Andres Perez Molina has had a variety of acting roles during his illustrious Hollywood career, he has been cast in supporting roles in such major motion pictures as The Dark Night Rises, La La Land, and the 2009 Star Trek.
Andres also has held recurring roles in such television shows as Netflix’s Disjointed, CBS’s Code Black and The Mentalist, as well as co-starring in such Amazon Prime series as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Goliath.
While Andres’s career has kept him busy, he had to take a break after a fall caused a spinal contusion in 2020 from which he has fully recovered and is now healthy, back at work and ready to continue auditioning for future parts in film and TV productions
“My spinal injury was one of the worst things I have ever gone through, but I’m eager to be able to continue acting and I hope my story can help inspire anyone who has gone through a similar experience,” Andres said. “I look forward to expanding my acting career and am excited to have Madden Talent representing me,” Andres added.
When he’s not acting, Molina enjoys working out, lifting weights, swimming, and being a patient advocate for fellow spinal cord injured patients at the Broward Health North Hospital, where he recovered. Molina also now works as a Life and Relationship Coach with Alexandre Cormont at the French Relationship Expert.
Here Are Some Questions We Asked Andres, watch the complete interview above!
First of all, hello Andres, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to ScreenBinge! How are you doing?
It’s a pleasure to meet you too! I’m doing well, staying you know in the present, grateful and positive you know can’t complain.
So, okay guys, first of all I would love to mention something great about Andres and that’s what the C.E.O of his talent agency mentioned to me. His exact words were, “Madden talent is honoured to represent Andres Perez Molina not, only for his impressive resume in film and Tv but with his inspirational recovery from a serious injury all speaking volumes about his awesome ability to succeed at whatever he wants to do.” So, Andres let’s just begin with your injury first, how it felt and what you went through?
Last August 26th, 2020 I fainted in my backyard patio after a long bike ride, I was biking like 25-30 miles… kind of relieving my stress and supposing a little dehydrated and some emotional stress built up from this whole pandemic.
And I fainted as I got off my bike, I hit my temple on a flower pot in my backyard. And I hit the right spot on my temple and I did not know this but genetically I have a thin spinal tube so the impact of that fall was massive.
I was out, unconscious for two minutes until my brother and his girlfriend woke me up and I had no idea…none. I was so relaxed and at ease when I woke up and they were in shock at what was going on…and they tried to get me off the ground, I couldn’t feel my legs or my arms and that’s when everything started kicking.
In all the panic and freaking out… long story short, it was very traumatic because when I woke up after being out for like two minutes and I was calm. My brother was so surprised with my reaction where I was like what’s going on and he was like what do you mean? What’s going on? You fainted! And I was like no way and I had no idea I was on the ground… I had no idea of the blood coming down. So, they rushed me to the hospital and I was paralyzed from the neck down.
I suffered a cervical spinal cord contusion on my c2 vertebrae and for the first week, I was in denial. I was freaking out; I didn’t know what to do at the time. I was thinking I’m in my mid-30s… I’m in shape I’m healthy…what just happened?
The story of your recovery as mentioned by the doctors is miraculous! And your positive mindset at the time healed you faster than expected, what would you comment on that?
Well, after a week I basically was able to move my right toes then after a few more days after that I was able to move my right leg… and then eventually I moved my right arm and then they transferred me to trauma and ICU and I was hospitalized for 31-days.
But the thing was my diagnosis was incomplete so they didn’t know what the time frame would be for any possible you know movement or recovery. I would have to focus on my mindset to push through my electrical signals to my hands to my arms to my legs…. mentally telling them to move even though they didn’t move but I kept on reassuring that muscle memory… kept on trying to touch that nerve and it was challenging man! It was psychologically & therapeutically challenging and every day all night I would just pray and just think about moving my hand again and then eventually I was able to get up.
And I had to learn how to walk again, I had to learn how to eat again, learn how to bathe, I had to learn how to get dressed.
And they were astonished by the recovery and my very first in physical therapy and rehab I couldn’t walk the parallel bars one step. And that night I kept on practicing my steps in my wheelchair and trying to do my leg raises in my wheelchair and the following day I end up doing the parallel bars twice up and down and the P.T spot were blown away and astonished by it. They were just starting to realize this is not normal this progression is ahead of schedule.
They told me I would be on wheelchair for six to nine months and I didn’t accept that. I went to work harder in my hospital room and I walked out of the hospital in 30 days!
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