Rising Stars: Meet Rafael Zubizarreta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rafael Zubizarreta.

Hi Rafael, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m a military brat. My family and I have lived in numerous places around the U.S. as well as overseas. All my life, no matter where we lived, one thing always remained constant. My love for entertaining people.

I was very much into sports as a child. I was extremely shy and kept to my select group of close friends doing crazy comedy skits and coming up with games and creative ideas to entertain each other. I was always drawn to the fantasy/sci-fi genre of entertainment. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian, Krull, etc. I created a game as a young kid called “Windward Spirits” which was kind of our own little version of Dungeons and Dragons. A scenario-based role-playing game where players create their own characters from scratch or selected in-game characters. This game was “our thing” and we very seldom let other kids outside of our little circle in on our game. This Windward Spirits game would have a lasting impression on my life, which I’ll come back to later.

As far as acting, I didn’t take any type of formal training until I was well out of high school. I took acting classes all around the Austin, Texas area for several years. I’d take a 6-week course here and an 8-week course there. I’d get on the local film sites searching day and night for any student films or background work that I could be a part of just to get that experience. I was hungry. I just wanted to be involved in the entertainment field in the worst way but struggled on where to go. When I was 22, I moved to New York on a whim to pursue theatre. I was blessed to find my way into the theatre scene shortly after arriving and landed a role in a traveling theatre tour with Periwinkle National Theatre in a show called “Halfway There”. A story of five young people who ended up at a halfway house who couldn’t stand each other at first but ended up becoming the best of friends. We toured the entire East Coast for several months, performing at schools and addiction rehab centers five days a week, which was such an experience for me, coming from a small Texas town that I had called home prior to going to New York. After the tour, I was blessed to land a role in an off-Broadway show called “Nice Guys Finish”, written by my friend Eric Alter who I still work with to this day nearly 20 years later. I also trained for a short time with Susan Grace Cohen from the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York. I only spent about a year in the New York area, but it was enough experience for me to fill a book. All the props and love in the world to my cousin Loly for allowing me to stay with her during that time while I roamed the streets of New York night and day hustling for work.

After my New York run, I returned back to Texas where I wanted to try my hand at film. I landed an agent, kept taking classes, and began doing lots of community theatre around the area where I lived. Shoutout to Vive Les Arts Theatre and Temple Civic Theatre for the opportunities and allowing me to grow on the stage in challenging roles with talented folks. I learned a great deal working on those stages with some insightful guidance. The years went on, and I continued to land roles in commercials, indie films, guest starring roles, etc. Some years were great with landing work. Some years are not so great. Such is the life of an actor. It’s always a rollercoaster.

In late 2009 while living in Houston, I hit a point in my life where I wasn’t sure of where to go or what my next move would be. Nothing was really moving for me career-wise at that time, and I was honestly kind of lost. My brother-in-law asked me, “What’s your next move?”. I literally had no real answer. All that came out was, “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll move to Dallas”. His response was, “No! Go to California. Haven’t you always wanted to go to California?”. Without hesitation, I said “Ok. Let’s go!” It actually happened just like that. Thankfully he had access to a place out in Palm Springs which is where I would stay until I got on my feet. Him and I set out in mid-November of 2009 and drove 22 hours nonstop from Killeen Texas to Palm Springs California. He caught a flight back to Texas, and my new life was just starting in California. It was both scary and exciting knowing that I had hit the reset button on my life. It was time to get to work. I began pounding pavement and trying to get into anything and everything. Lots of background work and working in local theatres trying to make connections. I found work on various projects with a few agents and managers along the way. Moving out here was the single best move I ever made in my life.

To go back to the Windward Spirits game. In late 2016, I went out to an audition in LA. I felt like I had done really well with this particular piece. I never heard back, and I REALLY wanted that part. It was at that point where I felt sort of fed up, and I needed to change it up. After thinking back to the countless times some of my close friends and business partners had been urging me to do something with the Windward Spirits game over the years, I started meticulously going through all of my old Windward artwork and storylines and decided that I was going to do something with it. I was done being told that I wasn’t good enough for this part or that part when I knew that I could be an asset to any production. I presented what I had to some filmmaker friends of mine. They liked the idea, and we green-lit the project for a short film. We wrote it, cast it, and filmed it with great excitement. That was the start of something.

