Just last month while rushing to finish my articles for this issue, I received a call that there were some scenes to a movie being recorded in our City of Reading with some Hollywood Latino actors. I think they were god sent as I was working on my Hispanic Heritage edition.
So I finally meet this interesting Cuban, and by the way, there aren’t too many Cubans in our City so I was I totally loving the accent. I was amazed to learn how he got his first role. I learned in an interview that took place with Roberto and Assistant Program Manager Dj Chamo King of Rumba 92.3FM that in the fall of 2002, while working as an armed officer for the Miami Metro System, Roberto Sanchez received the best call of his life and that would completely spiral his life in a positive way. Only moments earlier he had encountered a belligerent passenger who refused to stop smoking on the evening commute. The phone call was from his agent, apparently respected film director John Singleton had just cast him as one of the leads in 2 Fast 2 Furious, the second installment of the Fast and Furious franchise. Roberto co-starred alongside actors Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, and Eva Mendez. Are you kidding me? His first role at the age of 37 and in this precise moment!!! This is freaking amazing! It gives me goosebumps every time I think about it.
Even though Roberto was born in Havana, Cuba, Roberto grew up stateside in Miami’s well-known Cuban community “Little Havana.” Unfortunately, Roberto was forced to make this journey without his father who had been detained by the Cuban authorities-and as a result, he and his brother were raised by a single mother with a new language, in a new world. It would be 16 years before he saw his father again.
He distinguished himself in the Navy as a Desert Storm veteran, was a Virginia Beach military police officer, competed professionally in the highly touted European league as a Naval basketball player. He became a successful print model and eventually an actor. Taking advantage of his role in 2F2F, Roberto packed his bags, purchased a one-way ticket to Hollywood, California and has never looked back.
Today, Roberto is one of the busiest Latino’s in the industry having worked in over 100 projects. His roles include work on TV pilots, recurring roles in series such as The Young and The Restless, Days of Our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful, and countless episodic guest appearances, from Desperate Housewives to Prison Break, and most recently you’ve seen his work on Chicago P.D., Law and Order: SVU and MacGyver. Roberto recently wrote and directed the award-winning short film, The Terms of Us. With the Terms of Us, Roberto is making his directorial debut.
I hope to read his complete story via a good book in the coming years. As a matter of fact, Roberto, get started. It could be titled just that “The most interesting Cuban I know”. I’m dying to read it and want my signed edition.
By Rosa Julia Parra
Photo credit: The Dante Night Show
