SAN ANTONIO – The latest episode of Pickup Lines features award-winning actor, director and educator Tony Plana.
The Cuban-born star is celebrating half a century in entertainment this year. Long before a decades-spanning acting career, Plana remembers the moment he first felt the power of performance.
He was in the second grade, dressed in a crisp white outfit adorned with academic medals, standing in front of a crowd of about 1,100 people. Tasked with reciting a poem, he delivered it without fear.
“I had these 1,100 people captive,” Plana recalled. “When people ask me about the seminal moment … it has to go back to that moment.”
At the time, he didn’t think much of it. A teacher asked him to perform, and he simply said yes.
“I wasn’t even aware of it,” he said. “I had an affinity and kind of a natural gift for it.”
That early spark would later be shaped by far more difficult circumstances.
By third grade, Plana’s life changed dramatically amid the Cuban Revolution. He described leaving his home as a “radical extraction” from everything familiar.
“All of a sudden we were … ripped out of this culture, everything we knew,” he said. “We really were strangers in a strange land.”
At age 8, Plana left Cuba with his mother and brother. The journey to the United States was traumatic, he said, recalling being strip-searched at the airport before arriving in Miami and seeking exile.
Despite the upheaval, Plana quickly adapted. He said he learned English in about six months after realizing he needed to break out of what he described as a “bubble” of language.
That determination would prove pivotal years later in high school, when a teacher gave him a life-changing direction while reading the Declaration of Independence.
“He said, ‘I want you to read it like the immigrant that you are,’” Plana recalled. “That was my first direction.”
The moment reshaped how he approached language, identity and performance.
“It was one of the most transformational experiences I’ve ever had,” he said.
Around that same time, Plana lived just half a block from MGM Studios, peering through gates as a paperboy and wondering what existed behind them.
“I started seeing this incredible world,” he said. “I never imagined that I could be part of that world.”
Eventually, he would become part of it.
Plana built a career that includes roles alongside comedy legends in “Three Amigos,” which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
“I was so blessed … working with some of the greats,” he said. “And I was right in the thick of them.”
Though he once planned to become a lawyer, Plana said he ultimately caught what he jokingly calls “the bug” for acting — a passion he describes as “the incurable virus.”
Today, his focus extends beyond the screen.
In San Antonio, he has helped expand a program called Seniors in Play, using theater to support seniors, encouraging participants to write and perform stories from their lives.
“You get them out of their apartment … and they start to connect,” he said. “Performing arts are therapeutic. They help to heal.”
The program has grown from two centers to 15 across the city and county, offering participants a chance to revisit meaningful life experiences through storytelling and performance.
Watch the full Pickup Lines with Tony Plana in the video player above.
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Ernie Zuniga started Pickup Lines, a digital talk show, straight from his vehicle. The segments feature a diverse range of guests, including executives, small business owners, and everyday individuals, as they share personal journeys, news, and stories.