Felix is the older brother of Nicolas, our Director for Pan American Dreams. Theirs is an interesting family. Their late father was Swiss. Their mother Mercedes is Uruguayan, born to a distinguished family with a legacy of diplomats and high government officials among their members. Nico and Felix were born in Uruguay but moved to Argentina as very young children. They think of themselves as completely Argentine, which they are.
The entire multi-lingual family is involved in creative pursuits. Mercedes is a published novelist. Nico runs a successful video production company in Buenos Aires and is our Director. But Felix is a special case, a larger than life creative phenomenon. He paints, acts, writes and directs. He has been living in London for the past eight years or so, working as a stage actor mainly, but also painting and writing with a bit of TV and movie work in the mix.
Although I'd heard a great deal about him, I did not meet Felix during my nine months in Argentina because he was in London the entire time. We had exchanged emails, but nothing more. In early February, I received an unexpected email from him announcing that he was in Los Angeles.
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We had dinner at Lawry's that same night courtesy of my dear friend Nancy, who welcomed Felix with open arms. Tricia, Felix and I then spent a wonderful Sunday together at my home eating, drinking, talking and getting to know one another.
Over the next two weeks, Felix and I managed to get together a half dozen times. We talked at length about our respective projects and the critical differences between North and South America, and in his case, Europe.
He loved London and was doing quite well there. But it had begun to wear him down spiritually. On a recent trip back to Argentina, Felix realized that he must return to live in Argentina. London would always have a special place in his life, and his trip to LA was an exploration of the possibilities here, but he needed to be in Argentina to reconnect with and nourish his Latin American roots.
Within days of arriving in LA, his schedule was packed. I loaned him a cell phone, and it was filled with new contacts in no time. There were a string of meetings with agents (He now has one in LA!), directors, producers, fellow actors and LA friends met over the years of acting in London. He stayed with Argentine friends, a married couple in Silverlake. The man in this couple played Che Guevara's closest friend in the new Soderbergh movie. Felix had been in town only a few days and was already better connected than half the starving actors I know in the city.
But Argentina was calling. Yesterday I got his farewell email from England. He was, he said, in the final stages of mourning for London, a great city that he still loves but that he must leave. His flight leaves Tuesday, May 5, for Buenos Aires.
On his way out of London, Felix had written and acted in a one man play based on a story by Cervantes. His performance received favorable reviews, and it was exhilirating for him to do. He will return to London this fall to reprise the role, part of his wise strategy to phase his immersion back into Argentine society. He has also developed a bond with a director-producer he met in Los Angeles. They are already working on a fascinating joint production in Argentina, the details of which will follow in a future entry.
