MIGUEL DE LEÓN

Even though Miguel de León is nowadays involved in the children's musical-comedy play, "Carita de Ángel", he will continue to do telenovelas because his exclusive contract with Televisa obligates him to work for the company till March of 2003.  "Although this is my first play in Mexico, one really can't say I'm making my debut because the first ten years of my career, in my native Venezuela, were in the theater.  Actually, I emerged from the ranks of the university theater [group] and this is my second children's play.  The first one was a parody of 'Batman'," commented Miguel de León --the Venezuelan leading-man who is prolonging his success in the telenovela "Carita de Ángel" by now doing theater-- a genre he's returned to after an absence of ten years.  "After 'Batman', I started working in television very 'heavily' and I no longer wanted to get involved in theater because it 'clashes', to a certain degree, with television."  Cognizant of the fact that as much Miguel as his wife, telenovela actress Gabriela Spanic, are somewhat established in Mexico... and yet keeping in mind that his wife is working on her last telenovela for Televisa...  Would you remain working in the theater and would she have to go [back] to Venezuela where it's been said they're waiting for her to do television?  "It depends on the play and the trips abroad.  We have a lot of commitments [in the play] such as performing in Mexico City on weekends and touring the interior of the country, etc. the rest of the time.  There's a time phase to this.  After that, I have an exclusive contract that goes way beyond Televisa but everything depends on the work I'll be doing.

"I could accompany her for a while and then come back if it did turn out she had to leave Mexico.  We've always been interested in remaining in Mexico because it's the country that opened doors for us.  It's the country we're grateful to for everything because opportunities are hard to come by in this medium --the good ones-- and for these to be handed out to someone who's not a [Mexican] national, on the contrary... to someone who comes from the outside, is even much more difficult."