“There are so many Latino actors and Hollywood seems to use the same ones, doing the same parts, over and over,” he said, his dark eyes looking at me intently. “Obviously every Latina doesn't look like Jennifer Lopez or every Latino like Andy Garcia. We come in all shapes and sizes. And if you want to portray Latinos, you should portray the full spectrum.”
Most of all, de los Reyes enjoys the constant challenge of playing the complexity of Antonio's character from acting as the headstrong detective one day to the passionate romantic the next. He also finds time in his busy soap schedule to pursue other roles. He recently finished working on an HBO boxing movie “Infamous” in which he co-stars with John Leguizamo to be released this spring.
When I met up with de los Ryes for lunch at the popular Josie's Restaurant and Juice Bar on the Upper West side of Manhattan, I was pleasantly surprised. De los Reyes is down to earth, relaxed and undeniably charming.
He picked Josie's because it is a short walk from ABC studios, but also because he likes to eat healthy to maintain his soap opera physique.
Sitting in the back corner booth, it was evident that this place is also popular with other entertainment types when the actress Kyra Sedgwick, Kevin Bacon's wife, took a seat at the next table.
As we settled in at our table - he ordered his favorite - ahi Tuna burger and rosehip ice tea. Dark and handsome with big brown sensitive eyes, de los Reyes arrived fashionably on time dressed in a fitted blue cotton button down shirt and jeans with a silver Motorola cell phone clipped to his black belt. From his casual good looks, it is not surprise that de los Reyes has hundreds of fans writing in each week. I even spied Sedgwick leaning over to check him out. When I inquired about the origins of his intricately carved silver and turquoise belt buckle (turns out he picked it up on an Arizona reservation), he lifted his shirt to show it to me hoping, I guess, that I would notice his muscular and tanned stomach. I did. Living in New York City, de los Reyes said he finds it easier than his television character to satisfy his Puerto Rican cravings. He often heads over to Spanish Harlem in search of empanadas and quenepas and to places like the newly restored Copacabana to listen and dance to live salsa.
Everything is a short subway ride away from his Manhattan two bedroom brownstone, which he shares with his five-year-old son.
However, those little journeys are not the same to de los Reyes as a trip back to his homeland. So every opportunity he gets, he hops on the plane down to Puerto Rico - if just for the chance to stroll down the streets of Ponce and visit with his mother, who moved back to the island in 1990. If he is not in Ponce with relatives, then he is on the tranquil surfing beaches of Rincon or El Faro, near Boqueron, dreaming of the day he will own a house here to live six months of the year.
Whether on the mainland or on the island, often times, though, where you will most likely find de los Reyes is at the gym. He is a self proclaimed “fitness fanatic” and trains hard five days a week, two hours a day, to maintain his soap opera physique. Such commitment is crucial in a job playing a character whose shirt is often off just as much as it is on.
That de los Reyes became a prominent and successful actor is of no surprise to his family. He was practically destined for a life in show business.
When he was born in Puerto Rico, his father was performing as a drummer in a show called “Latin Fire” at the Sands Hotel. Two years later when the show moved to Las Vegas, the de los Reyes family went, too. Being uprooted from their lives in Valle Arriba Heights in Carolina was tough on de los Reyes' mother and his two older brothers, but he and his two sisters easily adjusted to life in the desert. Though even 5,000 miles away from their home, his mother made sure her children never forgot their roots. Spanish was spoken in the house and every summer the little de los Reyes' were packed up and sent back to Puerto Rico for two months to visit with grandparents, uncles and aunts in Ponce.
Living in Las Vegas had its benefits. At a young age, de los Reyes' father took his children to a variety of shows from Dionne Warwick, Tina Turner, Paul Anka, to Lola Falana. In the beginning, de los Reyes set out to be a musician, following in his father's footsteps. When he was four-years-old, he took up the trumpet, a practice he continued for the next 11 years. It wasn't until high school, after he got the crucial part of the abductor El Gallo in a high school production of the romantic musical “The Fantasticks,” that de los Reyes decided he really wanted to be an actor.
“I fell in love with the stage and with performing for an audience,” he said, in between bites of his ahi tuna burger. “It was an amazing experience for me.”
Enrolled at the University of Nevada, he decided to major in acting. But when college acting meant Shakespeare and reading about the history of the theater, de los Reyes dropped out.
“I wanted to perform. I had been performing since I was a little boy and I never had any inhibitions about getting in front of an audience,” he said. “I already knew what it was like to be applauded. I had a ham complex.”
He packed up his black Toyota Celica and drove to Los Angeles where he moved in with his older brother Walfredo Reyes Jr. At the time, Walfredo happened to be playing drums in a Cher music video for her song “We all Sleep Alone.” (Walfredo Reyes currently performs with Steve Winwood; and de los Reyes other brother, Daniel de los Reyes also is a percussionist and tours with Don Henley and Earth Wind & Fire). De los Reyes went to the set to watch and, as luck would have it, the choreographer Kenny Ortega was one dancer short. Ortega took one look at young de los Reyes and asked if he could learn Cher's funky moves. The steps, it turned out, were no problem for de los Reyes. After his video debut on MTV, the dancing offers started to roll in. He was offered parts in a movie called “Salsa” and in a “Dirty Dancing” television pilot.
