Colombian actor Marlon Moreno, best-known for playing a drug lord, will be saving lives, not taking them, in his new role as a doctor in TV show “Open Hearted.”
After a year’s hiatus, Moreno will return to television portraying Dr. Juan Felipe Becerra in the second season of the dramatic series on Canal RCN, reported newspaper El Tiempo Monday.
The humanitarian character is a drastic change from Moreno’s last role as the fictitious drug lord Pedro Pablo Leon Jaramillo in “El Capo,” the most expensive TV series produced in Colombia.
“My heart felt that this was the character. They had offered me various roles, but they didn’t fulfill me. This is a doctor that was kidnapped by guerrillas, was in the war in Iraq, has deep, human feelings and is an advocate for life,” Moreno told El Tiempo about his decision to take the role.
The humanitarian role will be positive change from the dark, violent quality of his previous work.
“I would not want to return to interpret it [his previous role] for what it meant to me on a mental and emotional level really affected me,” he said to the newspaper.
Moreno, born in Cali, Colombia, is one of the countries’ leading actors and topped the men’s list of “Colombia’s 60 Most Beautiful” in 2010.