Efren Ramírez

Efren Ramirez is an American actor, popularly known for playing the character, Pedro Sanchez, in the 2004 movie, Napoleon Dynamite. He was born on 2nd October 1973 in Los Angeles, California. He has four siblings; one of them is his identical twin. Apart from being an actor, he is also a popular DJ who has performed hip-hop, disco, funk music worldwide.

Since childhood, he along with his family migrated from one neighbourhood to another mainly because they were attacked by different gangs for being Latinos. His parents never liked the idea of public school so they enrolled him and his brothers in a private school in Los Angeles. He first participated in Pater Noster High School’s theatre program. Being encouraged by his mother to learn acting, he began to take training at the Theatre of Arts and performed in various theatres.

He graduated from Santa Monica Community College. He was married to Iyari Limon (an American actress) in 1998 but later on the marriage got annulled. His first appearance on big screen was at the age of 13 in Jury Duty in 1995. In 1996, he acted in Kazaam in a supporting role. Even though he acted in a number of T.V. commercials in ABC like Nothing Sacred, Dangerous Mind, Boston Publics, etc. he continued his training at the Whole Theatre Comp.

He played roles on the big screen in King Cobra, Melting Pot, Missing Pieces, Rave and Delivering Milo. Even after working on these, he found himself struggling for money. He used to live in his car for nearly a month. He took to teaching martial arts, and then he went on to sell medical equipment. He continued to work like this until the day he was offered the role of playing Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite. That was a turning point in his career.

The movie was a tremendous hit in 2004 and soon after he became a - well-known celebrity. He had always followed his heart which led him to learn Spanish on his own, learn music and acting and excel in these fields. He was very much dedicated to his parents so with his earnings from Napoleon Dynamite he bought his parents a house out of gratitude.

After Napoleon Dynamite, he went on acting in a number of movies like Tomorrow’s Yesterday, Crank, Employee of the month, Gamer, When in Rome, etc. At present, he is working on the movie, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, directed by Steve Carr which is supposed to be released on 7th October 2016 in the US.