Check Out Rodrigo Borges’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rodrigo Borges.

Hi Rodrigo, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1995 to two lawyer parents. I grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere of the globe, and was taught English as a second language from a young age. My journey into the arts doesn’t have an easily-defined start, one could say I’ve been wanting to make movies ever since I thought I wanted to be an animator– something which I have never had any talent for –and someone else could say it only started when I was offered a talent-based scholarship to the New York Film Academy, following what was, essentially, my very first time purposefully acting.

I say purposefully because before then, I had never CHOSEN to act, I’ve always been good at funny sounds and impressions, ever since I was a kid, but I had never even considered the possibility of performance as a career choice. Back in 2013, I was gifted a Screenwriting Summer Camp at the New York Film Academy in Burbank, and during my stay there in July, I participated in a couple of student films, mostly as a last-minute replacement. You can imagine my surprise when, after the summer camp was done and I was back in Brazil, I was contacted by the New York Film Academy regarding the possibility of auditioning for a talent-based scholarship in Acting. I was hesitant at first, like I said, I had never even considered acting as a hobby, let alone a career. My Mother was the one to push me to do it, and I thank her every single day for that. The audition went well, and a few weeks after I was contacted by the NYFA– I would receive the highest amount they could possibly give (apart from a full-ride) for their Acting for Film Bachelor’s Degree.

A lot of people talk about how their lives changed after a single moment, but I don’t think there’s ever been anything that more radically changed my trajectory in life than “Hey, the only way you could ever afford going to college in the US is by having a scholarship. And the only scholarship you’ve got is for something you’ve never even considered doing”.

I am the first in my family to move to the US to pursue an education. I arrived in LAX with two suitcases of clothes and around 100$ in my pocket, hoping that the roommates I had never met would be good people. Painfully aware that I had nobody in this country– no family, no friends, no cousins, no distant uncles, just me and my family back in Brazil.

I was terrified, to say the least. I never truly understood acting back then, I saw it as sort of frivolous, the kind of thing that people take way too seriously and overexplain when it’s just someone pretending to be someone else. When I look back at that attitude, I die inside a little. To say that I fell in love with acting would not only be an understatement, but it would also be wrong. Acting opened the doors to the rest of my life, and it changed who I am. It made me a better person and allowed me to empathize more with the different kinds of people I would meet throughout my life.

Living and working in a community as bustling as the Valley and LA, in general, allowed me to meet dozens of creative individuals and face off against the best of the best in audition rooms across the state. I won some, I lost plenty, and every single experience was either a blessing or a lesson, and I couldn’t be more grateful to it.

This creative melting pot created the conditions that allowed me to create my own series, Monarch’s 52. I was surrounded by good-hearted, ambitious people, willing to put themselves out there and help me create something out of nothing. All because they believed in an idea. All because they believed in me.

Today, most if not all of my work can be traced back to the efforts I put into my series; the people I’ve met, the friends I’ve made, the challenges I’ve faced, the breaks I’ve gotten, all of it goes back to a cloudy afternoon in late September when I called up a friend of mine with an idea and no budget at all.

Today I work as a voice actor, as a writer, as a Twitch streamer, as a sound engineer, and as a producer trying to get a second season of my series off the ground.

All of this is because my Mom pushed me to go to that scholarship audition.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I come from a third-world country, and following my arrival to the US, Brazil entered its worst recession at the time. The price of my tuition increased by around 40%, so much so that I had to take a semester off from college because otherwise there’d be no more money to pay for it. My family is not rich, but we are privileged compared to most of our country. There were weeks in LA where I had no food, apart from a loaf of bread and some ketchup. I had friends that would bring me tupperwares with leftovers, sometimes dollar store sodas, and sometimes if I was lucky a whole crate of ramen. I lost a lot of weight, and the depression I’ve faced throughout my whole life got a lot worse there. I started smoking, started drinking, all of it contributed to there not being any money. Eventually, I caught a break, and things improved. Following my graduation, I had a year where I was able to work, and I worked as much as I could. That year I did not go hungry, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t really even drink. The hardest part of everything has been what I’ve had to face by myself. My family supports me, they believe in me, and they want me to be happy doing what I love, and if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have made it this far.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am an actor by degree, a musician by training (16 years of it), a writer by stubbornness, and a producer by chance. My biggest specialty is voice acting, both for animated and live-action content, though my biggest passion in voice acting would be in the videogames industry. I’m more commonly known for a couple of things, one of them is my action/horror YouTube series Monarch’s 52, and the other is as Twitch Streamer Commander Rod. My greatest achievement is that I’ve managed to create communities where people can come together and create, where people can feel safe and seen, where they can, through media and through art, tackle their own difficulties and issues in ways that allow them to grow. I’d say that my unending energy and relentless spirit set me apart from anyone else that does what I do. I’m the kind of person that will do anything for an idea that I believe in, all the while refusing to take the easy way out throughout whatever journey I’m on.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Life is brief. It’s moments like these, crises like these, that force us to reevaluate what we want out of life. If we’re content with the status quo if we’re willing to throw caution to the wind if it means living more per day, and whether or not we’re doing everything we can and should for those we love. This crisis took a lot from a lot of people, it tested us in ways that we weren’t ready to be tested. People say it’s unfair, and they’re right, it is unfair, but there’s a saying in my country “calm seas do not a strong sailor make”, and as harsh as that sentiment may be, it is through difficulty that we grow, it is through tenacity that we prove to ourselves that we’re still alive and that we undoubtedly want to keep on living. Every day is a choice, and if you’re making the same choice over and over, you might as well make it purposeful.

Contact Info:

• Email: rmsborgespro@gmail.com
• Website: https://www.twitch.tv/thecommanderrod
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rmsborges/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/rmsborges
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Monarchs52
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/rodrigoborges-639788290/rodrigo-borges-character-work-voice-acting-reel-2018
• Other: https://www.patreon.com/rmsborges

Image Credits
Jason Tozier (headshot pictures) NYFA (graduation picture) Miami Brazilian Film Festival (Vivian Spinelli)