All the World's His Stage

The high-energy, effervescent, always expressive 2006 Collegiate graduate knows only one speed. It’s fast forward.  Always has been.  Always will be.

Mendez was a three-sport (football, basketball, and lacrosse) athlete in high school and brought seemingly boundless vitality to each practice and competition.

He was oft-honored for his exploits in the fall and spring, helped his teams win Prep League and state championships in football and lacrosse his final year, and earned both the Outstanding Senior Athlete Award and Jacobs Sportsmanship Award in 2006.

As a wide receiver (football), guard (basketball), and attack  (lacrosse), he competed with uncommon desire, heart, and pluck, attributes that gave him a distinct advantage over larger, quicker, and more talented opponents.

His joie de vivre extended well past the athletic arena. It carried over into his classes and his many friendships and onto the stage where he’s proven to be a natural actor.

In fact, acting is what he does for a living these days.

His introduction came in Oates Theater when he auditioned, albeit reluctantly, for a role in West Side Story his sophomore year at the suggestion of his mother Sharon.
 
“I went out and actually liked it,” Mendez recalled recently during a visit home during a respite from his work in Southern California. “The people (in the cast) were a bunch of my good friends.  I really enjoyed hanging out with them. I think I ended up being Gang Member #8 for the Sharks.  I had an absolute blast.  In the end, I decided to focus on football, not knowing that the thing I would truly pursue was acting.”

He was finding his professional passion, though.

“I’ve realized,” he continued, “that no matter what you’re doing, if you’re working with people you really enjoy, you’ll push yourself and work harder so everybody has a better experience. That’s applicable to drama.  It’s applicable to athletics.”

Though he didn’t realize it at the time, Mendez was already learning lessons about role-playing that he would carry into his professional life.

“My junior year,” he said.  “I barely made the basketball team.  I couldn’t shoot.  I wasn’t very good.  I remember Coach (Alex) Peavey talking to me about my role.  I thought, well, if I can treat every practice like a game, if I can treat every opportunity to play with these guys as something to embrace and attack, then I can help the team, even if I’m not scoring points in games.
    
“Later, when I played football for the University of Virginia, that came in handy because I touched the field for a total of eight seconds. Practices were my games.  I went as hard as I could, realizing that there’s very little difference between practice and a game, between rehearsal and a performance.”

Intrigued by the though of acting, Mendez took playwriting classes in college and, when time allowed, performed in several venues around Charlottesville.

His senior year, he wrote and directed a play entitled Voice Male based on Collegiate’s a capella group by the same name.  It was performed at UVA’s Culbreth Theatre.

"It was the coolest thing to hear people saying the words I’d written in front of people who seemed to be enjoying themselves," he said. "I thought, you know…I really enjoy this. The entire experience, the stress…this is what I enjoy about athletics too. There’s a lot of pain and exhaustion involved, but the performance was exhilarating.  It’s a feeling that you can’t replicate.”

After college, Mendez moved to South Florida to teach for AmeriCorps in the Miami-Dade County public school district.

In his rare spare time, he did some open mic and improv and landed his first paying gig as the lead character in a horror film entitled Renzo.

He arrived in LA in July 2014 and has waited tables, tended bar, tutored high school students preparing for the ACT, taken acting classes, and attended every audition his agent has secured for him.

Late in 2014, he filmed a Subway commercial, which was broadcast nationwide.  In the works are a Toyota commercial and an independent film about Elvis Presley entitled Kalamazoo. He recently starred in an episode of My Crazy Ex on the Lifetime Movie Network.  It was his first television credit and another small, dues-paying step in what he hopes is a very long career in television and the theater.  

“I like interesting roles,” he said.  “It’s exciting to tell a story of a specific person.  Selling subs doesn’t necessarily constitute telling a story.  At the same time, that’s where you begin.
    
“Acting is about empathizing with the person you’re portraying.  That was a muscle that got exercised very heavily when I was teaching.  It’s a characteristic I feel I have in spades. Knowing that there’s a job where you can perform in front of people, tell somebody’s story, and share their joys and disappointments, hardships and successes…that’s very exciting and interesting to me.”

His quest continues. As he prepares, performs, and dreams, he reflects often on the lessons he learned in the classrooms and hallways and on the playing fields of his alma mater.

“In history class, Mr. (Neil) Weiser always demanded that we answer the question ‘Why?’” Mendez said.  “I wasn’t going to be a historian, but that gave me a way to think.  It’s the same with athletics.  I wasn’t going to be a professional athlete, but the teams I was part of, the coaches I had, taught me to attack a craft in a way that put me in the best position to succeed.”
                                                               -- Weldon Bradshaw