By: Esra Erdogan/Life! Editor
“I think being the bad guy is the hardest role. The actor who plays the bad guy has to come in with a lot of research,” said Dapiaggi.
Even before dedicating his life to art, Dapiaggi has always been an eccentric.
“Since I was a little kid my passion was to be different characters. My mom [used to] tell me that I would go to school dressed as Zorro or Superman,” said Dapiaggi.
Acting was not always the dream that Dapiaggi’s family envisioned for him. His parents had always urged him to become a doctor or a lawyer.
“The funny thing is that my dad was not a doctor or a lawyer, he was a TV host and my mom was a model. They knew how hard this profession is and they didn’t want that for me.”
Although Dapiaggi’s interests are varied – he is passionate about soccer, writing and music – his interest in acting never faded after childhood.
“What inspired me the most was [while] I was in high school I did research for Evita. At the time they were filming the movie in Argentina and I got really curious about the whole industry,” said Dapiaggi.
After high school Dapiaggi earned a degree in business at an Argentinian university in order to have something to fall back on. Although his family warned him of the difficulties of a career in the arts and entertainment industries, Dapiaggi moved to Miami and enrolled in the University’s Theatre Department.
Dapiaggi’s education at the University has helped him grow immensely as an actor.
“The most remarkable lesson I learned was in Acting 3. I learned to listen to another actor and live in the moment. That totally changed acting for me completely because [I realized] that acting is not just memorizing your lines or waiting for the cue to say your line. You must listen to the other person and live the moment and react as if that moment is for real even though you rehearsed it millions of times,” said Dapiaggi.
For the past three years, Dapiaggi has participated in many school productions. In the department, each student is given an assignment to prepare the show for the audience. Dapiaggi has helped with everything from lighting to costumes. Dapiaggi and other students in the department help design the stage, paint the stage, work as lighting designers.
“The good thing about our department is that you get knowledge in every field. Not everybody can be on stage. It’s a privilege to be on stage, but the actors also need the rest of the department to create the rest of the environment for the play. We work really hard but it’s fun.”
Dapiaggi believes this kind of education has given him very valuable experience and opened his eyes to the parts of theatre that he did not have knowledge about previous to being a student in the department.
“I didn’t think about things like [lighting] before and I didn’t care. But I have realized that you need stage design and costume. Basically the most wonderful thing about theatre is telling a story. And you need these elements to make the audience think and believe that the story is real,” said Dapiaggi.
Now that Dapiaggi has earned his degree, he plans on going to auditions and castings in order to make a living out of his passion.
“My acting teacher Phillip Church said you will always be afraid when you go to an audition, it’s part of being an actor. Your feelings and your emotions are going to affect you at that moment and you need to control them and get the best of them,” said Dapiaggi.
Dapiaggi does fear rejection while searching for a job like other graduates, but his aspirations are humble for someone who is aiming to be in the spotlight.
“My dream is to be able to live doing this and support my family and be happy. I will be the happiest person in the world to be a part of a theatre company and be able to support my family and that’s it. I will live my life like that and I will be complete. But if I get the chance to be Brad Pitt, I wouldn’t say no,” said Dapiaggi.
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