The Cone Issue #10 Summer 2016 | Page 41

What was it that inspired you as a young boy in Spain to want to come to the US to be a performer? I knew a very early age that I wanted to entertain. One of my first memories as a kid was when I was five years old and I remember saying to my Mother: “Mom when i grow up I wanna be an American actor”. I was so obsessed with the American culture. The movies, the music, the TV series… I wanted to learn English and work on my accent and I was only eight or ten years old. And the fact that my parents used to have a wide collection of vinyl records, mostly brit pop and American music, helped a lot I guess. Every morning before going to school, I used to play Elvis “Johnny B. Good” from the album “Aloha from Hawaii”. So everything around me was leading me to be exposed to the American culture. You leave Spain on a scholarship and come to New York to study acting at the Lee Strasberg school, a very famous institution in the business - what was going through your mind when you had your first class? It was surreal. Being there where my movie stars studied, receiving classes from well known actors and teachers was just incredible. I think you are not aware of what´s going on until you actually leave. As soon as I came back to Spain, I remember I was having coffee with a friend in Madrid and suddenly I went: “I’ve been living in New York and I was a student at Lee Strasberg, what da F…k was that?! Every time I go to NYC I visit the school and one of my teachers that still I can proudly say is also my friend, Paul Calderon. 41 THE CONE - ISSUE #10 - SUMMER 2016