Hi there!
I’m Carmen Lamar Gonzalez.
Ever since I was four years old I used to sing and dance in front of my mirror, imagining a life onstage. I wore out the albums of Annie, You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown, A Chorus Line, Carousel, Oklahoma!, The Music Man and then later, Sondheim entered my life, and it was Follies, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods. I would act with my fellow singers on those records and wait for “my turn” to sing back. Sometimes I’d even play multiple parts.
After roles in many college, summer stock, regional tour, and community theatre productions, I moved to NYC. I read The Actor’s Picture/résumé book, from the Drama Book Shop. It was put together by Jill Charles, the Artistic Director of the Dorset Theatre Festival in Dorset, VT. In an updated forward she talked about living with cancer and knowing her body would not have survived without doctors, but her soul would not survive without art. She said, “Go, do what you do, love it, share it.” It’s a lovely mantra and has stayed with me.
I hope to inspire, bring characters to life, represent and share my love of the art of acting with others. And to the people who inspire me: my mom & dad, my husband, my son, my friends, and my acting mentors - thank you!
Carmen Lamar Gonzalez is an actor, singer and proud member of the professional actor unions: SAG-AFTRA and AEA. She has appeared in film & television and performed in NYC, cabaret, regional and summer stock theaters around the country.
Carmen has a recurring role as Bomb Tech, Carla Flores on the hit Dick Wolf series FBI on CBS, can be seen in the pilot episode and throughout all seasons up to the current season 5. Her award-winning YouTube series, Second to None, a set of documentary shorts, highlights those Hollywood actors whose faces you recognize, but names you may not be able to place.
Originally from Corpus Christi, TX, Carmen is of Mexican descent. Her father, Armando Anibal Wiley (birth name Santoveña), is a naturalized American citizen originally from Mexico. He is a retired US Navy Commander, who served as a sailor then pilot, flying reconnaissance missions during Vietnam off the USS Hancock and USS Lexington. Her mother, Enriqueta Carmen Wiley (nee Gonzalez) was born in Corpus Christi, but grew up in Alice, Texas. Of Mexican descent with Spanish and French on her maternal and paternal side, she’s a retired Navy wife, who’d been a hairstylist and in retail sales.
Carmen lived in many towns a Navy brat calls home: from Maine to California, Texas to Washington DC, and, as is expected of military families, moved every 2½ years. Carmen has two brothers. One is a General Manager at HEB in Corpus and the other works for USAA in San Antonio.
Carmen’s biological father was a singer and musician, singing in Mexican trios and with his talented brothers. Through him, she is related to the martyred Jesuit priest Miguel Pro from Mexico, also known as Blessed Miguel Pro, Father Pro or Padre Pro. He was executed in 1927 and beatified in 1988 by Pope John Paul II in Rome.
Carmen holds a BA in Communications and Theatre from Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, and an MA in Theatre from Hunter College. She ran the JR School acting program at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre from 2014 - 2022, but continues to teach theatre history in the adult program. Carmen studied with renowned acting teacher, Fred Kareman.
She lives in New York City with her husband, voice-over actor Jake Daehler and her son, Lennon whose interest as a High Schooler is in technical theatre design. She rides her bike in the city (but wears a helmet), does yoga, and is a vegan. ActorsAccess Resume
“Carmen Lamar plays the pensione’s proprietor, Fioria (Time of the Cuckoo), and does so with such earthy, intense ‘Italian’ you keep blinking to see if it might really be Ana Magnani.”
Michael Millius, Theatre Review