Hollywood’s Latino PR Guru, Gabriel Reyes

Reyes Entertainment is one of the most prominent and pioneering Hispanic/Latino driven public relations and marketing groups in the Country. The company, based in LA, was founded by Hispanic/Latino public relations guru, Gabriel Reyes.
    Reyes started out as an actor but found his true calling in PR and marketing after a disastrous meeting with a casting agent back in the ’80s. He said, “I remember having an epiphany one day: These casting directors sit in a room all day with a camera and see 200 to 300 guys for a 30-second commercial. I walked in and I realized that, as I was doing my audition, the casting director wasn’t even looking at me. She was having her lunch. I think that the issue is that American mainstream media doesn’t have any idea of who Hispanics really are. Hispanics ourselves have an image problem. So I thought that the way to do this is for me to get some kind of career in communications, so that I’m able to work on behalf of Hispanics.”
    By 1997 Reyes was one of the leading publicists in Hollywood and a Hispanic-market expert. He founded Reyes Entertainment in an effort to offer clients bilingual, all-inclusive campaigns across Spanish and English-language markets. Gabriel says, “The Reyes Entertainment mission: To transcend cultural and language barriers and secure maximum visibility and value for clients and projects.”
    Reyes Entertainment’s list of clients includes the Disney-ABC Television Group, where Reyes designs Hispanic PR initiatives for programs such as Desperate Housewives, Lost, and Disney Channel programs High School Musical, Handy Manny, Johnny & The Sprites, and The Wizards of Waverly Place. Additionally, in 2007 Reyes Entertainment organized the first ever Hispanic Media Junket at Disney-ABC Television which was geared specifically to expose the company’s talent to Hispanic media.
    Gabriel Reyes was named one of Hollywood’s “50 Most Influential Latinos” by The Hollywood Reporter and the company has received two Prism Awards for Excellence in Multicultural PR Campaigns, as well as five Marcom Awards for Excellence in Public Relations. One of his first clients was Latina Magazine where Reyes was the magazine’s publicist for five years and was responsible for landing Jennifer Lopez her very first magazine cover.
    Reyes said he is doing his part to unmarginalize Latinos working in Hollywood and share their accomplishments with both Spanish and English language media.
    AC: What, in your early years, attracted you to the entertainment business? Who was your biggest supporter?
    GR: I was attracted to the arts from an early age but I did not decide to pursue a career in the arts until I was in college. I believe I am an artist at heart and artistic pursuits make me the happiest.
    I’ve had great supporters later in my career but very few that I can remember as a kid or teenager. Growing up in South Texas in those days, a gay kid who liked music and dancing could expect to have very few friends or “supporters.”
    AC: You were a professional dancer, do you still dance?
    GR: I started dance classes while still in high school. I continued in college and performed in several classical ballets as well as Modern and Jazz concerts and musicals. When I lived in NYC, I had the life of a “hoofer,” going to dance class every day and auditioning for Broadway, off-Broadway and summer stock. I performed in several off-Broadway shows both as an actor and a dancer and I never wanted to do summer stock because I did not want to leave NYC.
    AC: Why did you give up performance and make the transition to the business side of things so early in your career?
    GR: I gave up performing early in my career because I felt that being seen as a “Latino” actor was limiting and I decided to pursue a career communicating to American media the truth about who Latinos really are and especially our American-ness, which has always been and continues to be questioned in the national conversation. I guess I felt I had a “bigger” calling.
    AC: Who was your first big client? When was the moment you knew that your company was going to be successful?
    GR: My first client was Nely Galan and her production company Galan Entertainment. She’s still one of my dearest friends and mentors to this day. 
    And, of course, Latina Magazine. I’m proud to have been the magazine’s first publicist and continued on their masthead for over five years. Latina’s founder, Christy Haubegger, is one of my best friends in the world to this day.
    AC: You have always campaigned for changing the way Hollywood views Latinos and for the integration of Hispanics into main steam media. How has that changed over the last 15 years? 
    GR: I’ve been working in the Hispanic media and entertainment space for over 15 years. Whereas we’ve seen much more integration of Hispanics into mainstream media, I find that we are still absent from much of the national conversation and when most Americans do think of Hispanics; it is not in a favorable light. 
    As an example: At last year’s Rally to Restore Sanity, Jon Stewart, the darling of political correctness and someone who should know better, opened his speech by noting that the audience “looks like America: 75% white, 20% black and 5% other.” I’m sure he had heard about Latinos being the largest and fastest-growing “minority” group in the U.S., he just forgot, you see. Latinos just were not on his mind, even when talking about the make up of the U.S. population. Invisible.
    Check out: <a href="http://reyesentertainment.com/">http://reyesentertainment.com/</a>…;

Author

Dr. Al Carlos Hernandez