Yet, de los Reyes still longed to act. He decided that he didn't want to be known as a dancer-actor but rather as an actor who could dance. At 21, he got a new agent and waited. For a while, he survived on peanut butter and baloney sandwiches. And when the phone finally started to ring, the only roles that came his way were the “gang banger” parts. Desperate, he took them.
“At first all I cared about was putting food on the table and I did B-movies like “Ghetto Blasters” and “East L.A. Warrior,” he said. “In between that, I waited a lot of tables.”
During the next five years in L.A., he worked a variety of odd jobs from being a personal trainer, house painter, to carpet layer in order to supplement his meager acting income. Finally, in 1994, he got his break to go to New York for a short stint when he was offered the part of Pedro Quinn, a gay Irish Mexican boxer, in an off-Broadway theatrical production of “Blade to the Heat.” The show was directed by George C. Wolfe, who went on to direct the popular “Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk.”
The role, it turned out, gave de los Reyes the confidence he needed when he returned to L.A. that he could actually make a living from acting and not acting-waiting tables. He made the decision not to accept anymore “gang banger” roles. Again, he waited. It took an arduous six months, until he finally landed a reputable acting gig - a five episode spot as a paramedic on NBC's premier medical drama “ER.” To prepare for the chaotic “ER” set, where anything less than perfection was not tolerated, de los Reyes practiced his lines walking up and down crowded grocery store food aisles.
He figured, if he could remember his lines surrounded by hordes of food shoppers, he could remember them anywhere.
“It was one of the smartest things I ever did,” he said. “I would like to be able to tell people that I took a lot of acting classes. But, in fact, I learned the majority of my craft on the job. From my own personal experience, there was no better way.”
After turning in his “ER” scrubs, he sent in a video tryout for a part in a Shakespeare-in-the-Park production of “The Tempest” playing in New York City's Central Park. He was sure he would not get the role and set off for a friend's bachelor party in Las Vegas. Then, he got the call. He quickly had to leave Vegas, pack up his L.A. home and head on the next flight to New York.
Around the same time, he also got a short part as one of the Cuban burglars involved in the Watergate break-in in Oliver Stone's “Nixon,” although that ended up on the cutting room floor. By then, he had long forgotten about a screen test he did two years earlier for ABC's daytime television executives. Then his agent called. ABC casting executives caught his act in “The Tempest” and wanted him to play Antonio Vega, a Puerto Rican on “One Life to Live.” Was he interested?
During the seven years that de los Reyes has been playing the part of Antonio Vega, the show has become his second home. He sometimes catches a baseball game with fellow actors like Woods, who plays his boss on the show, or heads out for drinks with David Fumero, who plays his younger brother. Since he spends a lot of time at the studio, he took it upon himself to make his dressing room, which he shares with Fumero, remind him of Puerto Rico. He painted each wall of the room either blue, yellow, or red. The colors, he said, are from the book cover of Hunter Thompson's “Rum Diaries.” A “Yo Soy Borinquen” sticker is adhered to his dressing room door and a Puerto Rican flag hangs from the ceiling. All the framed pictures, except for the one of his five-year-old son, are of Puerto Rico - from a photograph of his mother's home in Ponce to painting of a piragua stand in Ponce and one of the colorful orange Flamboyan tree.
He has even enlisted his real family to help contribute to the show's island flavor. His musically talented father and two brothers made cameos on the show as part of a wedding conga reception band for Antonio's first soap marriage, which left him broken hearted and divorced. Perhaps Antonio will have better luck with his upcoming second marriage and can somehow muster the courage to tell his fiancé about his fling with her mother before they walk down the aisle. Or will the nuptials be called off at the last possible second with Antonio walking down the aisle in a soap classic “speak now or forever hold your peace” moment? Tune in to ABC's “One Life to Live” to find out Antonio's fate.
