He might not be a household name stateside yet (and I emphasize yet), but as millions of viewers watched Cristian de la Fuente swivel those hips and purse those lips as he samba'ed, rhumba'ed and cha-cha'ed his way across the dance floor on the popular ABC network program Dancing With The Stars, it became obvious that there's ton's more brains to this actor than just the brawns and toothsome smile we see on TV.
Your ever-chatty Cosmomama had the unique privledge to chat with this fellow Chilean (we were both born in the capital city of Santiago), devoted husband and doting father to find out not only what makes him tick, but what makes him talk about everything from fatherhood to finding fame in the United States to well .... the Millennium Falcon.
CS: You’ve mentioned that watching Star Wars (my husband’s all time favorite film obsession) was a turning point for you at just six years old in terms of knowing that you wanted to pursue acting. What was it about the movie? The cocky heroism of Hans Solo? The fact that he could fly that rockin’ Millennium Falcon? The gold bikini-clad Leia?
CF: It made me decide that I wanted to be an actor. When I left the movie, I pretended that I was Luke Skywalker for a week.
CS: My husband did that, too. He’s not an actor, but it’s his favorite movie of all time.
CF: It was the first time I really connected with a movie, since the ones I had watched before I had been too little, but then after I went to that movie, I said, 'wow, there’s something really great about being somebody else while you’re still living in life.'
CS: You came from a very conservative Chilean family just like me. To tell you the truth, I don’t think there’s any other kind. Is that why you thought that your family wouldn’t be on board with the idea of your becoming an actor?
CF: It’s not about being conservative or not, it’s more about being a parent and wanting your child to have a good stable economic future, and Chile’s not Hollywood, you know, so actors don’t make a lot of money. When I started working, my salary was $500 a month. And there’s a lot of great, talented actors who end up dying in a hospital and they cannot pay the bills. So it’s not Hollywood, it’s not glamorous, it’s not limousines and the Oscars. You act in Chile because that’s your passion and not because you’re going to make money, and so, my father was really worried about me being an actor and not being able to have enough money to buy food.
CS: It’s that whole starving artist mentality.
CF: Yes. Besides the fact you don’t get paid a lot of money, in acting you work only 100 times in your life. Every time you finish a project, then you’re unemployed all over again.
CS: How does your family feel now?
CF: My mom is very happy and she’s very proud and my dad didn’t live to see it. He passed away 12 years ago and so he saw some success that I had when I was working in Chile, but he never saw me working in the states.
CS: How do you think he'd feel now?
CF: Well, I think he would be very proud and happy and probably would want to become an actor, too.
CS: And visit you in L.A.
CF: Yeah – he’d probably be living with me.
CS: Any regrets at not pursuing your civil engineering degree at La Católica?
CF: No, I probably would have regretted it if I would have done it.
CS: We have a little something in common, by the way. La Católica is my mom's alma mater.
CF: You were born in Chile? 
CS: I sense disbelief.
CF: How long have you been in the states?
CS: Since I was about 6 months old. However, I did live with my grandmother and aunt in Chile for a year when I was about 2 years old.
CF: So you’re American kind of.
CS: Actually, I'm very American. My dad's an American, born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, and my mom is from Chile. They met while he was in Santiago for a Peace Corps reunion on a blind date and it's a happy ending after that, I guess you could say. Let's just say I think it's fabulous. I have the best of both worlds - I think being bi-cultural is the best - and I don't have an accent in either language when I talk.
CF: Definitely when you’re little you have a good ear and you pick up languages very fast. My daughter, when she speaks in Spanish, it’s a perfect Spanish accent and when she switches to English it’s a perfect American accent.
CS: I agree. Kids are amazing they way the can absorb all kinds of new information. So now tell me, how did you get into flying with the National Chilean Air Force Reserves?
CF: My godfather – my dad’s brother – was a General in the air force. As I grew up, I always saw him in uniform and I always wanted to be a pilot. But there were too many things to do and only one life. Like Batman. So much to do, and so little time.
CS: What does being a part of the Aerobatics Team, Los Halcones, involve?
