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Wilson Jermaine Heredia

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Wilson Jermaine Heredia
Born (1971-12-02) December 2, 1971 (age 53)
Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Occupations
  • Actor
  • singer
  • dancer
Years active1995–present

Wilson Jermaine Heredia (born December 2, 1971) is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Angel Dumott Schunard in the Broadway musical Rent, for which he won the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actor in a musical. Heredia also originated the role at London's Shaftesbury Theatre in the West End theatre district and in the 2005 film adaptation.

Life and career

Heredia was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic – a seamstress mother and a building superintendent father.[1][2] He has appeared in several films, including his portrayal of Cha-Cha, the drag queen, in 1999's Flawless, where he worked opposite former Rent castmate Daphne Rubin-Vega. The film also stars Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Heredia also appeared in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode "Nocturne".

Along with five other principal members of the original Broadway cast, Heredia appeared in the film release of Rent, directed by Chris Columbus. Heredia stated that he enjoys the transformational process involved in assuming the persona of the cross-dressing Angel, but dislikes having makeup on his face and found the high heels he had to wear as part of his costume extremely painful. Heredia says he enjoyed the blackly comedic parody of Rent in the film Team America: World Police,[citation needed] which features a fictional Broadway musical called Lease. He enjoys filming because the close up shots allow him to "cut loose" and go wild a lot more than the stage allows.[citation needed]

On January 9, 2006, he presented an award at the Critics' Choice Awards with Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, and Tracie Thoms, his costars from the Rent motion picture. He appeared along with Dawson and Thoms on the 2007 film Descent, playing the character of Diego.

Heredia has also guest starred on Medium and Without a Trace, and in 2009 he filmed a pilot called Three Chris's.

He made his return to Broadway in La Cage aux Folles on February 15, 2011 in the role of Jacob (replacing Robin de Jesus). He starred alongside Harvey Fierstein (who won a Tony Award for writing the Book of the musical) as Albin/Zaza and Broadway veteran Christopher Sieber as Georges.

As of 2013, Heredia lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, and starred in The San Francisco Playhouse's production of Camelot, as Sir Lancelot, and Berkeley Playhouse's production of A Little Princess as Pasko.[3]

References

  1. ^ Garcia, John (2008-02-29). "Bravo TV star Jai Rodriguez and Tony Award winner Wilson Jermaine Heredia to attend Column Awards | www.pegasusnews.com | Dallas/Fort Worth". www.pegasusnews.com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-26. Retrieved 2012-02-21.
  2. ^ Mandell, Jonathan (May 12, 1996). "How Can You Measure 'Rent'? / Take the Tonys, for example: Four newcomers from the musical's ensemble cast have been nominated; two had never acted professionally before".
  3. ^ Katz, Leslie (2013-10-31). "New York's Heredia enjoying the West Coast life". The San Francisco Examiner.
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