Algeniz Perez plays the lead role in the movie about his character Miguel “Sugar” Santos. This is Perez’s first movie and the actor has never had any experience acting on camera.
He was discovered on a Sunday afternoon when his brothers and a couple of friends from the university were playing baseball for fun.
The directors came to them and invited the group to the casting. At the time, Perez, 23, had played semi professional baseball, learned English, took some computer classes and then worked at the front desk of a hotel. “I did it (auditioned) without much hope, I was number 542 and wasn’t expecting much,” Perez said.
He claims that he really wasn’t interested but auditioned anyways; Perez did not think he would get called. After practicing the script with his sister, he had the short script memorized for the auditions. Perez knew he did well in the audition when he was invited to a second audition. During Holy Week, he knew he had the lead role and received a phone call at the beginning of May of this year.
“I did not believe it, I tried not to get my hopes up because what if the film would not get done,” he said. “I stayed clam and did not tell anybody in my own home about it.” The movie uses both English and Spanish with a slight nod to more Spanish being used, but scenes filmed in the United States used more English. Perez is fluent in both.
The movie is about a professional baseball player from the Dominican Republic who plays hard to help his family. Perez – who used to played semi-professional baseball in his country – did not comment on whether or not he made the majors saying only that in real life he has a good arm for the game.
The character of Miguel “Sugar” Santos is similar to his real persona. “Miguel is a character that one has gone through; whenever the character plays baseball out of necessity to play hard and help his family,” said Perez. “Whatever I do, I have my family first. I can do anything and if all goes well for me, it’ll go well for my family.”
Perez just happens to know Chicago Cubs player Alfonso Soriano. Both men grew up in the same town, San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. They met in Chicago a couple of days before the filming ended in Davenport. Soriano could not believe that his old friend got the lead role in a movie.
“He (Soriano) asked what I was doing here in Iowa,” Perez said. Perez replied, “Filming a movie.” The two wished each other luck and Soriano gave Perez a piece of advice, to work hard and do things the right way.
About his experience in Iowa, the people in Santo Domingo use a word called “heavy” to describe something’s good. “Iowa’s heavy, Davenport is a calm city; you can go out without having any fear. I haven’t seen much corruption. It’s a peaceful city,” he said.
After the film is done, Perez does not have any other acting roles. He does have many favorite actors and said he would like to be in a movie with two of his favorites Al Pacino and Will Smith.
As for the future, Perez is going back to his home country, the Dominican Republic. Even with the star role, he has no plans on going “Hollywood” and moving to the United States.
“I’ll come here to work but when I finish my work, I plan on going to Santo Domingo with my people,” he said.
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