Biography
Juan Pablo Raba was a Colombian actor and model who started out as a star on the telenovela scene before becoming internationally successful in film and TV. Born on January 14, 1977 in Bogotá, Colombia, Raba lived in his hometown until his parents divorced, at which point he moved to Spain with his father. He studied advertising in college, but left college without earning a degree, moving to Argentina. When he could not find work there, Raba returned to Colombia, where he started booking work as a model. One day, Raba accompanied a friend to an acting class, where he caught the eye of acting teacher Edgardo Roman, who encouraged him to enroll in classes. Raba quickly took to acting, and went on to study in New York at the Lee Strasberg Institute. Upon returning to Colombia, Raba landed his first telenovela job, co-starring on "Amor en forma" (Channel One, 1998-99). After that series ended, he took a small role on "Marido y mujer" (Caracol Television, 1999), before finally landing his first lead role on yet another telenovela, "La Reina de Queens" (Channel One, 2000). With his next telenovela role, playing Alejandro on the Venezuelan series "La Nina de mis Ojos" (RCTV, 2001-02), Raba became an international sensation. This lead to a series of parts on RCTV telenovelas, including "Mi Gorda Bella" (RCTV, 2002) and "Estrambotica Anastasia" (RCTV, 2004), before he returned to Colombia for the series "Por amor a Gloria" (Caracol Television, 2005), the film "Un abuela virgen" (2007), and the TV movie "Soltera y sin compromiso" (Caracol Television, 2006). Raba finally gained some notoriety outside of the telenovela scene in 2015, when he lined up a number of high profile projects, including a part in the filmic retelling of the Chilean miner saga, "The 33" (2015), an arc on the Marvel action series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (ABC, 2013-), and a series regular gig as Gustavo Gaviria on the Pablo Escobar biopic series "Narcos" (Netflix, 2015-). Raba next landed his first American series regular gig on the military drama "Six" (History Channel, 2017-).
