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Wilson Jermaine Heredia is an American actor of Dominican descent, best known for winning the 1996 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Angel Dumott Schunard in the musical Rent. In addition, he won the Drama Desk Award in the same category, and was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award.
He was born on December 2, 1971, and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His mother was a seamstress, his father a super. He has one sister, who is eleven years his junior. Heredia was shy in his early years in school and did not get into acting until he had tried his hand at medicine and advertising. He claims that he joined onboard Rent for the 300 dollars a week, although he didn't know the extent of popularity and fame it would gain him.
Heredia has appeared in several films, including his portrayal of Cha-Cha, the drag queen, in 1999's Flawless, where he worked opposite former Rent cast mate Daphne Rubin-Vega. The film also stars Robert DeNiro and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Heredia also worked alongside Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay in TV's popular drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in the episode "Nocturne".
Along with five other principal members of the original Broadway cast, Heredia appeared in the film release of Rent, directed by Chris Columbus. Heredia stated that he enjoys the transformational process involved in assuming the persona of the cross-dressing Angel, but dislikes having makeup on his face and found the high heels he had to wear as part of his costume extremely painful. Heredia says he enjoyed the blackly comedic parody of Rent in the film Team America: World Police, which features a fictional Broadway musical called Lease. He enjoys filming because the close up shots allow him to "cut loose" and go wild a lot more than the stage allows.
On Monday, January 9, 2006, he presented an award at the Critics' Choice Awards with Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, and Tracie Thoms, his costars from the Rent motion picture. He is currently collaborating with Dawson and Thoms on the upcoming film Descent.
Wilson currently lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend Katherine Taylor, who he met while filming Rent, where she was a production assistant.
Preceded by
George Hearn
for Sunset Boulevard
Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical
for Rent
Succeeded by
Chuck Cooper
for The Life
