Bruno Romagnoli takes on antagonist in award-winning web series ‘Jesus Freaks’
Growing up in Córdoba, Argentina, Bruno Romagnoli realized even at a young age that he had a passion for performing. His mother was a professional photographer, and as a child she would bring her son to various events to learn about the cameras and the lighting. He realized then that he loved being in front of the camera, rather than behind it. Since that moment he has dedicated his life to the pursuit of his dream of becoming an actor, aiming to make people feel something with every performance.
Now, Romagnoli is a renowned actor in his home country and abroad, with a series of celebrated projects decorating his resume. He has starred in countless films and television series, including The Farmer, Blood, Soldado, and many more. And he has no plans on slowing down, currently working on a variety of different projects, from the highly-anticipated new show Cat and Mouse to the new film Devil’s Canyon. He has a lot on the go.
“The highlight of my career is happening right now. I have never felt so talented and working non-stop. Many projects are just materializing in front of me and they are big projects. I wake up every day and get to live the dream I had since childhood,” he said.
One of Romagnoli’s most recent successes is the new web series Jesus Freaks. The City of Angels is a beautiful place to live, but rent ain't cheap. So how do a bunch of unemployed nobody's get by? By starting a tour guide company where the guides dress like the Lord of course, which this entertaining new show explores.
In the show, Romagnoli plays “The Brains”, an incredibly charming character. The brain first shows up as a person that is interested about the tour guide company, but later attempts to destroy it. The production needed an actor that could play both sides of the coin: charming and evil, convincingly. The Brains has the power to split the group, creating tension among friends.
“When you see him, you fall in love with him; he is your best friend, your boyfriend, your boss, your brother, someone you trust. However, when you turn, he will stab you in the back. He is not human, certain rules don’t apply to him, or that’s what I thought. My creation for him was that if nobody pays attention to him, he loses power or reality. He feeds from the fear and the negative energies around him,” said Romagnoli.
When Romagnoli read the whole script, he realized that his character was a businessman that represented the temptations in the bible. He was the one that was supposed to bring these people to the dark side. Therefore, Romagnoli researched the role by reading many chapters of the bible, specifically those pertaining to the devil and the three temptations. He also did a lot of body work to get a demon side into it, and did many physical movements for ten minutes before each scene to get the right look.
“The production gave me total freedom to create my character, and I also had almost a month to prepare for it. I went in for rehearsal with many ideas. They loved them all and only made small changes to my character. The most important scenes of the show were usually the last scenes of an episode. The director gave us the chance to improvise, and he gave me a very interesting note for each one of them: your mission is to frighten the other actors, no matter what, make them uncomfortable. I did, and those scenes were very dark, a refreshing take to the show,” he said.
Jesus Freaks was an Official Selection of the West Coast International Film Festival in 2019. Also, it got the Big Foot Award for the Best Web Series at the West Coast Festival and was selected to be part of the Las Vegas International Film and Screenwriting Competition 2019. The series also took home the award for Best Web Series at the L.A Short Awards.
“I couldn’t believe it, we basically created this show together, bringing ideas to the characters and the story. We became a family doing this show and being able to see the success we got out of it felt amazing. I guess we applied what was taught in the show, working together we achieve more,” he said.
Be sure to check out Jesus Freaks to see Romagnoli’s enchanting performance.
By Annabelle Lee
July 15th, 2019
