Zeca Carvalho

Zeca Carvalho was born on August 12, 1970 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but spent his early childhood in Belgium. Coming back to Brazil, he began his training as an actor in 1982, at the age of 12. He attended regularly many theatre schools throughout his life and, from 1999 to 2003, studied at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), where he majored in Scenic Arts. Like many Brazilian actors, he started acting in theatre but extended his performance to the cinema and television productions such as series, telefilms and soap operas, which play a central role in the country's media. Zeca is known for playing tough guys, cops, criminals and unsympathetic characters prone to violence, but is also frequently cast for heroic roles, military, doctors and other figures of authority. He has also built a solid academic career and earned a postdoctoral degree in Theatre Studies at the University of Lisbon. On stage, Zeca has been dedicating himself to improvisational theatre, a genre in which he achieved recognition for having performed in dozens of comedy shows and theatresports spectacles, before becoming the artistic director of the first University Improv Festival of Brazil.