Here we are seven years later, and we have an entire Windward Spirits short film trilogy which can be viewed on Amazon Prime Video. We have a website with our whole film storyline at windwardspirits.net. There is a Windward boardgame concept in the works as we speak as well. There’s also a number of Windward projects we hope to keep going in the future. I also created my own production company in 2018 called Zubi Productions. During that time, my producing partner and friend, Jaleel Sampay, at Ceroase Productions and I have been creating projects that we’ve always wanted to make. We write, cast, produce, and film all of our own works, which can be seen on the Zubi Productions YouTube channel for all to see and enjoy. More work is coming. Nowhere to go but up!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
As I mentioned before, it has definitely not been a smooth road. There have been more than a few times throughout my adult life where I felt pretty defeated. This business can be brutal at times. I used to make the mistake of comparing myself to others in the business. I found that mentality to be very detrimental to what I was trying to accomplish. I can honestly say that since I started my own production company and began to surround myself with more positive, driven individuals who just want to work, I’ve surrendered to the notion that I need to start showing more love to some of my peers and focus on only what I can control. I’ve learned that there’s so much within this business and in life that you simply have no control over. You just have to do what you can do to prepare yourself for when your time comes, you’ll be ready.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My team and I specialize in creating our own passion projects as well as collaborating with others who want their projects brought to life. My pet project is the previously mentioned Windward Spirits film series. I’m proud of the fact that it was created so long ago with no real thought originally put into it other than to entertain my friends for a few hours to pass the time. To see it now on film all these years later, with living, breathing characters traversing through this realm that I created from the ground up, it’s pretty surreal for me at times. I’m also incredibly grateful for the people who have helped me over the years to make this vision a reality. Many people have put in their time and belief into the projects, and it simply wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for them. Especially my family. They are the backbone of everything that I do. I’ve met countless amount of talented individuals over the years in my travels who don’t have that family support. I never take that for granted.

Although Windward is my ultimate passion project, we do have a small library of other non-related projects that my team and I have created just over the last few years. Some of which have earned some awards and accolades in film festivals, such as our prohibition short, “Rumrunners”, our thriller short, “New Prophecy”, a revenge story, “Retribution: Bury The Past”, and our dating comedy “In Reverse Order” to name a few. We hold discussions about projects that we’ve always wanted to see come to life. We hash out details, we create an outline, we hash out more details, we get a script in motion, we cast from our pool of actors who we feel are the best fit for our projects, then we just get it done. We don’t spend a lot of our time overanalyzing and banking that we’ll meet the right person to give us a “break”. We just put in the work and make it happen with what’s at our disposal. Our projects may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s ok. Our goal is to put out the stories we want to tell, and hopefully, people enjoy them or can draw a little bit of inspiration from them, if nothing else.

What matters most to you?
Leaving something behind. I know it may sound a bit morbid, but the facts are we’re all going to pass on someday. I would love to be able to inspire others long after I’m gone from here. I want to have my grandchildren and great-grandchildren be able to simply click on a link and see me in action whenever they want. Doing what I loved when I was young and able. Entertaining the masses. Showing them that things can be done if you really want them bad enough. Seeing people’s reactions to our work is also something that really lights me up. Seeing them laugh, cry, feel tense, feel happy, etc. It really is so important to me for them to feel something with our work. I also love that my kids can click a link and see me in a story at any given time. That’s pretty cool. That’s why I do what I do. As I said before, entertainment has always been in me. It goes back to wanting to entertain folks as a kid. It never left.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.windwardspirits.net
• Instagram: @zubi_productions
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000080817025&mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafael-zubizarreta-jr-25635627?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgNi238QIf-J-6MLEE4LMyA

Image Credits
Jaleel Sampay