would go to the movies and just focus on what the actors were doing, and I would say to myself, “I can do that.”  I remember vividly seeing a movie called Pitch Black, one of the very first movies Vin Diesel did.  Here is this muscular actor with a deep voice, and I am thinking… I want to that!  I can do that what he is doing!!  And that fueled even more my desire to become an actor.

I had asked many people how or where I could pursue acting, I got little or no help at all from their answers.  I had even asked a Latino woman who I had seen in a couple of commercials but she was of no help at all…

I used to wear a ring that my ex-girlfriend had given me as a birthday present. This ring resembled a high school graduation ring.  One day I was serving this lady that I had taken care of for a few years.  She had seen my ring and said, “That’s a nice ring… where did you go to school?”  I said, “No, this is just a present, but I would like to go to school.” “What would you like to study?” was her reply. “I have been thinking about acting, but I really don’t know where…” I said.  Then she says, “Why don’t you talk to my husband?  He is an acting teacher.”

And that was the beginning of this beautiful journey that began eight years ago.  But only now I realize that I had this actor in me since I was a kid… but that will be yet another story!

28 July 2011 ·

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