Carlos Ponce carries two exiles in his blood — and grew up on neither island. His parents both left Cuba in 1959 as children. His father, 17, defected to Costa Rica as his grandfather — a colonel in the Cuban constitutional army — left with other officers to plan a response to what was coming. His mother, 11 or 12, made her way to the United States. They had grown up blocks from each other in the Miramar neighborhood of Havana and never met in Cuba. They met in Denver, Colorado, where his father was serving in the U.S. Army. They married, moved to Puerto Rico, and that is where Carlos was born.

The family his father came from lost properties, land, radio stations, factories, and boats — some of the vessels later spotted in Costa Rica and other countries, carrying what used to be theirs. There is still paperwork. Carlos has seen it. His family has never gone back. His father’s generation is, as he puts it with obvious love and frustration, “really stubborn and torn in heart.” They will not return until the regime is gone. Carlos respects it. He has argued about it. He does not agree with it. But he understands it in a way only someone who grew up inside that grief can.

He made his acting debut at age six in Puerto Rico. He waited tables and tended bar at the Cardozo Hotel in South Beach as a teenager — working nights and going to school in the mornings — while quietly building toward something larger. The ambition was always present. The plan was not always visible.

The break came through an encounter at a Vogue Italia photoshoot where Celia Cruz, Madonna, and Emilio and Gloria Estefan were all present. Carlos was an extra. He found Emilio Estefan and asked him directly: if he ever sang, would Emilio produce his album? Emilio said yes. Five years later, that promise held. His 1998 self-titled debut album went Double Platinum and produced three chart-topping hits on the Billboard Latin charts, earning him Best New Artist. He later recorded the song Bella Note for Disney’s Lady and the Tramp II, a role that demonstrated the same range he would carry across three decades in entertainment.

His career spans telenovelas on Univision and Telemundo, Beverly Hills 90210, Julie & the Phantoms on Netflix, and film and television productions across the Americas and Europe. He is a multi-award-winning actor, singer-songwriter, composer, TV personality, and philanthropist. His brother managed his career for more than 20 years. His children work with him on set. His mother — herself a singer who worked as a translator after arriving from Cuba — raised four children with ferocious ambition and quiet expectation. He says she expected all of it. He believes she was right.