We were lucky to catch up with Guillermo Ivan Duenas Lazcano recently and have shared our conversation below.

Guillermo Ivan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I grew up in a house full of books, jazz, paintings and creativity. My father was an artist and my mother used to be a musician when I was a child and in our little apartment at that time, they would hold gatherings and small parties with their artists friends almost every weekend and they always let me be around as a kid and even participate on those intellectual and philosophical conversations that inspired me at a young age to explore my creativity. They always gave me the freedom and courage to pursue my dreams even when I decided to move by myself to Cuba when I was only 14 years old to study theater and then to New York. They always believed on me even when the circumstances or the outcome wasn’t the expected. They let my fly to the sky and be myself.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am an actor-director-writer-producer. I have been involved as an actor in more than 45 movies around the world and a few years ago I created my own production company ( Golden Ceiba Productions LLC ) where I have had the opportunity to develop ideas from the scratch into films.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My personal journey has tested my resilience from the moment I decided to do what I love; From studying theater and film in Cuba facing starvation and loneliness to moving to New York by myself to keep my training as an actor without even speaking english and facing a tough teacher that gave me a deadline of three months to learn the language. But If I have to mention one particular project, I will remark our film “Rumba Love” as an example. That was a movie that I originally wrote to honor my best friend who passed away when I was 14. After finally having the script ready to shoot I faced total rejection at first. We have to self finance a project that seemed to be a crazy quest, we finally shot the first portion of the movie in Havana and ran out of money. When we finally collected more funds we shot a second portion in New York and finally a year after we finished the film, sorting out the pandemic, but yet no one believed we could do something with it and we faced multiple rejections. Finally we premiered the movie in 2021 in LA and New York and after that premiere, the movie was acquired by Showtime and Paramount Plus and it’s currently in their platforms. To me that was a clear example of how you have to keep pursing your dream and your vision no matter what, even when nobody else but you and your heart know what has to be done.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Being able to touch people’s hearts through my work, knowing that I can be part of something greater than just myself and helping changing the world through storytelling in film, tv and general media is something that inspires me everyday.

Contact Info:

• Website: guillermoivan.com
• Instagram: @guillerivan
• Facebook: Guillermo Ivan
• Twitter: @guillerivan
• Youtube: @guillermoivantv

Image Credits
Alfonso Zapata-photographer