The pandemic has struck almost every industry there is, and video games are no different. The creation of a video game takes years, and that’s not including the voice overs that have to be done throughout the production. Luckily, for actor Al Coronel, he got to be part of one of the biggest gamer releases of the pandemic, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, by being the face of the game’s artwork.
Coronel has been acting for years, with appearances on Jane The Virgin, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, and the critically acclaimed film Logan. The military vet is a Los Angeles native, where he returned home to after serving in the Marines for eight years.
While he admits he hasn’t played the game quite yet (“I’m always getting waxed by some 10-year-old”), he is finding joy in having his nieces and nephews look at him like “I’m a God.”
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has three ways to play, in a campaign, which is more cinematic and takes you through multiple missions and storylines, multiplayer, and Zombie mode. Coronel’s character, DGI Mendo Garcia, is a Cuban Special Forces ex-patriot who left to work as a hired assassin in the U.S. Coronel describes Mendo as “ruthless.”
Despite the character being more unruly than what he learned in his military career, Coronel was able to use his military experience to relate to the role. “Military experience has come in handy in my acting career, so when the COD role came about, it was like “Oh, I fit right in,” he says. “There was no ‘how would a military person do this?’”
The experience has been fun for the actor, who has not only his family texting him pictures of his character in play, but his grown adult friends are doing the same. “It’s so weird,” he said with a laugh, “but its awesome, and I am humbled.”
