Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alberto “Mojo” Peña. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Mojo thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Acting and directing has led me down a lifelong journey of learning. I fell in love with the craft in high school by working with three of my best friends – my brother, Gil, and my two homies, Shan and Drini Karemani. We formed our production company named Boggy Creek Films, based on where we’re from in Kissimmee, Florida. Because we always had a skeleton crew, we would all typically act, direct, write, and edit our projects. Once we transitioned from skits to short films, I finally got to work on a character for multiple shooting days. There’s something so fascinating to me about the process of developing a character and creating their mannerisms, speech pattern, how they walk/talk, etc.

For the majority of my childhood, even before we started Boggy Creek Films in high school, I was constantly telling stories in the form of a joke, whether that was repeating the lines from Austin Powers in Goldmember (which gave me my childhood nickname “Mojo”) or just being a class clown. After making my friends cry of laughter, they would tell me that I could and should be an actor. Hearing this once would’ve been a nice compliment. But since I would hear it all the time, my childhood imagination thought “maybe one day?”

Since I was self-taught until I was accepted into UCLA’s TFT Acting Program, I probably could’ve sped up my filmmaking learning process if I had gone to film school. But I’m happy to say I live with no regrets on not going the formal route before arriving in Los Angeles during the 2020 pandemic. Of course, educating yourself on the filmmaking process is vital, but in my opinion film school is not 100% necessary. I learned most of my skills by studying and actually making movies, learning from every single project’s success and failures.

In terms of most essential skills, the top of the list for me is being open (whether that’s making yourself vulnerable as an actor or using someone else’s idea if you’re directing), passion (gotta love what you’re doing), and fighting for your creative vision (don’t mend your idea because other people don’t agree with you).

Back in Kissimmee, a constant obstacle in our way was the lack of funding/resources. I think every filmmaker/artist can agree on this. My friends and I had grand visions and stories, but being so young in a city where filmmakers are not given many opportunities, we had to figure out how we could bring our visions to life with a $100 budget. For example, we once wanted to film a scene where I was presenting a powerful speech to a crowd of passionate listeners, but we never shot it because all the friends that we needed as extras were too busy, so we had to move onto the next project. We had to downscale our impressive dreams to match our shoestring budget. Today, we could easily orchestrate a decent size gathering for this type of scene.

Mojo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been nicknamed Mojo ever since 4th grade because I was obsessed with the movie Austin Powers in Goldmember. I watched the movie everyday on the way to school in my mom’s car that came with a built-in DVD player. As the new kid in school with Dominican and New York roots, I memorized the hilarious lines and performed them to gain friends and make them laugh. It showed me the power of comedy, performing, and storytelling, and how it can really bring people together. Fast forward to 2020, I decided to make the scary and bold move to drive my minivan from Kissimmee, Florida to Los Angeles, California to pursue my childhood dream.

Uniquely, I consider myself an actor AND director. I’m blessed with enough opportunities to sometimes choose which hat I want to wear to properly tell a story. When I read a script, I can either tell the story by acting as one of the characters or portray a grander vision for the script by directing it. Being able to perform both positions effectively is something that makes me distinct in this industry. I’m able to tell a story through two different roles. I’d continue to do both if needed just like in the good old Kissimmee days.

One of my proudest moments came in early 2023 when I reached an actor’s dream of becoming SAG-AFTRA eligible! I worked on an amazing series named RZR created by David Bianchi. Along with collaborating with his wonderful team, I was blessed with the awesome opportunity to go through prosthetics for the first time. With a process that took about 4–5 hours overall, I was going through a common on-set procedure that so many of my favorite actors endured daily on set. It was another level of acting that I’m happy to say I’ve experienced.

Cinema is such a powerful art form, I respect and love it with all my heart. I consider myself blessed to be able to do this professionally. If I’m fortunate enough to continue working on great projects, I really strive to tell stories that entertain, provoke thoughts, start conversations, and have a sense of “timelessness”, so it feels fresh every time someone rewatches it. I’m not saying all my movies are going to be once in a lifetime pieces of art, but if I can cause a reaction in a viewer (cry, laugh, ponder, etc.), I’ve left my fingerprint in their life.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect is the freedom to be one! I definitely don’t take for granted that I have the opportunities to do what I truly love. I’m just a kid from Kissimmee making movies! My encouraging team of family, friends, and colleagues support my visions and ambitions every step of the way.

I remember being a salesman in Orlando for a year after college. The professional experience was useful and I learned things that I still apply today. But I felt so trapped in a corporate cycle that I found myself not being able to create anymore. My daydreams were disappearing, when I wanted to write I couldn’t think of anything, and above all, I didn’t have the time to bring my vision to life, even if I wanted to. I was being drained creatively for the first time in my life and I felt like I couldn’t do anything about it. Thankfully, another one of my best friends, Jacobo Fe Gismera from Spain (a brilliant screenwriter based in Los Angeles with me), provided me light in my time of darkness by telling me about UCLA’s Acting program and affordable student housing so we can achieve our dreams together, as we planned when we first met by chance in Thailand (that’s a story for another time!) Every day is a struggle in this film industry, but I reflect back on those creatively dark days and I’m so happy to be fighting towards my dreams, no matter how bumpy the road is.

Besides the opportunity to create art and make a living simultaneously, the reward is a feeling I can’t quite put into words. And what’s beautiful about filmmaking is that sometimes you don’t need words to express how you’re feeling! You somehow find a way to visualize it. I look at filmmaking as a puzzle. Sometimes you know what you want to say… the question is, how the heck do I convey it?! That brainstorming process when you throw a ton of ideas against the wall to see what sticks is what I love the most. Once you have enough pieces, you start to put them together and then organize them. And so you turn all those pieces of scrap paper from the ideas conception into a finalized film that you can show the world. The process of having an idea and turning it into reality is so fulfilling to me. Especially because it’s NEVER easy. There’s so many obstacles that can destroy your idea and will, but when you fight for your vision and complete it, it’s one of the best feelings in the world that I want to replicate over and over and over and over again.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Since I was a self-taught actor, there’s a few lessons about acting I had to unlearn. I never had any type of acting coach until I went to UCLA, where I was taught by amazing instructors. It was a learning curve, but I loved diving in headfirst. My instructors told me they appreciated my fearlessness and ability to go for it. Most of the things I had to unlearn as an actor were on the technique side. I learned that instead of doing something because it would look “cool”, that I have to find a reason why my character would behave this way.

My biggest takeaway was learning to act truthfully, from a place of sincerity. For example, it’s so easy to do a scene where you’re “angry”, yelling from beginning to end. Thankfully, what I learned was how to apply my personal truth to a scene like that. Human emotions come in waves and different variations. Using the same example, anger can range from a denial type of anger to a disappointed anger to the famous explosive anger that we love to see from Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, etc. I unlearned many preconceived notions about acting and within the span of a year, I was able to see my personal growth in this craft, and so did my instructors and peers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11101619/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m0j023/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alberto.pena.353
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alberto-mojo-pena/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theboggycreekfilms
• Email: [email protected]