"Meet A Young actor from Portoviejo, Ecuador"
Tito Joao
"Where an Artistic Journey Transcends all Reason"
He was born and raised in Portoviejo, Ecuador, a warm city full of stories and contrasts, where life unfolds between the calm rhythm of its people and the constant motion of the wind. From a very young age, he learned to observe. He was a curious, imaginative child, one of those who look at the world with silence and wonder.
As an only child, he spent long hours alone at home, creating worlds inside my head. His parents worked all day, so my childhood grew in the quiet corners of our house, surrounded by the sounds of the television and the echo of my imagination.
In the absence of siblings, his imagination became his greatest companion. In his room, he created stories, characters, and adventures. Sometimes he imagined people who didn’t exist but to him, they were as real as any friend. They spoke to him, accompanied, made he feel seen. He didn’t know it at the time, but he was already training the most powerful tool an actor can have: imagination.
Cinema was his first great love. He remember the afternoons when, after school, he would sit in front of the TV and watch movies endlessly. He was fascinated by how actors could transform, how they could live so many lives within one existence. Films became his refuge, and also his emotional school. He grew up believing that everything he saw was real: the robots from Terminator, the mummies from The Mummy, the impossible worlds of Tim Burton. Johnny Depp showed him that adults could still be children; Al Pacino taught him that the strength of a gaze can speak louder than a thousand words.
Those stories made he feel alive. They made he believe that dreams were possible. Even as a child, he understood without fully knowing that art had the power to give meaning to solitude. In every movie, he found a reflection of myself, and in every character, a new possibility.
During his teenage years, he discovered another language that awakened emotion: music. He joined the conservatory in his city and spent a year immersed in that world. Art felt like the natural rhythm of his life. But reality at home was not that simple. In his family, art wasn’t considered a profession it was a hobby. His father, with the best intentions, wanted he to choose a “secure” career.
Deep down, he knew his destiny was tied to creativity, but like many young people, he chose to obey. He left the conservatory and chose to study medicine. He convinced himself that if he tried hard enough, he could learn to love it. He thought passion could be manufactured that logic could replace emotion.
He was wrong.
He studied at Cristo Rey, a Catholic school that emphasized discipline, values, and devotion. When he entered university to study medicine, he did so with hope but also with an unshakable sense of emptiness.
The first semester tested he will. While his classmates spoke passionately about anatomy and pharmacology, he felt detached, disconnected. The years went by. He graduated, completed his internship in Santo Domingo five hours away from Portoviejo, and later worked a year in a community health center in Jipijapa. That year coincided with the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, and it completely changed my view of the world. He witnessed human fragility up close fear, despair, faith. Medicine taught him about life, but every day, something inside him kept fading.
He had the intellect to be a doctor, but not the passion. And when your heart isn’t in what you do, each day becomes heavier. Hw woke up feeling like he was playing a role that didn’t belong to him as if he were acting in someone else’s life. Ironically, without realizing it, he was already performing: portraying the part of a man who seemed to belong where he didn’t.
By late 2021, after almost a year of unemployment, he stopped to reflect. The pandemic had changed the world and also Tito. He realized that time is the most valuable thing he have, and living without passion is a quiet form of dying.
He remember the conversation with his mother vividly. He told her that he couldn’t continue that medicine wasn’t his path. She listened in silence and, with love, asked him to finish what he had started. She promised that if he did, she would support him in pursuing whatever career he truly wanted. He kept his promise and she kept hers.
His father expected him to continue with a medical specialization. He told him he would study ophthalmology, but the truth was, he had already made another decision: to find a place where he could dedicate himself entirely to acting. That dormant dream that had been quietly breathing inside him for years finally woke up.
A line from my favorite movie, Big Fish, echoed in my mind:
“Maybe you’re a big fish in a small pond, but you need to swim in a river.”
He had lived too long inside a fishbowl safe, limited, transparent. But he knew that if he never leaped, he would never feel the real current of life.
Before taking that artistic leap, he decided to broaden his personal horizons. He applied to EF Education First and moved to Bristol, England, to study English. It was his first experience living far from home, and it became far more transformative than he imagined.
Learning English was important, yes but the true lesson came from people. He lived among individuals from different cultures, religions, accents, and dreams. He discovered how vast the world really was and how every person carries a story worth listening to. He became more open, more empathetic, more curious.
In Bristol, art touched his soul again. He began watching independent and international films works that revealed truth without filters, that dared to confront rather than comfort. He fell in love with stories that reflected the human condition in all its rawness. He learned that art doesn’t always seek to please sometimes, it seeks to awaken.
That experience led him to make a promise to myself: never again betray who he truly is.
After two semesters, many of his classmates went their own ways, and he was left alone again. The familiar solitude returned but this time, he didn’t fear it. He embraced it. He told himself: he didn’t come this far to give up.
He worked on numerous independent projects to gain experience. Each rehearsal, each film set, each audition became a lesson in discipline and resilience. He understood that art is not a race it’s a lifelong journey.
In 2025, he graduated. That day didn’t feel like an ending it felt like a rebirth. Hw realized that art cannot truly be studied it must be lived.
Today, he continue to learn, because an actor is always in training. Every role he take on is another opportunity to understand myself and others more deeply. Acting itself for him is an act of empathy a bridge between who we are and who we fear to be. He don’t seek only to entertain; he aim to provoke thought, awaken emotion, and create spaces where audiences can recognize themselves.
