Biography
Shalim Ortiz is an actor and musician who has successfully leveraged his musical talents into a rapidly developing film career. The mustachioed and suave Ortiz is a recorded singer/songwriter who has also worked as a model. In 2002, he debuted on television both on the ABC Family music series "Hollywood 7" and an episode of the Disney Channel comedy "Lizzie McGuire." After going out on tour as a musician for a couple years--at one point, he spent two years focusing on his music while living in Spain--Ortiz had a breakthrough year in 2007, playing the recurring character Alejandro Herrera on the NBC sci-fi thriller "Heroes"; he also starred in two feature films, playing the title character in the Dominican Republic-produced drama "Yuniol" and playing the co-star in Dan Neira's music drama, "Spin," whose subject is a world that Ortiz knows extremely well: the Latino music scene of Miami. In 2008, he was part of the lead ensemble in the adventure film "The Art of Travel," about a young man who takes a solo "honeymoon" trip to Central America despite his wedding being aborted. At the end of the decade, Ortiz was cast in numerous films, including a role as the co-lead in the crime comedy "Silver Case," starring Eric Roberts and Seymour Cassel, and he reunited with director Neira as the star of the drama "Touched." Ortiz, whose father is a diabetic, is also a spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association, educating the Hispanic population about the disease.
