Tomas Arana

Biography

Tomas Arana was born in Auburn, California. He grew up in San Francisco and studied classical theatre at its prestigious American Conservatory Theatre, afterwards relocating to New York and acting in off-Broadway productions. He then hitchhiked throughout Europe and ended up living in Naples, Italy, where he worked in the famous Lucio Amelio Art Gallery, working with such artists as Warhol, Rauschenberg, Beuys, Richter, Longobardi, Clemente, Gilbert & George, etc. Andy Warhol painted his portrait, which is now part of his extensive art collection. He was an award winning athlete as a youth and has practiced for many years Aikido, Judo, Japanese Sword, Fencing as well as advanced dance and movement techniques. He has both U.S. and Italian citizenship. He is married to Price Arana (née Deratzian) and has three sons, Yanez Jason, Joaquin Falco & Dashiell Richard Arana. Arana has played leading and supporting roles in over 30 European movie productions including films by directors such as Lina Wertmüller, Liliana Cavani, Carlo Verdone, Michele Soavi and with one of Japan’s most successful directors: Koreyoshi Kurahara, in the Toho production See You. He co-starred as Quintus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), the Dreamworks-Universal movie and winner of five Oscars, including Best Picture, starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix. He has appeared in more than 60 films, ranging from large budget Hollywood Studio pictures to Independent films in both the U.S. and Europe. His studio pictures include The L.A. Confidential (1997) (as Bruening, a rogue cop), The Bodyguard (1992) (as Portman, Kevin Costner’s antagonist and Whitney Houston’s assassin), The Hunt for Red October (1990) (as Loginov, the Russian Saboteur), Tombstone (1993), and First Kid (1996). He played Lazarus in Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). He was also featured in the Sundance-developed Wildflowers (1999), an independent film by Melissa Painter starring Clea DuVall and Daryl Hannah. His further works include Pearl Harbor (2001), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Defiance (2008), Limitless (2011), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), among others. In Television he was a regular in the Michael Seitzman CBS Network show Intelligence (2014), starring Josh Holloway, Marg Helgenberger and Megan Ory., as well as appearing as a guest star on more than 30 Network TV shows. In Europe, he was also a regular on the smash hit Italian RAI TV series Tutti pazzi per amore (2008) and the outstanding German ZDF TV drama Verbrechen (2013). In theatre, Arana was the producer as well as a leading actor in the internationally acclaimed Theatre Company Falso Movimento, based in Naples, Italy. Under Arana and the artistic director Mario Martone (now a major Italian Film Director), Falso Movimento won many awards including Best Play of the Year, Best Set Design and the prestigious Mondello Prize. The company toured worldwide for more than nine years at major International Festivals including London, Frankfurt, New York, Los Angeles, Madrid, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Jerusalem, and others. The company evolved into Teatri Uniti, produced by Angelo Curti and its Artistic Director now is Toni Servillo (2 European Film Awards for Best Actor and the star of The Great Beauty (2013), the Oscar winning film by Paolo Sorrentino).