Santiago Cabrera

"I just thought it was a fantastic part to play Lancelot, it's like, he's such an epic character."

- Santiago on Lancelot

Santiago Cabrera is a Chilean actor who portrayed the titular character in the episode Lancelot. His character also returns in Lancelot and Guinevere, The Coming of Arthur: Part Two. His character dies in The Darkest Hour and is revived in Lancelot du Lac (and dies again).

Early life
The middle child of a Chilean diplomat father and homemaker mother, Cabrera was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Santiago grew up in London, Romania, Toronto and Madrid. His family returned to Chile when he was fifteen years old and as a captain of the football team in high school, Cabrera focused on athletics before switching gears; he headed towards acting when his high school drama teacher encouraged him to try it. During his three years of training at the Drama Centre London, Cabrera honed his acting skills in productions of The Madras House, A Month in the Country, Napoli Milionaria, Britannicus, The Dutch Courtesan, The Strangeness of Others, A Field, Three Birds Alighting On, and played the title character in The Last Days of Don Juan.

Concurrent with his final year at the Centre, he made his television debut with small roles in the British television series Battlefield Britain, Judge John Deed, Spooks and As If. His first role after graduating from drama school was Montano in Shakespeare's Othello, at the Northampton Theatre Royal. He has also starred in the 2006 american film, Love and Other Disasters, alongside Brittany Murphy and Matthew Rhys.

He has appeared on American television in Empire where he portrays Octavius, Julius Caesar's teenage nephew, whom Caesar named as his successor before his death. Most notably, he is known for his role as Isaac Mendez in the NBC series Heroes. Once the character's arc ended, he narrated some episodes of the BBC's spin-off documentary series Heroes Unmasked.

In addition to his fluency in Spanish, English, French and Italian, Cabrera is skilled in tennis, hockey and scuba diving. On the January 20, 2007 episode of the NBC late-night program Vivo Mun2, Cabrera discussed his semi-professional football career in London before he fully committed to acting. He also stated that C.D. Universidad Católica of Santiago is his favorite team. Although he considers Santiago, Chile, his hometown, he splits his time between London and Los Angeles.

On 7 September 2008, Cabrera participated in Soccer Aid, a British charity football match in support of UNICEF.

Trivia

 * Santiago didn't originally plan on becoming an actor, he had planned on becoming a soccer star and player soccer for 3 years on a scholarship before then switched to acting.
 * Before Series 4, Cabrera was specualted by fans to replace Anthony Head in the Series 4 credits as the series went on.