Meet Luka Tartaglia: Actor, Writer & Director

If you start from zero but having a vision, risking is the engine to achieve the goal. If you decided to risk it means you love yourself enough . It means you’ve put your will ahead of all your fears, doubts and insecurities. Risk taking is growth, whatever it brings into your life. Positive or negative it’s still experience. I’ve risked everything to follow my vision without any certainties about the future and it has been the best choice of my life.

I’m an actor, writer and director. An Italian in Hollywood. Not the first nor the last, but authentic for sure. I’m from Rome, Italy. I moved to Los Angeles to face bigger challenges. Here it doesn’t really matter what you’ve done in your country. You start from zero, and I love it. It’s so exciting to write a brand new chapter of my life. And honestly it’s going great. It wasn’t easy at the beginning. The entertainment world is an ocean. I didn’t know anybody and I had to build new connections and start new collaborations. But vision, hard work, and consistency really help. I also think discipline is one of the keys, but consistency is the real secret. In terms of habits I’m not a perfect example to follow but in terms of consistency I’m a master. Three years ago I moved in another country without speaking the language and not much on my bank account,. Today I have important jobs on my resume, incredible connections and a TV Show in development. America really is the Country of opportunities if you’re committed and patient. Rush is an enemy. You have to trust the process and never compare yourself to others. We all have a different paths. Don’t do it for money, do it for passion, that’s the real fulfillment. Money is an inevitable consequence. I also think you need to be humble, but in a smart way. Humbleness shouldn’t be a hiding place for our insecurities. We need to be confident in our capabilities, but when we encounter a person or a situation that can teach us something new that is the right moment to silence our EGO and learn. I think this is real humbleness. My 2021 goal is to bring my TV Show to life. It’s a contemporary Italian gangster story based in Los Angeles. It’s an original work that I wrote for a specific reason: Destroy the stereotypes Americans have about Italians and Italian culture. There is a huge difference between Italian and American-Italian and sadly the image of Italy we see in American movies is not realistic. For this reason we don’t have real Italian actors in Hollywood, well we do, but most of the times they don’t book Italian roles. It’s usually an American who plays a stereotyped Italian guy from New York without even speaking the Italian language. That is one of the biggest mystery of my life. Hollywood productions are massive and also accurate in terms of cultural identity, (Banderas, Schwarzenegger, Waltz, Lundgren, Gadot, Rapace, and others) but when it comes to Italians I can’t name a recurring actor. My goal is to change this, to give me and so many other talented Italian artists a real chance. Luckily I met notable producers who believe in the project. 2021 is going to be a revolutionary year. Currently I’m working on TOTEM, my first short film in the United States. I wrote a story about two brothers, one black and one caucasian, with a tumultuous childhood. They decide to move to Los Angeles to achieve their goals in the film industry, but soon realize that dreams and reality are very different. Getting back to the path of crime is the only way to raise the money to start their own production company, but hard choices come at big costs… I’ll be the director and one of the lead actors of the project. The cast also includes Kyle Anderson, Janis Valdez, David Malek, James Yevak and Mattia Minasi. TOTEM will be presented to major festivals in the US and in Europe and a feature version is already in development.

Sunsets are one of my favorite things, and in Los Angeles you can enjoy some of the best in the world. I would suggest Santa Monica or Malibu to admire a sky painted of a vibrant variety of colors . It’s really peaceful and inspiring. In terms of food I would pick the only Italian restaurant in LA to consider almost authentic: L’ANTICA PIZZERIA DA MICHELE, on McCadden between Sunset and Hollywood blvd. For a nice walk around eccentric people and street artists I would go to Venice beach and Santa Monica Pier. If you want to exercise and enjoy a really nice view of Los Angeles a hike at Runyon Canyon is what you’re looking for. To try a new and fun experience I would check the Escape Hotel on Hollywood blvd.