David Zayas

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libelous. Find sources: "David Zayas" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

David Zayas
Zayas in 2007
Born	(1962-08-15) August 15, 1962 (age 62) Ponce, Puerto Rico[1]
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1995–present
Notable work	Angel Batista on Dexter Enrique Morales on Oz Sal Maroni on Gotham
Spouse	Liza Colón-Zayas ​ (m. 1998)​

David Zayas (born August 15, 1962^[2]) is a Puerto Rican actor. He is best known for his roles as Angel Batista on the Showtime series Dexter and Enrique Morales on the HBO prison drama series Oz.^[3]

Zayas was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico,^[4] and raised in The Bronx, New York.^[3]

Zayas joined the United States Air Force at age 19^[3] and was a police officer with the New York City Police Department for almost 15 years.^[3] His experience as a police officer allowed him to develop as a character actor, leading to a series of acting jobs on television and film, mainly playing law enforcement officers, but playing characters on the other side of the law, as well, such as Enrique Morales on HBO's long-running prison-drama Oz.^{[citation needed]} Zayas was a main cast member of Dexter for all of its eight seasons.^{[citation needed]}

Zayas has been a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company since 1992,^{[citation needed]} a New York City-based traveling actors group. He branched out into television and film projects, and has diversified with guest roles in such popular television series such as New York Undercover, Person of Interest, FBI (playing Mexican drug lord Antonio Vargas), and NYPD Blue.^{[citation needed]} At LAByrinth, he met his future wife, actress Liza Colón.^{[citation needed]}

Zayas played a corrupt police officer in 16 Blocks (2006) and an NYPD officer in Michael Clayton (2007).^{[citation needed]} He is featured in the independent film Shadowboxing (2010), which appeared on the film festival circuit. He appears in Sylvester Stallone's feature film The Expendables (2010) and The Brothers Strause's film Skyline (2010). In 2012, Zayas played Ernie Trask, a hotel super, in the twelfth episode of season 1 of Person of Interest. In the 2013 he portrayed Detective Esteban Flores in Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret, a television movie about the murder of Travis Alexander.^[5]

Zayas portrays mob boss Don Salvatore Maroni^[6] in the Batman prequel, Gotham, which premiered on Fox on September 22, 2014. Shortly thereafter, he appeared in Annie (2014) as Lou, a gregarious bodega owner who helps Cameron Diaz's Hannigan learn to love herself.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to David Zayas.

Wikiquote has quotations related to David Zayas.

• David Zayas at IMDb
• "One on one with David Zayas". HoboTrashcan.com. July 3, 2008.