There is a certain understanding amongst actors that their work is not always as glamorous as the media makes it seem. Oftentimes, it requires balancing part-time jobs with gruelling auditions and living pay check to pay check. For many actors, the instability that comes with their career choice is the reason that they eventually trade it in for a more predictable career. For a select few actors, however, the joy and fulfillment that acting brings them is enough to keep them grounded. With the right combination of perseverance and talent, their careers eventually take off and for actors like Antonio Vigna, they remain driven in the face of adversity.
“If you choose this job because you’re passionate about it and because it is what makes you happy, then you have to do it. Regardless of what people say. They’ll discourage you for a thousand reasons, but all you need is one strong reason to keep going. I love what I do far too much to give it up,” said Vigna.
Not only is Vigna passionate about acting, he is great at it. His skills bring his characters to life in ways that some actors could only dream about. He learns his characters in such a way that transcends their corresponding scripts. He takes them to another level and they are often the reason that the films he works on gain such widespread success. In addition to acting, Vigna also writes and produces films. His work on films like Consummate and Camila have earned him a place in countless prestigious film festivals like the Hollywood Screenings Film Festivals, Los Angeles Cinefest, Best Shorts Competitions, and many more. In fact, the success of the film Klaazor can be attributed to his exceptional acting abilities and is likely the reason that it screened in more than ten well known film festivals.
For Klaazor, Vigna was recruited by producer, Carla Ronda, to lend his talents to the film. Klaazor depicts the journey of a 5-year old boy and his grandfather as they team up to defend their home from an alien invasion. Vigna, who plays the main alien, Klaazor, was particularly intrigued by the thought of playing an extra-terrestrial character and was excited to rise to the challenge. He has a particular affinity for excelling in positions where he has to play a character that he is unfamiliar with. He was also moved by the relationship between the boy and his grandfather and was eager to work with the cast to bring this moving story to the screen.
Playing Klaazor was unlike anything Vigna had ever done. For starters, he had never worked with FX in the past and was amazed by the process of matching the outer appearance of his character to the inner traits he was embodying. In addition, he was tasked with playing an extremely cold, emotionless character whose sole mission was to destroy the planet. Despite that, he has a weakness that he is determined to conceal, so Vigna had to master all of the unique traits that composed Klaazor. Unsurprisingly, Vigna executed the character flawlessly. His character was pivotal to the film’s story and to the success of the film as a whole. Without Klaazor, the film wouldn’t have a villain and without Vigna, the film wouldn’t have the calibre of thrill and excitement that it did.
For Vigna, Klaazor was about more than just an alien invasion. It was about reminding his audience of the type of relationship that exists between grandparents and grandchildren, which is often overlooked in the film industry.
“We see a lot of relationships in movies, but one that gets forgotten from time to time is that of a grandparent and a grandchild. In addition, this story is about imagination and overcoming fear. In the movie, the boy is imagining this terrifying world and his grandfather is simply playing along as if they are both children. Nowadays, with technology, we’re losing a lot of that playfulness and imagination, so I think that the film is important when it comes to reminding people to dream and to imagine without limits. If I had to act the whole movie again, I’d do so in a heartbeat,” said Vigna.
As a producer, Roda was thrilled with the outcome of the film and the way the audience received it. For her, it was a pleasure working with an actor as talented as Vigna and she felt confident from the start that Vigna would carry her script to greatness.
“One of the best things about working with Antonio is that I can trust him with my eyes closed. What makes him so good at his job is his contagious personality. He’s so social and people really have faith in him. He also has a lot of patience and knows how to solve problems very easily, which is important when you’re coordinating over sixty people in a production. As an actor, his charm and the persistence that he puts into his work makes him stronger every day. It translates through his approach to every role he takes on and it helps him bring them to life in a wonderful way,” stated Roda.
Despite the fact that Vigna’s films frequently land themselves a place in highly acclaimed film festivals, he continues to act in and produce them simply because it is what he loves to do. No number of awards or certificates could take from the unwavering passion he feels when he is working on a film. In the future, Vigna is working to have his own production company up and running by the end of the year that he hopes to launch with a television series or a feature film. Regardless of what he does, he knows that he will never give up on the one thing that he loves most in this world.