Christian Barillas is an actor and director based in Los Angeles. Stage credits as an actor include: Amadeus, Peter & The Starcatcher, A Christmas Carol, and The Motherfu**er with the Hat (LADCC nomination) at South Coast Repertory; Twelfth Night (dir. Darko Tresnjak) and Pride & Prejudice at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Romeo & Juliet and Richard III at Utah Shakespeare Festival; A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings at Center Theatre Group; Cornerstone's As You Like It (dir. Bill Rauch) at Pasadena Playhouse; Romeo & Juliet at A Noise Within; Macbeth at Antaeus; Sonia Flew at Laguna Playhouse, and others.
New works include the development of Octavio Solis' Lydia at Perry Mansfield Festival with subsequent productions at Denver Center (World Premiere, Henry Award) and Yale Repertory Theatre, a play the New York Times called "fresh, penetrating, often blissful." At SCR, he participated in development workshops for The Italian Straw Hat and Nilo Cruz’s adaptation of Life Is A Dream (dir. Kate Whoriskey). He also helped develop the play The Contest, followed up by a production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
On television, Christian is perhaps most recognizable as Ronaldo on Modern Family, where he recurs opposite Nathan Lane. Other credits include The Bridge (recurring), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Without a Trace, and the pilots for ABC Family’s Bunheads and CBS' Jim Gaffigan Show, in which he was a series regular. Film highlights include indie Best Night Ever and Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths.
Since 2012, Christian has been directing and developing Brett Ryback's stage musical Joe Schmoe Saves the World. He directed its first staged reading hosted by the Geffen Playhouse (2015), the presentation for 2016's ASCAP/Dreamworks Workshop at the Wallis Annenberg Center, and its development workshop at Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Black Swan Lab. Barillas received his M.F.A. from UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television and has a B.A. in Journalism and Media from UNC. He is part of the Adjunct Faculty of Theater at East LA College, and taught acting as well as voice and speech to undergraduate theater majors at UCLA. He was a teaching artist for Oregon Shakespeare Festival, A Noise Within, Utah Shakespeare Festival, and Reprise Theatre Company's outreach programs. www.christianbarillas.com.
The College of Arts