A child of the 80’s, I grew up in the countryside of a small town called Canguçu, in the southernmost part of Brazil. I was about five when a tv-set finally made its arrival at our home. In fact, electricity had only been installed little before – no recollection of that though. I’m pretty sure I had watched TV before, but comprehension of what it was along with the variety of content I saw through that black-and-white 16”-screen was impactful, to say the least. Initially I mostly watched cartoons, but I really got to enjoy the soap operas I eventually got to watch with my sister. Once I started seeing some repeated faces in different soaps, I realized those people were neither one or another character but persons who happened to work as a professional actors. The dream was born. In the early 90’s when I was on the 7th grade, my school organized an excursion to take us to go to the movies one day. The theater was in a neighboring city, a one- hour bus trip. How to forget the first time you get to watch a movie on the big screen? J. Zucker’s ‘Ghost’ blew my mind. I couldn’t believe my eyes or racing heartbeat. The surrounding sound of bustling NYC, Whoopi Goldberg’s character hilarious trip downtown, the unforgiving subway trains, complete with a powerful soundtrack and the classic Unchained Melody, had me between tears and laughter. Life was never the same after it. Haha…
It was not until quite a few years later in the metropolitan Sao Paulo, that I got to attend a theatrical performance. A small theater showcasing a production of one of our local authors did it for me – “that’s it! I want to be on stage”. Soon after starting to take classes in acting and singing, I was fortunate to join a theater company under the director Jose Ferro, who had trained under the internationally acclaimed Antunes Filho, a very important figure in Brazilian theater. Putting your heart into building a character, the cooperation and magic-building of the rehearsal process, culminating with the presence of an audience invited to walk on walk on our shoes, feel our emotions, ask questions without simple answers… the whole thing felt good and right. I still recall the rush. The immediacy and uniqueness of the theater is unparalleled to any other medium. There’s something to be said about other media though – they rock! Haha… I mean, sometimes you just need that big screen or something to enjoy at home or on your way to it as you listen to the radio. I had worked on FM radio in my late teenage years, adding an acting background to my experience behind the mic naturally led me into voiceover work, something I’ve been loving to do ever since. By mid 2005, I had professionally worked on stage, film and national TV and going between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro was not bad, still, the north called. It was time to change hemispheres.
On September 7, I arrived in New York. I felt so at home, I came to study acting and never left. I got enrolled in a full-time acting program at the HB Studio in the West Village, where I got to be taught by some of the greatest teachers in town, some who had studied with Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof themselves such as Austin Pendleton, Helen Gallagher, Karen Ludwig, Lorraine Serabian and Aleksey Burago, with whom a long-term and highly satisfactory partnership would unfold to the present moment (Theater 86). After concluding my program at HB Studio, I joined the Society of the Educational Arts (SEA), an arts-in-education theater company in the Lower East Side, under the direction of Manuel Moran. Even having been raised not far from the Uruguayan border, my Spanish speaking skills were not my best feature at that point, I was a quick study though, and the people in the company were gracious enough to help me improve it. The shows, mostly adaptations of popular fairytales, were bilingual. It was challenging to quickly switch back and forth between English and Spanish. My head really throbbed after a few rehearsals but the artistry and camaraderie that surrounded me in company was always outstanding and they carried me through – and I got to perform for young audiences, bringing to many of those kids their first theatrical performance. It meant the world to me.
I’m passionate about many things, languages ranking high on top. As part of the third generation of German immigrants in Brazil, my exposure to the language was marginal and yet it definitely sparked my curiosity and opened my ears to foreign sounds. Besides the idioms I speak every day, I can’t go long without listening to French radio or reading a passage of two in Italian. I’m also an enthusiastic explorer of music, photography, painting, chemistry, cosmology, philosophy, metaphysics… the list goes on – there’s got to be an interest to feed every role I take on, in one way or another. Haha… For this Brazilian-American guy, to live and work as an actor in a place such as New York City, is an invaluable gift. I can only hope to share it with as many people I’m fortunate to reach.
Tom
New York, August 2025.
