“Leonardo Angelone: From Broken Dreams to Hollywood Hopeful”

TThree things are clear for the actor Leonardo Angelone. The first one is that this time he is ready to get to Los Angeles, face Hollywood and go for a second chance. The second, at 28 years of age, is that he is confident enough to feel comfortable with his physique, with his essence, because he knows that the North American public does not see Latino actors as those who try their luck. . And the third, he knows the intentional market, he is fluent in English and Italian, he made friends who have helped him stay in different productions in Colombia, and he recognizes that, by chance of life, Bucaramanga has been the gateway to many of they.

She tells an anecdote that her friend, the model and actress Tatiana de los Ríos, told her one day that the career of actors moves in a kind of line in which they hand in a file and wait for their turn to arrive. It’s important not to get out of that row, because that’s when you find the opportunity to make your way through talent. And if that token is abandoned due to impatience, ego, exhaustion or frustration, that turn will probably be taken by the next one who is also waiting.

Juan Daniel Leonardo Cárdena Jiménez’s dream of being an actor began when he began his studies at Jardín La Ronda, in Bucaramanga. He was five years old at the time and acted for the first time in a play.

When her dad gave her the option to choose a professional career, without thinking, she told her it was Performing Arts. After several discussions about his future, insisting that he train as a doctor or look at other options, Leonardo managed to convince him and he went to the Universidad del Bosque (Bogotá) to pursue his dream. What would come a few years later? A broken heart, a financial loss, an unthinkable opportunity in Italy and the advice of a friend who, as he remembers, changed his life: “Go back to Colombia, to your land. Become an actor there first.”

Collection of joys and broken dreams

Leonardo assures that he has learned to live in the present. Every time he enters a recording set, he knows that this moment is the opportunity of his life and that he cannot miss it because he lives in the present, “with his feet on the ground”, and he feels lucky to have discovered it: “How many People have the happiness of saying I traveled the world, I went to Europe, I did a series in that country; I have done the commercials that you want, I got to the productions of RCN and Caracol; I have performed speaking in English, I have auditioned in Italian. I feel satisfied with myself.” He proudly tells how he came to the chapters of “Preso abroad” (2007), “Let us de Vargas” (2022) and currently “Life after reality” (2023) that premieres this year on the platform Amazon Prime. But not everything has been rosy. Leonardo remembers the 11 million pesos that he and his family -Luis Cárdenas Angelone, father, and María Alexandra Jiménez Leal, mother- lost when they went to the United States, to Los Angeles, attracted by the offer of a company that offered young people promises from all over the world, the opportunity to be discovered by prominent managers in that country. Nothing turned out as he expected. He discovered that depending on where each one came from, they were charged different amounts.

“They told us we would audition in front of 200 managers, and when we walked into that room there were only 10 people. I didn’t have American citizenship, I couldn’t stay. I made the decision to go to Italy, the land of my grandmother, Maria Angelone, because I have nationality. It was she who gave me the idea to take her last name for my stage name, ”recalls the young actor.

He moved to Turin in 2017. There he was a babysitter. A sofa became a home for three months, and as he taught English in exchange for Italian classes, he remembered his purpose: acting and gaining experience.

This search led him to Rome. Before finding a casting and managing to act in the series “Dahlia de las hadas”, a youth novel by the Italian AM Produzioni, written by the journalist Anna Mirabile, he worked as a waiter in a pizzeria in front of the Trevi Fountain. “It was a production similar to“ Ugly Duckling ”or“ Violeta ”, stories that many of us grew up watching on national channels”, he recalls. This was the beginning of the search for new opportunities, as people like Ana became his protectors and gave him ideas so that he could continue auditioning for roles in which he spoke English. “They almost always sent me projects in that language and there weren’t many who came out either, because there they gave priority to Italian actors. I still had to learn the dialect and everything got complicated. It was then that I received the advice of what is today a great friend, Nicolás Maiques, an Argentine actor recognized for working on “Floricienta” and who was with me on the set of “Dalia de las hadas.” He asked me if I had tried my luck in Colombia and I came back to try myself here, ”according to him.

“La embascada”, a production for Telepacífico, for which he auditioned in Bucaramanga and which was nominated for the India Catalina Awards in 2021, was the first national production in which he found a place as an actor. He was also in “Libre y ocupado”, a series for Canal TRO, whose challenge was to achieve the Santanderean accent and his interpretation stood out due to the affinity he has with the comedy genre. There he shared a set with Víctor Mallarino and was directed by Santiago Vargas. He was also part of the cast of a production for Caracol Televisión, a period series that premieres at the end of this year, in which he has a role as an antagonist, and in which he tries himself in the drama.

About platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime, he says that they allow actors to be more visible and reach many audiences around the world, but the experience of being an actor remains the same, “you have to present a cast, you must have talent, pass filters. What you do see now is recognition. It’s a little more immediate, and there’s also the competition. What should not be reached is that your talent is subordinated by the simple image, because we are actors, not products”, concludes Angelone.