Rafael Casal

Last updated
Rafael Casal
Born
Rafael Santiago Casal

(1985-08-08) August 8, 1985 (age 39)
Berkeley, California
Education Berkeley High School
Occupations
  • Writer
  • poet
  • producer
  • showrunner
  • actor
  • musician
  • singer
Years active2008–present

Rafael Santiago Casal (born August 8, 1985) is an American writer, rapper, producer, director, actor, musician, and showrunner originally from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Contents

Early life

Casal grew up in Berkeley and Oakland, California. He was expelled from Berkeley High School after two years but earned his diploma through an alternative independent study program. [1] Casal later designed and served as creative director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s First Wave Spoken Word and Hip Hop Arts Program while earning a sociology degree at night. [2]

Casal has Irish ancestry on his mother's side, and Spanish and Cuban on his father's side. [3]

Career

Poetry

At 18, Casal appeared on 3 seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam while touring, performing, and teaching nationwide with YouthSpeaks. He is a two-time Brave New Voice Poetry Slam Festival champion.

Music

Casal has released several mixtapes online, [4] including As Good As Your Word (2008), Monster (2009), and Mean Ones (2012). He also collaborated with best friend Daveed Diggs and Chinaka Hodge to release The Getback Mixtape, vol. 1 (2007) and The BAY BOY Mixtape (2010) as the Getback Productions Crew.

In 2018, Casal and Diggs released the Collin and Miles EPs to accompany their film Blindspotting . [5]

Theater

Casal and Diggs co-founded the BARS workshop at the Public Theater in New York City. [6] The workshops serve as a platform for artists to explore and enhance their craft by merging contemporary verse with theatre.

Film and television

In 2018, Casal and Daveed Diggs released their movie, Blindspotting . The duo wrote, produced, and starred in the film, which uses verse to tell the story of Oakland. [7]

In 2020, the movie was adapted as a comedy-drama series of the same name. Casal reprised his role as Miles and served as co-writer, director, executive producer, and showrunner. [8] The series premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 11, 2021, and began streaming on Starz on June 13, 2021. Season 2 premiered at SXSW in March 2023 and began streaming on April 14, 2023. [9] In September 2023, Blindspotting was cancelled. [10]

Casal has also appeared in supporting roles in Bad Education , The Good Lord Bird and the second revival of Are You Afraid of the Dark? In 2023, he appeared as X-5/Brad Wolfe in the second season [11] of the series Loki.

Filmography

YearTitleRoleNotes
2010Ricochet in Reverse Dylan Klebold YouTube Short
2014The Away TeamCalWeb series; also creator, producer, director
2018 Blindspotting MilesAlso co-producer, co-writer
2018Rachel Dratch's Late Night SnackElliotSeason 2 Episode 7
2019StuccoThrone - Crowning ArmShort
2019 Bad Education [12] Kyle Contreras
2019 Are You Afraid of the Dark? Mr. Top HatMiniseries
2020 The Good Lord Bird General John Cook Miniseries
2021 Blindspotting MilesAlso executive producer, director, and writer
2023 Loki Hunter X-5 / Brad WolfeSeason 2
2023 Wildcat O.E. ParkerAppears in 9 minute Vignette “Parker’s back”

References

  1. ↑ "The Def Poetry of Rafael Casal". East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda. 2010-11-10. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
  2. ↑ Danzig, Christopher (10 November 2010). "The Def Poetry of Rafael Casal". East Bay Express. Retrieved 2019-04-29.
  3. ↑ Betancourt, Manuel. "Rafael Casal on Creating a Complex Portrait of Oakland's Race & Class Dynamics in 'Blindspotting'". Remezcla . Retrieved June 27, 2020.
  4. ↑ "RAFAEL CASAL". SoundCloud. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
  5. ↑ "Blindspotting: The Miles EP by Rafael Casal". Genius. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
  6. ↑ "Bars Workshop". NPR .
  7. ↑ Dry, Jude (July 27, 2018). "'Blindspotting': How Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal Made the First Buddy Comedy About Gentrification and White Privilege". IndieWire . Retrieved April 29, 2019.
  8. ↑ Otterson, Joe (September 10, 2020). "'Blindspotting' Series Starring Jasmine Cephas Jones Gets Greenlight at Starz". Variety . Retrieved May 16, 2021.
  9. ↑ "Starz Releases Lineup for 2023".
  10. ↑ "Blindspotting cancelled by Starz".
  11. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (2022-07-15). "'Loki': Rafael Casal Joins Season 2 Of Marvel Series For Disney+". Deadline. Retrieved 2023-06-08.
  12. ↑ "Rafael Casal". IMDb. Retrieved 2019-04-29.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.