From local theatre to film

“I was so excited to be part of the film I just said ‘yes’,” he said, adding that he felt elevated as if he had just won the lottery.

“It was a step up the ladder for my acting career and I was happy beyond words.” At that point he remembered his childhood days when he attended Vos Government Primary School in Gasparillo and was given small roles to play.

“I fell in love with the stage back then and this is now a dream come true for me,” he said. He started off his acting career when he was 13 in San Fernando Festival of Arts (SanFest) in the role of a dog.

“After that I acted the role of Benji in The Harrowing of Benji. I won awards for acting, writing and story telling.” He was later recruited by the late Shane Bickram and made his national debut in The Pundits House II, where he played a 60-year-old man. He later toured the country acting in Say No to Eggnog, playing the lead as a mental patient, which he says was quite easy for him. Since then he has been on stage acting in The Chinese Bride, The Coffin and the plays Radha and Raja, Khamoshi, Samadhi and Crossing the Line by the Princes Town Theatre Workshop (PTT W).

He will be on stage at Gaston Courts, Chaguanas in PTT W new production, Parosin - The Lady Next Door, which will be staged on October 1 at 6.30 pm.

A library technician at NALIS, Martinez has spent the past 20 years of his life in the performing arts as an actor, dancer and comedian.

He is a regular performer with the PTT W.

Speaking about Bazodee, he said he was invited to a reading at the Hilton with the full cast, where he met the stars of the film. “I was blown away at how everyone was so ‘normal’. I sat next to Rahul Nath, the funny guy from England who played the role of Partiv.

We immediately hit it off, chatting as if we had met before. In no time everyone was talking and making their contributions to how they felt this would proceed.” Martinez said he was struck by way the lead actor, Machel Montano just effortlessly eased into the reading.

Here it was he (Martinez) was going to be in a movie with the most prolific face of soca, who was sitting right next to him and reading like everyone else.

The adventure took the cast across the country.

“What was really impressive was the way the entire cast was treated. There was no division between the local and foreign actors,” he said.

He recalls how the actor Starz Nair of Game of Thrones fame joked and laughed with everyone. Natalie Perera, the lead actress, shared her struggles with her newly found addiction to the spicy foods of TT and the challenges she faced of having to be disciplined.

Montano was seen mixing and mingling with everyone.

“The crew treated us with great respect, under the graceful supervision of Leslie Ann Canton (first assistant director) they saw that we all were well taken care of during the film,” he said.