CF: I approached them about a program in the Air Force where they train you for a year, year and a half, and they give you military training. Since I was already a pilot so they didn’t have to teach me how to fly. After completing the program you become part of the reserves, then you start serving, and then after years you move up in rank – from 3rd Lt. to 2nd. Lt. to 1st. Lt. to Captain and so forth and so on.
And so for me, it’s really an honor. I love my country, I’m very proud of being from Chile. When I got married, I got married in my uniform, so for me to be able to serve my country is great.
On the other hand, it’s something that keeps you grounded. When you’re working like this in the entertainment industry, everyone inflates your ego and takes your picture and then you go to Chile, put on your uniform and everyone yells at you. So it’s good.
Chile keeps people down to earth.
CS: I’m originally from Santiago, and I sure miss not being able to visit more than once a year or once every two years, but packing up a toddler (with another one on the way) isn’t the easiest. What do you miss about living in Chile? I hear you make a trip there every month – can we join you?
CF: Yes! Let's go! I go almost every month – 12 times a year. I go because of the air force and also because I have a production company in Chile.
CS: EFE3.
CF: Yes. So I have to say, I don’t miss a lot. I go back really often. But, the thing that you miss is the feeling that you don’t have roots. When I walk around L.A. – I’ve been there 10 years but I still feel new to it. It’s not my country. When I walk in Chile every street has a story, I grew up there and people know me. There’s they guy in the store on the corner that saw me as a little kid, there’s the place that I used to have ice cream with my dad, so there’s places that have history. There’s places that have roots that connect you to yourself, your past, who you really are. I think that’s the only real thing you miss when you leave a country.
CS: I had the chance to spend a lot of my second trimester in Chile when I was pregnant with my first child, and unfortunately, I won't be able to do that this time around now that I'm expecting my second. But I yearn for my family. I want to be there feeling exactly what you described.
CF: It’s everything. There’s the smells, there’s the food, there’s just so much that connects you to you life. I always compare it to a metaphor – when you have a plant and you take it out of the earth and put it in a vase, it’s different. The plant is still alive, but it’s not connected to where it’s originally from.
CS: So you do really have the best of both worlds, don't you?
CF: I can’t complain.
CS: What part of Chile are you from? Do you have a favorite Chilean destination? Why?
CF: I like Santiago that’s where we have our apartment and work and everything, but we have a place in the South of Chile, close to Santa Cruz, in the wine valley – el Valle del Vino. That place is heaven. We go every year and spend a month, a month and a half, no TV, no phone, and we just live life in simple way the way God intended it.
We have made life too complicated. There was a time when we didn’t have cell phones and we were free.
CS: What did we do before the net and cell phone?
CF: And the Blackberry!
That’s why everyone has cancer and stress and diseases that we never heard of before.
CS: It sounds like you have your priorities in order.
CF: I try, it’s hard to, but I really try. Life is so short then you’re 80 and you realize you wasted a lot of time.
CS: The rehearsal schedule for Dancing With The Stars was pretty intense, and I imagine that your days are pretty filled up what with your various TV projects, not to mention your own business ventures with your production company EFE3. How do you juggle all of your acting commitments and family time?
CF: Dancing With The Stars was brutal and like nothing I’ve ever done in my life, because it was the first time I worked Monday through Monday for 3 months non-stop. Now I work a lot but I have something called weekends again that I didn’t have before.
I use the weekend to spend time with my family. I’m in Mexico now and last weekend I went back to L.A. and spent time with my family. I took my daughter to a Dodgers game and the Wall-E premiere, and then we spent Sunday flying and we were together and then I came back each week, and then this Tuesday they’re going to come here and spend time with me for a week.
So sometimes it’s not a quantity of time but we try to go for quality, and the time that we spend together we really spend together. But also, in between projects, let’s say when this is over, before I start my next project, I’m going to have 3-4 weeks off and those 4 weeks I’m going to see my daughter all day every day. So, I don’t have to have the schedule somebody else has from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., but I have a different schedule, and sometimes I don’t see my family for a couple of days and then I see them a lot. When I have to travel, I can spend time with my wife and daughter in Mexico, which is also great for my daughter. She’s only 4 and has been in so many places.
