AFTER A KNEE INJURY IN COLLEGE SILENCED HIS DREAMS OF GOING PRO, THIS FORMER FOOTBALL STUD DOVE HEADFIRST INTO SHOWBIZ, GRINDING AWAY IN THE NEW YORK ACTING SCENE UNTIL A BANNER ROLE IN NETFLIX’S GROUNDBREAKING ORIGINAL, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, CATAPULTED HIS CAREER. NOW WITH CREDITS LIKE THE PENGUIN, THE NIGHT AGENT, AND POWER BOOK II: GHOST UNDER HIS BELT, THE RISING STAR IS JOINING ONE OF TELEVISION’S BIGGEST FRANCHISES IN TAYLOR SHERIDAN’S LATEST YELLOWSTONE SPIN-OFF. INDUSTRY CAUGHT UP WITH THE NJ-BASED ACTOR TO TALK WRANGLING, FAMILY, AND HOW TO HUSTLE WITH HEART
BY AMANDA McCOY
It’s a bustling Friday morning, and Berto Colón chuckles on the phone while navigating the Dallas airport, catching a flight back to his New Jersey home after a week of “Cowboy Camp” for his latest role. When asked if he’ll take the weekend to rest and unwind, he replied without pause, “I rarely sit still. I’ve always been a high-energy person; the key is channeling that into something productive.”
Productive indeed. The Bronx-bred but now Middletown actor’s career has been on a tear the past few years. He landed a pair of series regular roles as Lorenzo in Power Book II: Ghost (opposite Mary J. Blige) and as Solomon Vega in The Night Agent plus a plot-twisting role as Sophia Falcone’s wrongfully accused bodyguard, Castillo, in HBO’s smash hit spin-off, The Penguin. These days, he’s flying back and forth to Texas for his latest project: a spot in the ever-expanding Taylor Sheridan universe on new series Rio Paloma. Once back at home, life doesn’t slow down for the married father of two. “There’s no shortage of calendars,” laughed Colón. Between role prep, fitness regimens, and his high school daughters’ busy sports schedules, Colón spends the rare idle moment on his surfboard or buried in home improvement projects (he recently built a fire mantel from scratch). But for Colón, the hustle drives him.
Born in Puerto Rico, Colón relocated to the Bronx with his mother when he was in high school. A stud on the field, he went to Fordham University in New York on a full football scholarship, with the dream of someday going pro. But after blowing out one knee his senior year of HS and the other during his freshman year in college, he had to pivot. (As luck would have it, this was the same time he started dating his future wife, Lara, who was one year younger at Fordham. The couple has been together for nearly 30 years, relocating to New Jersey in 2005.)
“It was a hard lesson for my younger self, not achieving that dream,” recalled Colón, who as captain of his HS team cheered vigorously from the sidelines when his team made it to the NYC Championships that year. “After I graduated college, I tried a few different careers in finance and sales and switched jobs about three or four times. But acting was always in the back of my mind. I did plays as a young kid and loved the thrill. It was a natural transition.”
The early days of Colón’s career followed the typical grind of the New York actor. “I was constantly putting myself out there and pursuing any acting work I could get,” he said. “I did a lot of student films for NYU, thesis films, and non-paid gigs to get my feet wet. At the same time, one of my best friends, Mark Rodriguez, who’s now the godfather of my older daughter, was studying to be a director, so I got involved in a lot of his projects. One of my first experiences was playing a janitor in a student film, which is still my wife’s favorite role I’ve ever done [laughs]. I was constantly pounding the pavement, but when you’re hungry, you want to do that work.”
The hustle slowly paid off. First came the soaps (As The World Turns, One Life to Live) circa 2008, followed by single episode stints on network hits like White Collar, Blue Bloods, and Elementary. Then, in 2013, he landed the role that would launch his career: Cesar in the Netflix original series, Orange Is the New Black. At the time, streaming services were still considered entertainment distributors, not powerhouse content creators. With shows like OITNB and House of Cards, Netflix was about to change that.
“That’s when everything started to change for me,” noted Colón, whose nuanced portrayal of the enigmatic drug dealer was widely praised by critics. Funnily enough, he was never cast as a series regular, but the writers kept bringing him back for five of the series’ seven seasons.
From there, the auditions came pouring in, as did the bookings. Colón landed a recurring role in Chicago P.D. and NCIS: New Orleans, and took on the particularly challenging role as a malicious prison guard in Netflix’s poignant miniseries, When They See Us, inspired by the wrongful conviction of five Harlem teenagers in the infamous 1989 Central Park Jogger case. “It was particularly hard to play someone abusive, who was looking for control and dominance,” noted Colón. “It went against all my instincts.”
But that’s the work of an actor, Colón explained, to get inside their character’s psyche and understand their motivations. When prepping for a role, he reads, and rereads, each script dozens of times (“you always find something new,” he added) to bring a depth, a nuance, to every character he embodies. It’s what kept bringing Cesar back in OITNB, and why he was promoted to series regular in Power Book II: Ghost.
“I was originally booked as a guest star in Power Book II: Ghost,” he said. “I was given a lot of creative liberty to make the choices for my character and how I would portray him, which helped solidify me as a series regular. I did the same thing with my character in Orange. That’s been a great theme in my career maximizing every opportunity.”
The Penguin was another career-defining moment for Colón, who plays a pivotal character in Oz’s (Colin Farrell) guileful scheme to play two prominent families in the early episodes. “I had to pinch myself,” he recalled. “Not only was it by far the highest production level I had ever worked on, I got to work closely with Colin Farrell, who is a hero of mine. He’s one of those actors you want to emulate. He completely immersed himself in the role [of Oz]. It was a teaching moment for me; it elevated my game to the next level.”
Now a rapidly rising star, Colón describes his career’s momentum as knocking down dominos. “You keep going, keep auditioning, keep seizing every opportunity with everything you’ve got, and one day you get a call that you’ve been cast in Taylor Sheridan’s latest Yellowstone spin-off, Rio Paloma.”
The show will center on Yellowstone’s Beth Dutton and Rip Wheeler, and while details are still scant, Colón noted he’ll be playing a ranch hand working for the rival family, with “some dark underworld ties,” and he’s now boots-deep in Cowboy Camp, a basic training of sorts for every actor in a Sheridan title. “Taylor wants everyone to be as authentic as possible,” noted Colón. “The show is shot with real 2,000-lb animals. We’re trained by real wranglers how to rope, ride, and steer a herd. My dad used to compete in rodeos, so my pre-teen years were spent watching him compete and take care of his horse. I might be a city slicker, but I’m still an athlete, and I’ve been riding as well as any of the guys out there I just have to fine-tune some of the details for authenticity. This is where I thrive give me the opportunity, and I’ll run with it.”
Beyond his acclaimed work on screen, Colón brings his heart to philanthropy as a board member of The Cristian Rivera Foundation. Inspired by chil dren and families facing Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), a rare and aggressive pediatric brain cancer, Colón will join advocates and other celebrity board members at the upcoming 16th Annual Celebrity Gala on November 12 at Cipriani Wall Street. The evening will honor the Lutnick children as well as world-renowned neurosurgeon, Dr. John Boockvar, widely recognized from Netflix’s Lenox Hill. “It will be a fun night for a great cause, and I hope that everyone interested in supporting us can join,” said Colón.
