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defined by Character

Veteran actor Tony Plana talks about life behind the scenes and shining the spotlight on the next generation of actors.

Tony Plana plays the doting and sympathetic father on the ABC hit show Ugly Betty, a role for which most people know him. But speaking with Plana, there is no hint of Ignacio Suarez. The eloquent actor will tell you that in order to be versatile, you have to lose the accent.
And versatile he is. The classically trained actor, who also has roots in oratory, attended London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Besides gracing both the small and silver screens, Plana has delighted audiences through his live theater performances, brought his own vision to life and challenged established actors as a director himself. And he’s even launched a theater group in East Los Angeles to spur young Hispanics’ love of the classics.
“Theater is an actor’s medium. There’s a live audience ... it’s either working or it isn’t,” he says. “Theater is more honest, raw communication. It’s spontaneous, in the present and real. It’s not filtered through technology. There’s a connection with the audience. I love it.”
That love of theater led Plana to start a theater group in 1995 that was primarily geared to Hispanic theater professionals. As co-founder and executive artistic director of the East L.A. Classic Theatre, he oversees bilingual productions of traditional and contemporary classics—mostly Shakespeare—presented to primary and secondary school students as part of an educational outreach program. The productions, according to Plana, utilize highly educated, minority, professional adult actors from the community.
“Minority actors perform Shakespeare to minority young audiences who look like them and have never been exposed it,” he says. The goal is to get the students to relate to the actors, and be exposed to the possibilities.
To further impact the students, who have little or no theater-going experience, Plana sets the classics in historical contexts that prompt interest in race and cultural relations and world history. For example, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is adapted to take place during the Spanish conquest of the Americas, exploring the dynamic interactions between Native Americans and conquistadores. Or Much Ado About Nothing is interpreted as a mariachi musical and set in early California as upper-class Mexican rancheros interrelate with working class white farmers. And then there’s Romeo & Juliet, featuring swing music, a Japanese Juliet and a Latin Romeo trying to give love a chance during turbulent times of the 1940s.
Plana has a personal history in live theater. He played Santiago in Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer-winning Anna in the Tropics at South Coast Repertory, and has also appeared on Broadway and in other productions at various venues.
Born in Cuba, Plana arrived in Miami with his mother and brother when he was 8 years old. His father, a high-ranking bank official under Cuba’s then-leader Fulgencio Batista, stayed behind, telling officials the family was leaving on vacation. After resigning directly to revolutionary Ernesto “Ché” Guevara, he later joined the family in the U.S., and they eventually relocated to California.
Plana’s love of acting came early, when as an elementary school student he relished the crowd’s attention. He recalls being selected as a second grader to recite poetry by José Martí for the high school graduation. “I’ll never forget the feeling of 2,000 people paying attention,” he says, “That experience stayed with me.”
While attending high school in Los Angeles, he was recruited to the speech team where he got his first taste of oratory and dramatic interpretation. He even attended the state finals, which were held at Stanford University in the spring of 1968. But acting, wouldn’t enter his mind just yet, at least not seriously.
“I started thinking about acting in college. Initially, I wanted to be a lawyer, but then realized I wanted to play one, not be one.”
He graduated magna cum laude from the honors program at Loyola-Marymount University with a bachelor’s in literature and theater arts, and then went on to England for professional training.
Before Betty, Plana starred in Showtime’s Resurrection Boulevard, where he received two Alma nominations for outstanding actor. Most recently, he enjoyed a stream of recurring roles, including playing U.S. Secretary of State on NBC’s The West Wing, and other appearances on 24 (FOX), CSI (CBS), Monk (USA), and The Closer (TNT).
But undoubtedly, it’s been Ugly Betty that has made the biggest impact on audiences. “The actors are very good at both dramatic and comedic acting. One minute they’re funny, then crying,” he says. Plana calls the show groundbreaking for its ability, as a Hispanic-driven series, to capture wide audiences; he compares it to The Cosby Show, Cheers and MASH.
For the role of Ignacio, Plana received the 2006 Satellite Award from the International Press Academy and an Alma Award nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a television series. The show, the first Spanish telenovela to be adapted for an English network, has received stellar reviews and numerous accolades—four Alma Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, three Imagen Awards, and a handful of Emmy Awards, just to name a few.
It’s a role Plana truly enjoys playing. “I love the character,” he says calling Ignacio “iconoclastic.”
“He’s the antithesis of the Latin male—he cooks, cleans and does laundry,” Plana explains. And Ignacio is a challenge for any actor because he’s got depth.
“It’s an admirable type of character,” Plana says. “He’s defined by family and his purpose to serve them. He’s dimensional and deep... not a buffoon or clown. He runs the gamut of human emotions—funny, sympathetic, intrusive.”
As is the case for many Hispanic actors, not all roles offered Plana have provided such depth and range. Plana notes he has portrayed many uneducated characters, and talks about Hollywood needing to diversify the way Latinos are portrayed. “I’ve played every stereotype, except the pregnant teenager,” he jokes.
He’s also played Batista in Showtime’s original miniseries, Fidel, and appeared in Noriega: God’s Favorite, also on Showtime. He’s been in more than 70 feature films, among them, JFK, Nixon, An Officer and a Gentleman, Primal Fear, Picking Up the Pieces with Woody Allen, and The Lost City, in which he shared the screen with Andy Garcia, Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman. Recent feature films include Hacia la oscuridad (Toward Darkness) with Ugly Betty co-star America Ferrera—it premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. There was also El Muerto (The Dead One), starring Wilmer Valderrama (2007), and American East.
After mastering being in front of the camera, he decided to go behind it, making his directorial debut in 2000 with The Princess and the Barrio Boy for Showtime. It starred Edward James Olmos, Maria Conchita Alonso, Pauly Shore, Marisol Nichols and Nicholas Gonzalez. It earned two Alma nominations, and won an Imagen Award for Best Made for Television Movie. He’s also directed other projects for Nickelodeon and Warner Brothers Network.
Such a roster of accomplishments might exhaust his thespian peers, but for Plana, it’s all in a day’s work.
“To be an actor and to survive, you have to work,” he says. “My priority is to work.”