Today we’d like to introduce you to Alejandro Bosch Rey.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am 31 years old, I am Cuban and I am an actor. This story begins in the remote year 1993 in Havana, my hometown. Where my people were living what History would later know as “The Special Period”. I was five years old and due to life chances, I went to the set of filming for the movie (Tirano Banderas) directed by José Luis García Sanchez.
The film was being shot largely in the old town of Old Havana, which was nothing more and nothing less than my neighborhood. My father had gotten a job on the production team and I had gotten the best playground I could have in the midst of so much misery. It is no wonder that being the only child on the set, I would soon win the pampering and affection of many but especially of the cast, who adopted me as an indispensable member of the shoot. Among those who were Ana Belen, Gian Maria Volonté, Juan Diego and Enrique San Fransisco, with whom I built an undeniable bond of empathy. and motivated by that in that set, I made my first cinematographic scenes in some other figuration, and I earned the respect and love that cinema generates to me until today. Remaining the commitment to become an agreed actor one day that Gian María sat me next to her in a rest and said:
– So what? You already decided?
– To what? (I answered)
– To become an actor. Believe me, I have seen many, and you, you have the eyes of an actor.
It was one of his last movies. After that agreement, my desperate search for acting art began. I went through many training workshops, I did street theater, I received the last lessons that Adolfo Llauradó, Raùl Pomares, Xiomara Palacios gave, all glories of Cuban performance. I attended the school of art instructors, to which I must have an approach to theatrical art from a broader tuning fork than the one my experience as an actor had given me. I acted as much as I could for radio, television and cinema in my country. Not without having to overcome many obstacles. Because imposing oneself as an actor in Havana with so much national competition and so little production made it a titanic task. The theater gave me the opportunity to perform the great classics, Shakespeare, Lorca, Tennessee, Virgilio. The Theater will always be my home, no matter how long it takes to return.
I also collaborated on many occasions as an actor for the San Antonio de los Baños International Film and Television School (EICTV) where I learned to look at filmmaking in a more global way. and between one thing and the other comes 2016 and it is decided that they will go to film the first minutes of the 8th part of the Fast and Furious saga in Havana and that to a greater surprise some of the roles would be played by Cuban actors. Like the rest of the guild, I prepared for the casting with the sole objective of living the experience, but for those unexpected things in life, after a couple of callbacks. I was in the cast. Thus, I became the only Cuban professional actor to be part of the Rapid and Furious Saga. It is one of the most beautiful things that has happened to me professionally. I have to thank the FF8 production for all the support it gave me, my representative during the filming, Libia Batista, who accompanied me throughout the process, and God. He was a really short character but he gave me so many joys that I will always have to thank him. After that, it became clear to me that it was important for me to be able to come to America and try to fight here for a career.
At the end of 2019, I conclude all my professional commitments in Havana and I decide to come and settle in Key West Florida, with the intention of once stable in the country begin to bid in the Latin capital of the EU Miami to pursue my acting career. and in the midst of this process, the world is surprised by the Covid-19 pandemic. And it was right there that together with other contemporary and fellow actors who were also here, we decided to start generating entertainment and emotional support material for people in the Latino community who were in isolation through our social media. And in that task, I find myself in this moment. Putting at the service of the Latino community not only from Miami or the EU but also from the worldwide access offered by the internet, my knowledge as a general psychologist and performers that I am.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The obstacles have been many, from the simple fact of coming from a family of humble income and that at least in the environment in which I had to develop my career, it densified and slowed everything down. Until the fact that Fidel Castro personally tried to castrate the artistic development potential of thousands of young people among whom I was. Stipulating that those young people who had studied in what would become known as Schools of Art Instructors, had no right or option to practice as professional artists or to join the National system of artistic education under pain of desertion. It took a lot of personal and collective effort to demonstrate that some of those young people had the need and the talent to manifest ourselves in the prophecies of Art. Years working without receiving pay, without money to transport or eat, helped by friends and family to not give up. Enter the usual dance of few opportunities and a lot of talent based in the capital, both established and new.
But probably because the progress towards success is so complicated. This gave me the strength to fight until I achieved my goals one after another and with each one that I chose, the certainty that with determination and determination, everything in life could be achieved. That where some go faster I could also go if I did not give up in the fight. And for every success, however small, it gave a flavor of triumph that perhaps the experience would otherwise have been less pleasant.
And with the moment we are currently facing, duality remains the same. Our fundamental obstacles such as loss to many of our sources of income, or the inability to leave home, or to see our family, friends and colleagues, fear and uncertainty. Well, they have turned out to be an important engine of creativity, togetherness and camaraderie. Not only here in South Florida, I see it also in Europe, Latin America and other EU cities. We are collaborating more among ourselves, the ideological, partisan, aesthetic and artistic training differences have remained in the background and what has prevailed is Love, the need to give and Art. I don’t know what the result of this maybe, but it promises.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Well, I am essentially an actor, but due to the peculiarity of my processes I learned stage direction, I graduated as a psychologist, I am an instructor of Theater Art and my experience gave me the possibility of mixing and linking the knowledge of these disciplines, allowing you to train actors from a very perspective particular. I have designed costumes, makeup and scenery for theater. I have been assistant director of teachers of the Cuban theater direction. But if I have to say what I specialize in, then my passion is characterization, interpretation through character construction, seen as an almost mystical trance process where you lend your emotions, your body, your experiences and your voice to a character to manifest on earth, to stop being a dead letter or fiction to be true. I love that, transform myself to the point of not recognizing myself. That is why I am known in my guild.
If I have to say that I am proud of this community of young Cuban actors based in Miami and its surroundings, by the way, I would not be surprised if it became a forged artistic movement, contributing to a city that is still expanding and exponentially developing, a city that was very welcoming for decades from my ancestors, a city that presents itself to the world of today as an indisputable metropolis. I think that this generation of actors and entertainers of the show is increasingly ready to join the work that previous generations have advanced with very deserving works without which the possibility of a quantitative and qualitative leap as it is increasingly possible would be much more complex.
I think we are a generation that has a lot to contribute in terms of scenic and cinematographic art for this city, for this state and for this great nation.
We come to offer our peculiarity to the great canvas that is America and that is increasingly visible. That makes me proud.
Cuba is indisputably linked to the dawn of Latin cinema and television, and I believe that the Cuban acting diaspora has a claiming responsibility towards that legacy.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Well, I think that if we look back, we could be tempted to change many things, perhaps to give an example I would have tried to arrive in the EU much earlier and tried to study drama here and thus contribute perhaps more than what I can contribute right now. But if I am honest, I think that each part of the journey is necessary, mistakes usually give us more knowledge and experiences than successes and the truth is that most likely nothing would change.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 3057097413
- Email: alexboschrey@gmail.com
- Instagram: @alexboschrey
- Facebook: Alejandro Bosch Rey
Image Credit:
Luis Gabú / Merli Cattoni / Miguel Moret / Universal Pictures / Raúl Martín / Oldren Romero / Miguel Ángel Photo studio.
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