‘Rez Ball’ Warriors on the court

With New Mexico quickly becoming the new Hollywood, it’s not surprising someone from Valencia County is pursuing the path of acting and finding success.

Vincent Otero, a 2021 Los Lunas High School graduate and member of the Isleta Pueblo, started answering casting calls in the fifth grade and recently made his streaming debut in Netflix’s “Rez Ball.”

The movie is inspired by the celebrated book, “Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Reservation,” by Michael Powell and the New York Times articles that laid its foundation.

The story is about the Chuska Warriors, a Native high school basketball team in New Mexico that faces the challenge of keeping their dream of a state championship alive after losing their star player. Otero plays Roshawnavin Begay in the film.

Otero was chosen last year when the casting company he was working with recommended he put his name in for consideration.

“I don’t play basketball, but I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll submit,’” Otero said. “Then I got the call from the production company and they were like, ‘Hey, are you busy for the next couple of months?’”

He was then invited to a rehearsal for one of the major action scenes of the movie.

“They put me and all the actors on a bus and drove us about an hour and a half west of Bernalillo. It was in the middle of nowhere,” he recalled. “It was all dirt and, two months later, there were all these houses.”

The cast was given the script and they began rehearsing and blocking — planning out their movements on set — and about a month later, they were on a bus to Shiprock for a week’s worth of filming.

“The production just kept rolling. Then we were filming every day at The Pit, then at Netflix studios and Santa Fe Indian School. Everyone was together. We’d work for 16 hours, sleep for five, then do it again the next day.”

In the film, the Warriors play numerous real New Mexico high school teams, Otero said, leading to mentions of places such as Belen High School.

Part of the action on the court was filmed at Los Lunas High School, and the Belen Lotaburger location was featured as well.

“The main character works at Blake’s. You can’t have a New Mexico movie without someone working at Lotaburger,” Otero said with a laugh. “All the Blake’s scenes were at the one in Belen.”

As a Native, Otero said working on a project that focused exclusively on Indigenous people and the culture was an interesting experience. The team the movie is based on is Navajo, so many of the traditions portrayed in Rez Ball are Navajo, he said.

“The reaction was different from everyone because we were all from different tribes. When we were taking sage, everyone does something a little different with the smoke,” he said. “We believe a lot of the same things but do things differently. My family in Isleta was excited to see a reflection of our culture, even if it was not exactly ours.”

Otero’s first experience in the movie industry was as a background character in “The Ridiculous 6,” a 2015 Western action comedy starting Adam Sandler. The casting call was looking for boys with long hair, which Otero had at the time. After that, he was an extra in “Graves” starring Nick Nolte.

While in high school, he was a full-time part of the drama program at LLHS and got involved in the Hub Community Theatre in Belen. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to continue working as an actor and ironically found many of the studios were closing up and moving to New Mexico.

“I was in LA for maybe a year,” he said.

He returned to the Land of Enchantment and continued to get background roles in different shows, including “Primo,” which is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Now that “Rez Ball” has wrapped, Otero said he’s going to continue working in the film industry. While there isn’t anything immediate on the horizon, he is focusing on a Christmas show for Hub Community Theatre, of which he’s the board president.

“This will 100 percent open up more doors and make moving into the industry easier,” he said of being in “Rez Ball.”

He encourages anyone wanting to work in the movie industry to keep working and making contacts.

“You can test the waters as background. Find a casting agency’s website and send in your pictures. Being background is a good way to meet the crew, to get your name out there and gain a reputation,” he said. “I think it’s important to point out that New Mexico has really taken over in the film industry.

"Netflix is here. ‘Primo’ was one of the direct to streaming shows for Amazon. Things are getting bigger. I think the movie industry has really broken off from LA and taken root here.”