Yul Vazquez – Painter / Photographer / Musician / Actor
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Yul Vazquez
Take a walk with me down Fascination Street, as I get to know Yul Vazquez. Born in Havana, Yul and all of the women in his family escaped Fidel Castro’s Cuba to make a new life in Miami Beach, Florida. In this episode, Yul and I chat about how difficult it was for his mother, and grandmother to relocate to a new country with two children: having no money, no job, and not speaking the language. He shares how impactful those women, that experience and those early times were in influencing his life moving forward. I bring up some of the thought processes behind Yul’s work as a painter, and as a photographer. We even discuss some specific pieces that I am madly in love with. Next. I pepper him with questions about his music career, where he was signed to TWO different major record labels, under TWO different bands; all before he even thought about becoming an actor. Also, I get him to tell me how he became such good friends with some of music’s most iconic players. Yul is great friends with so many of the folks that we all grew up listening to, including: Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, The Cult’s Ian Astbury, and Maynard James Keenan (Tool / Pucifer / Sessanta 2.0). Yul shares tales of how he came to be the guitarist for the bands Urgent & Diving For Pearls; before being told by a psychic that he would become a successful actor! We go all over the place in this interview. I question him about his member ship in a character actor dinner club that is comprised of about a dozen of his friends; some who are previous guests of my show are. I even get Yul to tell me what he got his wife for their 23rd wedding anniversary, which was about a week after we recorded this conversation. We talk about what made him and some other Latino actor friends start The LAByrinth Theater Company in New York. Finally, I ask all the questions I can about his work on Seinfeld, Magic City, and of course Severance. Yul is such an amazing talent in all areas. Check out his website YulZavquez.com for more insight into his painting and photography and catch Yul on just about every television show or film out there. (Side note, we do talk a bit about a baseball cap that he designed, that I think is slick, and stylish. For more information about that, you may need to hit him up on Instagram.)