Héctor Luis Bustamante (born March 12, 1972) is a Colombian actor working in the Hollywood film industry.
He was born Héctor Luis Bustamante Durango in Medellín, Colombia to Dagoberto Bustamante and Aracelly Durango. Héctor and his family moved to the United States when he was 12. Bustamante was an allumni of the 1989 Governor's School of New Jersey as an art scholar. Like many artists, Hector realized his passion for acting at an early age and landed his first theatrical role in a Hackensack High School production of "West Side Story." While his performance was well-received and led him to roles in several other productions, his drama teacher told him that he would never be a professional actor because his accent was too thick for American TV.
Discouraged but not defeated, Hector decided to put his acting career on hold for a while and after high school, spent the next several years honing his first love, art. He started working as a graphic designer and by age 19, he was the art director for New Jersey Golf magazine.
In 1995, Héctor enrolled in the prestigious Parsons School of Design in New York. He put himself through school by working in retail as a security guard and eventually became the security manager in one of New York's well-known retail stores on Fifth Avenue.
But his dream of becoming a professional actor never went away. In the fall of 1999, anxious to start acting again, Hector used his work in the security field to transfer to San Francisco. While in the Bay Area, Hector attended the Shelton's Actors' Studio, where he studied under the watchful eye of acting coach and mentor Jean Shelton, whose students have won Emmy and Tony Awards (Danny Glover).
In March of 2000, Héctor met Nancy Berwid, a respected acting coach, who invited him to an acting workshop. A year later, at a workshop hosted by Nancy, Hector met Donna Eckholdt, VP of talent development and casting for Paramount's Big Ticket Television. After seeing Héctor's work, Donna considered him for a series regular role on a project based on the life of a very colorful New York City private investigator. He didn’t get the part, but it was just a prelude to the opportunities to come.
In fact, one year later while still in San Francisco, Héctor made his major TV appearance on CBS' "The Agency," playing the head of the Colombian police. Within weeks he landed his second role in one of his favorite TV shows “NYPD Blue” opposite Dennis Franz and Mark-Paul Gosselaar. On the spring of 2003 Hector resigned from his security job and moved to Los Angeles. Since then Héctor has continued landing co-star and guest star roles on many popular and critically acclaimed shows as 24, Crossing Jordan, Without A Trace, Monk, and films such as, Hostage opposite Bruce Willis and Sueño opposite John Leguizamo. Héctor is repped by Lin Bickelmann of Encore Artists Management.
