Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlos Manuel Cadena
Hi Carlos Manuel, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
So my story is best defined as this: a resilient discovery of passions. I always felt like if you were going to do something in your life you better have a passion for it, otherwise there’s really no point to dedicate so much of your time to it. It just made sense to me like that. Most people go their entire lives not finding that passion while others do end up discovering what that passion is… I was fortunate enough to find out that I have two passions in my life. The first one is acting, where I have spent a majority of my time dedicating myself to the craft. I began acting around the Houston area for the stage a little while after I left high school and then moved to the DFW area in which I expanded my craft to also include film experience. When it comes to acting, I don’t really do it for the recognition but rather because I absolutely adore being able to grab a script and create a character from the lines of each page in order to bring him/her to life for the rest of the world to see, either on the stage or for the camera. Seeing the impact that brings to other people also makes me feel absolutely delighted. This one time, I was playing the lead in this musical called Hello, Dolly! and after the show I got to meet this lovely elderly couple who came to me in tears. The wife held my hand and said to me, “My husband and I had our first date and fell in love watching this show. Thank you for making us feel young again.” It was at that moment that I knew acting was something I was destined to do in some way shape or form for the rest of my life. Well, I had my first passion, and at the time I thought that to be the only passion I needed to move forward. However, I felt that something was missing. I knew I needed some kind of day job in order to pay the bills, but I also wanted it to be something that made me feel fulfilled. So I went to college and decided to get a degree in marketing before I did my degree in acting, getting jobs in insurance companies, home security, and fitness. The more I tried though, the more I felt like I could be doing more. I felt like I wanted to impact people in some way, but I just didn’t know how. That is, until I realized that my second passion was in helping people. When I thought impacting people was just a byproduct of whatever it was that I did, I began to realize that I actually enjoyed helping people in whatever way shape or form to the point that it was almost second nature to me. So I made the decision to begin a third career as a nurse and hope to one day work in a hospital in either an ICU or ER setting. I’m a bit ahead of the starting point in this third journey, and I seem to really be enjoying it so far. My goal is to continue on my life by combining these two passions, as I work as a hospital nurse and continue acting even to this day in both short films and stage performances.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh man, my road has been quite a handful of things but smooth is definitely not one of them. These past couple of years especially, where I lost a good friend of mine named Nolan Jaymie Heermann three years ago. They were a fellow creative, and one with a talent that knew no bounds. Losing them was pretty hard. Then, around the same month actually, my godfather had to get a tracheotomy and was bedridden for a while. He is a good man that deserves everything in the world but pain. After that, we got a pretty big scare with my mom after a botched surgery, she was in so much pain I thought I was going to lose her and I couldn’t do anything about it. I lost people who I thought would be with me for the long run, and the old “master plan” has had to be reworked so many times it gets exhausting after a while. Though there’s for sure people out there who have had it harder than me, I like to think that what I’ve gone through has some sort of meaning behind it. That if I just hold on a second longer, something good would be waiting for me around the corner. Also, regardless of how much I’ve had to endure, I feel incredibly fortunate to have been blessed with a family and a circle of people that have inspired me to keep on going. So, as I continue this really weirdly shaped road, I’m probably gonna fall down a couple more times here and there… but I’ve never been one to give up no matter how hard it gets.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m pretty specialized in stage and film acting. However, I also dabble in a couple of other activities as I try to be as well-rounded as I can be. A lot of people that I have met mostly know me for my involvement in the first season of Smalltown Outsiders (now streaming on Tubi) as Kevin Peterson, and people in the Conroe theater scene know me a lot for my role in Hello, Dolly! as Cornelius Hackl. One thing that sets me apart from others is probably my two bachelor degrees that will soon become three in a couple years’ time, with an associates degree in there too cause why the heck not. Aside from that, I also dabble in photography (made my own headshot business a couple years back) and martial arts (currently hold two black belts in two separate systems) to name a few.
How do you define success?
For me, success is to be happy with oneself and with what one does on the daily. It’s not something that is simply gained through a prize or a title, but it is rather something you feel a warm joy out of simply doing or being a part of. A pure joy that no one can take away from you. It can be big or small, but at the end of the day it’s yours. It’s that feeling you get where you take a second to see all that you’ve endured and you say to yourself, “Yeah, I made it through all that” with a smile on your face as you see where you stand now.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carlos.manuel.cadena/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialCarlosManuelCadena?mibextid=kFxxJD
- Twitter: https://x.com/CadenaCarlosM
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CarlosManuelCadena
Image Credits
Ethan White, Stage Right Theater Company, University of Texas at Arlington, TBN