He believe art has the power to transform and heal to give voice to invisible pain. The actor is a translator of the human soul, and to translate truth, you must first feel it.
He especially drawn to psychological horror. Since childhood, he have been fascinated by fear—not as something negative, but as a gateway to the unknown. Fear reveals truth. Through video games, he discovered the storytelling power of silence, tension, and detail. That is why his dream of working on films, voiceover, and motion capture projects that merge performance, technology, and imagination.
Modern art invites us to break boundaries, and he proud to be part of a generation that dares to do so. He want to use his voice, body, and story to connect with others to show that even those who have felt lost can reinvent themselves.
In 2022, he made the most important decision of his life. He applied to the New York Film Academy to study Performing Arts. When he received my acceptance letter, he felt a mix of fear and euphoria. He knew this was the point of no return.
He left Ecuador his family, past and flew toward the unknown. Arriving in New York felt like stepping into a movie. The city pulsed with an energy that demanded constant reinvention. On his first day of class, he met people from all over the world. He expected competition but he found connection. They became his allies, also an artistic family.
Studying acting transformed himself. Every class was a mirror forcing him to see himself without masks. He learned that acting isn’t about pretending it’s about revealing. He learned to connect with his emotions, to understand that vulnerability is not weakness, but strength.
He believe art has the power to transform and heal to give voice to invisible pain. The actor is a translator of the human soul, and to translate truth, you must first feel it.
He especially drawn to psychological horror. Since childhood, he have been fascinated by fear—not as something negative, but as a gateway to the unknown. Fear reveals truth. Through video games, he discovered the storytelling power of silence, tension, and detail. That is why his dream of working on films, voiceover, and motion capture projects that merge performance, technology, and imagination.
Modern art invites us to break boundaries, and he proud to be part of a generation that dares to do so. He want to use his voice, body, and story to connect with others to show that even those who have felt lost can reinvent themselves.
Today, he work as an actor, building his career with patience, effort, and gratitude. He carry his roots with him. Portoviejo is still part of who he is, it lives in his accent, gestures, and sensibility. It taught him to see beauty in the everyday and to value the humanity behind every story.
New York taught him the courage to leap without guarantees, to trust the process. His goal is not only to perform in major productions but to be part of meaningful stories those that leave a mark. He want to take part in films and series that challenge perception, that move audiences to think and feel.
He dream of performing in works that explore the human mind, stories of fear, loss, and memory. He also aspire to work in voice acting for video games and animation mediums, where the voice itself becomes pure emotion.
Sometimes he think of the child he once was, the one who spent hours watching movies, inventing imaginary friends just to feel less alone. If he could speak to himself now, he would tell him that everything made sense. Every detour, every mistake, every fear-driven decision was part of the path.
Even the hardest stages, the long years in medicine, the uncertainty, the silence were necessary to find truth. Nothing was lost; everything transformed into art. His curiosity became observation, solitude became empathy, fear became strength.
Now he know he wasn’t born to heal bodies but to touch souls. His mission is not to cure through science, but through emotion. Every time he step on stage or face a camera, he feel I’m fulfilling that purpose.
Art gave him what medicine couldn’t: freedom. The freedom to be, to fail, to feel to live many lives within one.
All the good and bad things have led him to this point. Even though there are many things he wish had been different, he have no regrets, because if he had changed something along the way, he might not be the person he is today. Sometimes he had a dream where he was on a stage, giving his last show before the curtain closed. He thank the audience and that audience is all the people he have met throughout his journey in life. So, he can only say that he grateful.
If he have learned anything from this journey, it’s that it’s never too late to listen to yourself. Paths can change. Passion never dies, even when ignored. True success isn’t about how far you go it’s about how true you remain to who you are.
He keep walking, learning, searching. Every character he bring to life is a chance to leave a small mark in the world to remind others that beauty lives in imperfection, and that art, in the end, is simply a mirror where we all seek to see ourselves.
What made you decide to switch from studying medicine to acting?
Thank you to the entire team at Kelambi Magazine for having me. You’ve been incredibly kind, and I’m truly happy to be here.
Long before I chose acting, I already knew I wanted to live through art. While I was still a medical student, there were many moments when I questioned whether that path was truly my passion. I was good at it, yes, but I didn’t feel the love one should feel for something they dedicate their life to.
For a long time, I believed the problem was me, that something was wrong with me for not enjoying such an honorable profession as medicine. However, in 2020, while working during the COVID-19 pandemic, I was forced into a deep moment of self-reflection. That experience allowed me to truly know myself and say, honestly: this is not what I love, it never was, and I was not born for this. I realized that being good at something does not mean you are meant to do it forever. There are always options; you just have to be brave enough to choose them.
What type of acting roles are you excited to take on after graduating?
This moment meant so much to me. I felt my inner child was proud, and I experienced an overwhelming mix of emotions that day. Looking ahead, the roles I am most drawn to are drama, psychological horror, comedy, and voice acting.
I have always been fascinated by human psychology, how people behave under different circumstances, and how those reactions reveal the deepest layers of who they are. That, to me, is where powerful storytelling begins. As for voice acting, I’ve always loved animation and the way an actor can bring a character to life using only their voice. I believe there is an incredible range still left to explore in that medium for me.
What tips would you give to someone thinking about changing careers like you did?
If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be this: truly get to know yourself. Don’t be afraid to start over. It is difficult, yes, but deeply rewarding. Whatever path you choose should come from the heart, not from material ambition. Not pursuing what you love is, in its own way, a slow form of fading away.
Thank you very much.
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