Manolo Cardona
Already a superstar in his native Colombia, Cardona becomes a regular on the USA spy show, beginning with an adventure in his homeland
It’s a long jump from Beverly Hills to Bogota, and even longer from Beverly Hills Chihuahua to Covert Affair, but that’s exactly the path that Colombian actor Manolo Cardona has taken over the last few years.
Born in Popayan, Colombia, the son of a psychologist/astrologer and the mayor of his home-town, Cardona began as a model early in life, then made his first TV commercial in at the age of 14. At eighteen, he joined a popular Colombian TV series called Padres e Hijos until he was 21, then spent years in increasingly successful roles in various soap operas on Telemundo and Caragon. In 2005, his big-screen debut Rosario Tijeras was released in Colombia and the U.S. It earned him a Goya award, and the film premiered at the AFI Festival in Hollywood. Then it was back to more soaps and a few more movies, playing romantic leads and drug dealers, until American Hollywood finally came to call, and rewarded his years of work with…a supporting role in Beverly Hills Chihuahua in 2008.
Piper Perabo and Manolo Cardona in Covert Affairs
Even that modest English-language premiere worked out well: it earned him an Imagen Award in 2009 and put him side-by-side with Piper Perabo, who remained one of his biggest fans. It was back to the telenovelas for a while after that, and now–finally–another crack at the American market, with a new regular role in the fourth season of Perabo’s spy-light adventure series Covert Affair, as Teo Braga, a “charismatic, enigmatic Colombian rebel leader with secrets that will impact the CIA.” The season begins this week with the entire team visiting Colombia, and the addition of Cardona, Hill Harper (CSI: New York) and Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman) to the cast as well.
Check it out at 10P on Tuesday on USA, and get a glimpse of the future with this extended interview with Perabo and Cardona about Chihuahua. The interviewer is kind of a dork, but you can see the chemistry between Piper and Manolo there; now we know there’s certainly more to come.
