JUST ALWAYS LOVED and enjoyed watching mov-
ies,” says Jorge Lendeborg Jr. of how he got bit by
the proverbial bug. “My dad would take me to the
video store when I was a kid and he would let me
pick movies. And even at a very young age I would
pick stuff like Goodfellas, or old Clint Eastwood films. And I just fell
in love with it like that.”
Born in Miami to a Dominican family, the 22-year-old Bumblebee
star found his calling early. A high school drama class led him to
the inevitable next step of acting and—with his parents’ support—a PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW ECCLES
24 WINTER 2019 MOVIEMAKER.COM
I
FIRST NURTURE,
SECOND NATURE
Skipping formal training, Jorge Lendeborg Jr.
is building a promising career with good instincts
and his family’s steadfast support
BY JENNIFER BLAIR
post-graduate move to Los Angeles. “My parents
are a big reason for my success,” he says. “After
high school, they paid my rent for a whole year
before I started working. They were always on
board, and I really couldn’t do it in the time that
I did it without them. You’ve got to try for the
moon in anything you want to do, but if some-
one shelters and nurtures it, maybe that’s the most important thing.”
In conversation, Lendeborg Jr. is relaxed, funny, observant. Re-
freshingly, he eschews the guru-seeking attitudes that often plague
industry hopefuls, turning instead to a no-nonsense storytelling
compass built through years of absorbing art, cinema, and human
behavior. When he didn’t feel like classes were cutting it, he instead
focused his attention on other actors to learn how they work. “You
can’t lose sight of what makes you you,” he says. “When I moved
out to L.A. I started taking a class, but I didn’t really like what
they were teaching. I was like, ‘Dude, I know I’m young, but still!’ I
didn’t want to be presumptuous, but I felt training was regressive.”
As Lendeborg Jr. continued to land auditions, he quickly found
that each one has its own unique circumstances that need time to
be felt out. “Whenever the audition comes, it comes. Sometimes
one will require a lot more preparation than another. But until
then, I’m going to keep doing my work as it comes naturally and
listening to whatever’s in front of me.”FLASH FORWARD
BUZZ-BUILDER:
JORGE LENDEBORG, JR.
HAS FLOWN FROM
BUMBLEBEE T O
ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL
IN AN EARLY-BLOOMING
CAREER