Rick Najera is an award-winning screenwriter, actor, director, producer, sketch comedian, author, playwright, coach and national speaker with an expansive portfolio of credits in all forms of entertainment. He has received numerous industry awards for his work.

From starring in films with Sidney Poitier, George Clooney, Mario Lopez, directing performers in Britney Spears’ Circus tour, to writing for Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Lopez, Najera is best known for starring on Broadway in his award-winning, self-penned stageplay, Latinologues, directed by comedy legend Cheech Marin. Najera is only one of three Latinos to write and star in their own play on Broadway and paved the way for productions to come like ‘In the Heights’.  Najera is only one of three Latinos to ever write and star in their own play on Broadway.

As a screenwriter, Najera has written dozens of scripts for TV, film and the stage, and started in the industry as a staff writer on the groundbreaking urban comedy series, In Living Color, for which he wrote more than 30 episodes. Najera went on to write for Townsend TV (10 episodes), MAD TV (47 episodes), East Los High - a Hulu original (21 episodes) and more. He penned the feature film Nothing Like the Holidays starring Debra Messing, Alfred Molina, John Leguizamo and Luis Guzman, which won him an ALMA Award. Najera learned from great writers like Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino and Scorsese to “write what you know' and has been a pioneer in Hollywood sharing his American experience, from a Latino perspective.

Najera started out as a theatrical stage performer reciting the epic lines of Shakespeare in numerous plays and went on to star and guest star more than 100 episodes of TV and film. He is the creator of numerous plays including Sweet 15 Quinceañera.

Najera is a national motivational speaker and coach (Google, The World Bank, CNN, Harvard, UCLA +) addressing themes such as diversity, entertainment, Hispanic market, politics and comedy. He is the host of Latino Thought Makers, a leadership interview series highlighting organic conversations with his network of industry friends and community leaders such as Edward James Olmos, Danny Trejo, Dolores Huerta, Cheech Marin and dozens more.

Najera is an award-winning author of five books: Latins Anonymous, Pain of the Macho, Latinologues on Broadway,Almost White: Forced Confessions of a Latino in Hollywood and Ignite the Fire Within: Mastering Your Speaking and Writing co-authored with Harvard Medical School's Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, brother of renowned spiritual guru and author, Deepak Chopra.  

Najera has been nominated for numerous industry awards including two WGA awards for Best Writing for a Comedy/Variety Television Series on MADTV.

What Rick Loves to do is to make audiences laugh and for one moment see how beautiful and precious all our stories are enjoy his show Sweet Quinceañera he wrote it for his daughter Sonora as a gift 

Najera is repped by Daryn Simons at CEG, Cohesive Entertainment Group.

For more information on Rick Najera visit www.ricknajera.com.