CS: Me, too. My parents passed on the travel bug's bite early on in life. I've been to Chile at least 22 times, to Europe, Mexico and Canada a number of times, and even have a good fistful of states in the U.S. under my belt.
CF: Travel is what gives you a vision that’s different from anybody else’s and that’s what being a parent is all about: education and teaching and those moments that piece them together.
CS: And showing you that there’s more beyond your front door.
CF: Exactly.
CS: What is your favorite daddy/daughter activity?
CF: Anything that makes her happy.
CS: Spoken like a true dad.
CF: She loves going to the pool – she’s like a little fish. Then she likes dress up and costumes. But not that princess stuff. She’s over that now. She likes to dress up like Spiderman or Batman. So then we go and get the costume, play that she’s Spiderman or Batman all day.
CS: Ah, yes. I can identify. My son lives, sleeps, eats and breathes Thomas the Tank Engine, so we're always playing along with his imaginary tales.
CF: I basically play whatever she wants to play.
CS: Tell me about your USA network drama, In Plain Sight – what’s it like being known as the “hunky Chilean actor” as you’re now being described in various industry publications?
CF: I like titles. I’m just happy with being an actor. When they put anything next to the word actor, you know, it’s nice but I’m just happy acting. Whatever they want to say it’s fine with me. So yeah, I guess if they want to say I’m hunky, wow, ok then.
CS: I guess they could be saying worse things.
CF: I mean I’d rather have Academy Award Winner or award nominee next to actor, but if hunky’s what I get, I’ll live with it.
CS: You never know, you might on your way there.
CF: Little by little.
CS: Tell me about your latest telenovela (soap opera) project, Fuego en la Sangre? My grandmother is a huge fan of telenovelas – will it air in Chile? Is it a complete turnaround from In Plain Sight?
CF: I was invited to be part of a group project for a couple of weeks and for me to be in a project this big is great. To be getting into a market as big as the Mexican market with the No. 1 show and the No. 1 director, and the No. 1 television network that’s a great way to get into the market.
It’s the most watched show right now with a 34 rating, it’s crazy. I’m doing a special appearance, and when I was invited I said of course! It opened for me a different door in the way I want to be working and be seen in the market and nobody knew me and now things are different for me and it's great.
Oh, and it’s airing everywhere.
CS: What has it been like to be a bilingual actor straddling cross-cultural media markets? Does it put a lot of added pressure on you to be known as “one of the Top Ten actors to watch?”
CF: I don’t think its pressure. I love it and look at it in the way that I’m very lucky and I don’t take advantage of it. I don’t regret it. I love the fact that I’m able to work in Spanish and in English and simultaneously grow in both markets. It’s something great. It’s just helped me grow because I think we’re living in a world where little by little everyone’s going to end up being bilingual.
In the states, Spanish is growing and we’re the biggest minority – there are more than 40 million Latinos in the states and Americans are realizing the importance of Spanish and learning to be bilingual. So being bilingual today is very important and if I can keep growing in both markets there are a lot of American movies that you see where there are actors speaking in Spanish. And little buy little that line that divided English from Spanish is going to disappear.
In, In Plain Sight, my character sometimes speaks in Spanish. My character has an accent. Sometimes he says something and it comes out the wrong way and that happens sometimes today. There are a lot of immigrants in the States and that’s the reality. And not to show that reality is a lie.
CS: What I like about it, is that it doesn't satarize Hispanics and make fun of them a la Ricky Ricardo.
CF: Yeah, but the case is that the reality has changed. Now Latinos are the presidents of companies. Today we live in the world where the richest man is not an American, he’s a Mexican. So the world is different. May a couple of years ago you could make fun of Latinos. Now it’s different. Latinos aren’t just busboys or gardeners anymore. Latinos are teachers, congressmen, and the CEOs of company. Latinos are the most powerful people in the world – in a way. It’s crazy. When I heard that the most powerful and riches man in the world was Mexican, I was like, wow, this shows the direction the world is going.
CS: So much for Spanish 101.