Paul Calderón

Paul Calderón (born 1959) is an American actor. He is a founding member of the Touchstone Theatre, the American Folk Theatre and the LAByrinth Theater Company. He is also a member of the Actors Studio, auditioning and accepted as a member in 1984 alongside Melissa Leo and two other actors.

Calderón was born in Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican mother and a father of Afro-Caribbean descent. He moved with his family at the age of six to New York City, where he grew up on the streets and sidewalks of the Lower East Side and Spanish Harlem. Following some time in college, studying anthropology, he enlisted in the United States Army and served overseas as an Infantryman.

After his discharge, he worked as a trail cutter in the Amazon jungle for a team of anthropologists stationed in the border between Peru and Brazil. After his stint as trail cutter, he traveled extensively throughout Peru on train and foot, visiting and living in such places as Iquitos, Cuzco and Puno. After his South American venture, he lived in Mexico City for three months and traveled to Tijuana and to Mazatlán.

Returning to the United States, Calderón worked as a demolition man, and later as a Latin dance instructor. At the same time he began studying and performing in many Off-Off-Broadway productions as well as Regional Theatre. He got his big break in 1984 in a revival of Miguel Piñero's Short Eyes directed by Kevin Conway at the Second Stage Theatre. In 1995 he won an Obie and an Audelco Award for his performance in Blade to the Heat at the Public Theater. His most notable Broadway role was opposite Robert De Niro in Cuba and His Teddy Bear.

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