Tomás Decurgez of Hollywood, California. on Life, Lessons & Legacy

Tomás Decurgez shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Hi Tomás, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
There are several things that I am proud of. Especially accomplishments of this last year. I wrote, directed and produced my first feature film and it got a distribution deal recently. Which means it will be available on demand worldwide on 2026. I also got engaged to the most beautiful and talented woman, we bought a house in the California mountains and we got a puppy! What a year it was.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Tomás Decurgez — an actor, filmmaker, and storyteller originally from Buenos Aires and now based in Los Angeles. I started acting in Argentina, which led me to roles in international films and eventually to the U.S., where I trained at the Stella Adler Academy. Since then, I’ve starred in projects like I Killed My Husband and FIFA Forever, and I’ve also written and directed several award-winning shorts and TV pilots. Most recently, I completed my first feature film, Lying In Wait. A thriller shot in Buenos Aires, California and Mexico, that was released last month in the U.S. and Canada, and will be available on streaming platforms worldwide next year.
At my core, I love creating stories that blend emotion, tension, and a touch of the unexpected. And most of all, I don’t like waiting for investors or studios to back up my projects. I just make them happen, whether with collaborations or making them low budget and making them look like a million dollars. There was a time when I would wait for the investors to come, but life is too short to depend entirely on others.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
I’ve always loved movies. Growing up in the ’90s—arguably one of the greatest decades for cinema—I was that kid in Argentina who was completely swept up by storytelling. That passion eventually pushed me to move to Los Angeles to pursue acting and filmmaking. I arrived knowing no one. I didn’t have a work visa yet, no agent, and my accent was thick enough to trip over.

So, to answer the question: I fell in love with a kind of cinema that has since changed. I moved to Hollywood dreaming of making the movies that no longer existed. The industry transformed, and even the way we watch films is totally different now. When I first came here, Instagram was just a little app that added lomo filters, and Netflix wasn’t even on the radar.

But that’s the thing about life—and about art: we adapt, we evolve, and we reinvent ourselves.

What’s something you changed your mind about after failing hard?
I’ve learned that action beats thinking every time. You can plan, you can dream, you can overanalyze every step—but nothing actually moves until you do. And the longer I work in this industry, the more I realize that talent is only a small part of the equation. Discipline is what separates the people who talk about doing things from the people who actually get them done. Talent opens the door, maybe—but discipline is what keeps you walking through it, day after day. And that is what prompted me to start writing and directing. Because although I continue auditioning for big projects as an actor, only by making my own projects is that I see the real progress. And that is how I wrote over 7 scripts directed several short films and tv pilots and I was able to finish my first feature film “Lying In Wait” with my own savings, which the world can now watch.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
Smart people often fail at the simplest thing: Not showing up consistently. Overthinking and not doing. They rely on their intelligence or their natural ability, but are afraid to act because if they fail, maybe the world will realize they are not that smart after all. What smart people sometimes overlook is that progress comes from repetition, from doing the unglamorous work, from pushing forward even when its easy to fail. Discipline is what makes it real. Without that, even the brightest and most gifted people can end up stuck—brilliant in theory, but never fully executed in practice. It’s easier to criticize and sound smart, than to do and look vulnerable if success is not achieved.

Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
This is an interesting question that really resonates with me right now, because I just started making another one of my screenplays—but this time in stop motion animation.

After finishing post-production on my thriller ‘Lying in Wait’, and while I’m excited to see how people will receive it, I still have so many screenplays I want to bring to life. The challenge is that I invested all my savings into that film, and now I need to find a way to make the next one. So I decided to create the entire project using stop-motion animation in my warehouse studio.

The reason I might be completely wrong about this is that AI is advancing at an incredible speed, and it’s possible that in two years, stop-motion animation could feel like a thing of the past.

I obviously don’t believe that—but maybe I’m wrong. Only time will tell.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Tomasfilmmaker.com
• Instagram: @tomasdecurgez
• Other: https://vimeo.com/user87978841?fl=pp&fe=sh