Outstanding Cuban actor with extensive artistic career (more than 20 years). Humorist and dramatic actor. His work in Cuban cinema is considerable. Member of the artistic board of the Centro Promotor del Humor.
Omar Franco's training has been closely linked to personalities of Cuban culture such as Armando Suárez del Villar in theater, Arturo Sotto in cinema, or Roly Peña in television, and with Hilda Oates, René de la Cruz, Luis Alberto García. Omar Franco is a graduate engineer in Automatic Control from the Instituto Superior Politécnico "José A. Echeverría". He is a proven humorist with outstanding dramatic performance and extensive participation in Cuban cinema.
Omar is one of the best interpreters of intelligent humor currently being created in Cuba due to his distinctive acting style.
As a child studying in elementary school he started doing clown acts with a group, eventually working in the Guiñol. While studying in secondary school he told jokes during emulation competitions. In preparatory school he became seriously involved in theater. His friendship with Otto Ortiz during his university years at Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría led him to form the group Los Hepáticos, which later incorporated Carlos Vázquez, better known as Riquimbili, and Nelson Téllez. He remained connected to Los hepáticos for five years.
With the group Humoris Causa he has remained for more than 15 years alongside Iván Camejo, who has been an important complement to his work in that group. His charismatic character in the television program No quiero llanto catapulted him to popularity among followers of contemporary humor.
He has worked in the humor space Vivir del Cuento, playing a street hustler who exploits Pánfilo's naivety through urban codes that this actor knows very well, and alongside Antolín on summer Sunday nights. His interpretation of the monologue "Un cubano en Pensilvania" is remembered, as well as his appearances in Aquelarre and various radio programs. He was invited by the prestigious humorist Virulo, and in the company of actress Natalia Herrera and Churrisco, to Baja California, Mexico, to pay homage to writer Cástor Vispo, creator of the Tremenda Corte, a humor radio space that saw the light in Cuba during the 1950s of the last century.
He has participated in the following films: Habanastation by Ian Padrón (Character: Jesús), El cuerno de la abundancia, El premio flaco (Character: Domingo), Pablo (Character: Rogelio), Penumbras (Character: Pepe) by Charlie Medina, La espuma del día, feature directorial debut by Fernando Timossi. He has in development a film by Marylin Solaya, and another by Arturo Sotto.
He began his theater work with a play by Ignacio Gutiérrez called Llévame a la pelota, which tells the story of students who entered the Cerro stadium against the tyranny of Batista. For the character he played, then as an amateur, he was awarded his first prize for best male performance.
He worked in Santa Camila, the first dramatic work he performed under the direction of Armando Suárez del Villar. Throughout his journey on stage and in the diverse spaces that have opened their doors to him for performance, he has been aware that his work can shape better and more committed human beings. For Pepe, the character in Penumbra, he received a Premio Caricato when he performed it in theater in 2004. Since 2007 he has been somewhat disconnected from theater when he played Mario Conde, the character by Leonardo Padura. He dreams of creating a show that mixes tragedy and comedy, a compendium that summarizes the best he has done in theater and in humor.
Confessions of Omar Franco
Jesús is the character that Omar Franco plays in the film Habanastation by Director Ian Padrón
Preferred humor: I have almost all the films of Charles Chaplin. For me that genius is paradigmatic because he takes you from laughter to reflection. Among more contemporary ones, I really like what Les Luthiers does. I have had the "bad luck" of knowing Daniel Rabinovich, who was in Cuba invited by Virulo and gave some lectures in 2007. Also Ernesto Arche, former member of Les Luthiers. In almost all Cuban family groups there is a preferred humorist and in my house and in my case too. I won't mention mine so as not to leave anyone out. Cuba has been fertile ground for humorists, all the National Humor awards given since 2000 and the movement of artists who cultivate this genre professionally are evidence of that. There are valuable sources to draw from like Zumbado, Luberta and Enrique Núñez, the first three award winners, whom young people perhaps don't know as well and who would be worth taking as references.
Free time: I really like sports. Thanks to my work, I know several athletes and I follow them at events, and I share their triumphs and defeats. I don't play, I teach domino classes," but I don't have time to enjoy it, because, among other reasons, in recent years the construction of my house has consumed almost all my free time. I love spending time with my family, with my wife and my son who is in his second year of Dentistry and is already shaping the family's future: "I put in teeth and he takes them out."
Reading is another of my preferences. Although I wasn't born on Paula Street, but in Santo Suárez, I declare myself a fervent Martian and always try to review Martí's work. I enjoy Mantilla, my adopted neighborhood. It has a very interesting social spectrum that is very useful for my feedback. The people I encounter help me interpret my characters, which almost never have anything to do with me.
Film Pablo: It happened to be in this place, at the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba, one day when I was doing humor at an activity for Journalists' Day. Yosmani Acosta, the film's director, had called me based on a reference from actor Aramís Delgado and proposed a very tragic character to me. He had never seen me act live, it was something a bit postmodern; he sits down to try to see me in a very dramatic character based on a humorous performance. After reading the script, I accepted the story; I think after about twenty days he was already telling me that I was the Rogelio of the film.
After Pablo: When one faces characters and situations like that, one moves further away from evil, which is important; the phrase is hackneyed but it remains very true, we actors can put ourselves in the shoes of others, but when we coldly analyze the story we realize how bad it is to be that way, and perhaps the kindness that one may have as a person is reinforced—even if it seems immodest—, but at least it moves me away from what could be bad for others. As a father I improved, and as a person; not just in the fact that I'm not going to do bad things—which I never have—, but in the possibility of understanding why some people are bad, which is not only a Cuban phenomenon, but after we went through that last decade of the twentieth century, the Special Period, when people lost a bit their sense of civics, it's good that this type of films appear and not turn our backs or remain on the margins of attitudes like this, which ultimately what they do is darken our reality.
Making people laugh: If I looked for the day when I said I could live off others' laughter I wouldn't find it. Since childhood I liked to learn tongue twisters and riddles. I had a book called Sabiduría guajira; later I made Samuel Feijóo's books my own. And I have always liked the prints of Luis Carbonell.
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