Actor Juan Carlos Roque returns to Cuba: “It was a brave decision”

AREQUIPA, Peru – With an extensive career that spans television, theater and film, Juan Carlos Roque Moreno is one of the most recognized Cuban actors of his generation. In 2023, his departure from Cuba transcended along with that of many other artists who were escaping the deep crisis in the country.

A little more than a year later, the actor surprises by confirming his return to the Island through an interview with the media OnCubawhere he offers details about his motivations and his experience in Europe.

In June 2023 it was reported that Roque Moreno had emigrated to Spain as part of the Arraigo projecta program that offers immigrants with dual nationality the possibility of settling in towns and citadels with few inhabitants.

“The media sometimes magnifies things. I went to Spain to explore job opportunities. I have been a Spanish citizen for many years and I had never had the desire to travel until that moment, even though several opportunities had been presented to me,” says the artist.

Among the experiences he lived after leaving the Island, the actor assures that he was offered work options that, upon arriving in Spain, did not exist, and along with that he also went through a bad stage in his personal life.

“I had health problems that affected my vision and plans that initially seemed to be going smoothly were cut short. I made the decision to return to Cuba. Ultimately, the happiest place is with family. “I returned to recover and continue working in our country,” he said.

In his opinion, the actors who have the opportunity to travel abroad They should not do so with the hope of pursuing their profession outside the island, unless they have been hired.

In this regard, Roque Moreno says that he has colleagues in Spain who are working on “different things,” and who try to create theater so that “the gift with which they were born” does not die. In any case, he clarifies, they do not arrive thinking that they are going to be actors, and if they do “they immediately collide” with the reality of the immigrant.

“I didn’t go thinking about acting. Returning was a brave decision. I was not going to continue in a place that was affecting me from a physical and psychological point of view,” highlights the actor.

The actor who left Cuba

Recognized in Cuba as a talented artist, Juan Carlos Roque Moreno played leading and supporting roles in both cinema (Mauricio Diary Pages, Madrigal, Kangamba, Conduct) as in dramatized Cuban television (Diana, under the same sun, The salt of paradise, The other corner).

Roque Moreno was one of the beneficiaries of the Arraigo projectwhich seeks to repopulate localities in the autonomous community of Castilla y León.

Upon his arrival in Spain, the popular artist settled in Paredes de Nava, in the municipality of Palencia and hoped to be reunited with his family there. According to what he declared to “Hoy por Hoy”, of the chain Beingexpressed that he wanted to give a better future to the youngest.

A doctor by training, the artist was discovered by Fernando Pérez in the docu-drama “Suite Habana” in 2003. From then on Roque devoted himself to acting and has stood out as one of the most recurring performers in national dramas.

Before his departure from Cuba, in 2022, the interpreter He stated on his Facebook wall that he was “a happy man,” but who lived “in a sad country, fractured and abandoned by more than a million of its children.”