Deb­bie Ja­cob

Re­nal­do Fred­er­ick re­mem­bers stand­ing on stage in the Pal­la­di­um The­atre play­ing the part of the pan­man Gold­teeth, who is about to un­veil a new pan with his pan­side from Boom­town. As the Pal­a­di­um au­di­ence cheered for a pan side of pimps called Red Army and jeered for Gold­teeth to "get off the stage". Gold­teeth looks up from his pan and in­to the au­di­ence."It is my favourite scene in Pan! Our Mu­sic Odyssey," says Fred­er­ick. "Af­ter Boom­town played its piece with a pan no one has ever heard, I looked up, and I didn't see my­self at all. I saw some­one who stood for some­thing, some­one who was con­fi­dent and be­lieved in what he did, and it brought tears to my eyes. Every ac­tor tries to find his gold­en scene. This was it for me. I knew there was noth­ing else I could do; noth­ing else I want­ed to do in that mo­ment or in life."

Fred­er­ick is the talk of the town these days. The 21-year-old ac­tor had the star­ring role in the docu-dra­ma Pan! Our Mu­sic Odyssey and the star­ring role of David in a short film called Fly­ing the Coup. He played David, a clue­less po­lice of­fi­cer who be­gins work the day of the 1990 coup. Both films be­came ma­jor hits in the 2014 Trinidad Film Fes­ti­val. Fly­ing the Coup won The Peo­ple's Choice for best short film.Con­fi­dent and poised; ar­tic­u­late, talk­a­tive and fun­ny, Re­nal­do ex­udes tal­ent, but that sense of sta­bil­i­ty that he dis­plays is a far cry from his ear­ly life. "I grew up in all over Trinidad," says Fred­er­ick.

For a time, he lived with his moth­er, then his grand­moth­er, Meryl Mark, in in Arou­ca. Be­tween eight and 16, he lived in Mal­abar by his fa­ther in Ari­ma an op­er­a­tions man­ag­er at WASA. At 16, he went back to live with his moth­er, Reisa Mark."I had a strong per­son­al­i­ty. My mom and I had a lot of ar­gu­ments about things I should do and about re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and priv­i­leges. I de­cid­ed not to stay by my mom. I stayed by a teacher, then a friend. It was chaot­ic."One con­stant in Fred­er­ick's life was school. He at­tend­ed St Joseph Boys RC up to Stan­dard Four and trans­ferred to Chris­t­ian Pri­ma­ry Acad­e­my in Ari­ma."In school, I liked pre­sen­ta­tions. I sat in the back of the class to watch what every­one did. I loved school."At home, Fred­er­ick watched a lot of tele­vi­sion."TV con­tributed to my cre­ative, imag­i­na­tive side. I liked car­toons like Dex­ter's Lab­o­ra­to­ry and Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel; shows about sci­ence and an­i­mals, hor­ror and com­e­dy. I like in­for­ma­tion. From TV, I had a vast li­brary to pull from when I be­gan act­ing–all kinds of colours, sounds, emo­tions."

Fred­er­ick topped the SEA ex­am and head­ed for Trin­i­ty Col­lege. By then, prac­ti­cal­ly every­one was telling him he should be a lawyer � "...be­cause of the way I al­ways spoke. But that means I would have to be in a court­room or an of­fice. I want­ed some­thing ac­tive where I could re­late to peo­ple; some­thing where I could trav­el. I thought about tourism and events man­age­ment so I chose busi­ness sub­jects in Form Three. My favourite sub­ject was Span­ish. It hurt me deep in my heart when I got a Two in CXC."Then came a life-chang­ing ex­pe­ri­ence: Shawn Smart, the dra­ma teacher at Trin­i­ty Col­lege East said, "Hey, Re­nal­do, I'm hav­ing an au­di­tion for the Sec­ondary School Dra­ma Fes­ti­val."

Fred­er­ick got the mi­nor part of Por­tuguese Joe, in the play Man Bet­ter Man by Er­rol Hill. He re­ceived a Most Promis­ing Ac­tor award for the part. The fol­low­ing year, 2010, he act­ed in Du­el­ing Voic­es by Zi­no Con­stance, and re­ceived a Most Out­stand­ing Act­ing award and a schol­ar­ship to go to the Trinidad The­atre Work­shop.In Up­per Six, he act­ed in the Ja­maican play, Two Can Play, along with Chanel Glas­gow "...the girl I was al­ways get­ting awards with. We were so ex­cit­ed to do some­thing with a Ja­maican ac­cent."

One day, in a ca­su­al con­ver­sa­tion with his moth­er, Fred­er­ick learned his mom was good friends with Ernest "Che" Ro­driguez, the film di­rec­tor, writer and pro­duc­er."Che and I au­to­mat­i­cal­ly meshed. He's like my sec­ond dad now. Che in­volved me in a short film, The Blood and the Bois by Sig­mond Cromwell, that got in the T&T Film Fes­ti­val. It was my first time act­ing for a cam­era. I played the younger ver­sion of Che's char­ac­ter.In 2012, Che en­cour­aged Fred­er­ick to pur­sue film and the­atre, and he fund­ed the young ac­tor's ini­tial start at UWI in St. Au­gus­tine. "I didn't know there was a ma­jor like film," he says.

Again, he found hap­pi­ness and sta­bil­i­ty in school."My first year, I lived in Port of Spain. The sec­ond year I start­ed liv­ing in a dorm in UWI. If I got ex­pelled from the dorm, I would have nowhere to go. Every­thing is in my lit­tle dorm room."In April 2013, Fred­er­ick heard about an au­di­tion for a young man, who looked like a young Bob Mar­ley to play the part of a pan man for the lead role of Gold­teeth in Pan! A Mu­sic Odyssey."They want­ed a char­ac­ter unique and not false. It was chal­leng­ing. At the open­ing in Globe The­atre, I had but­ter­flies and drag­ons in my stom­ach. I wor­ried about do­ing jus­tice to this part."

He pulled off the role of Gold­teeth with a ca­su­al strength that was both re­fresh­ing and mem­o­rable. He proved his ver­sa­til­i­ty with the com­ic roles of David and as Weed Guy, a role he played this year in the Hol­ly­wood com­e­dy movie Girl­friend's Get­away di­rect­ed by Roger Bobb.Fred­er­ick is cur­rent­ly em­ployed with The Na­tion­al The­atre Arts Com­pa­ny of T&T in the Di­vi­sion of Cul­ture un­der The Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti-cul­tur­al­ism."We're train­ing in dance, mu­sic and act­ing bring­ing every­one in the pro­gramme to be­come a triple threat in the the­atre realm," he says. No doubt, Re­nal­do Fred­er­ick will be­come a triple threat as his star ris­es in lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al film.