Who is Nicolas Cantu?
Nicolas Cantu was born in Austin, Texas USA, on 8 September 2003 – his zodiac sign is Virgo, and he holds American nationality. He’s an actor, voiceover artist, and a YouTuber, perhaps known best for his roles in TV series such as “The Unicorn”, “The Walking Dead: The World Beyond” and “The Amazing World of Gumball”.
Early life and education
Nicolas spent his early childhood in Austin, alongside his two brothers, Matias and Sebastian. He attended the Stone Oak Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas. Growing up, his parents noticed that he was an extremely creative and outgoing child, who was very aware of his surroundings.
When he was seven years old, Nicolas started expressing his creativity through self-created characters and acting routines, and soon started participating in school plays, the first one being “The Bear Went Over the Mountain”. He is currently attending his senior year in high school.
Roles in TV series
Nicolas’ professional career started in 2014, when he made an appearance in a film made by City of San Antonio, followed by three national TV commercials. His mother saw his huge potential and took him to Hollywood, where he landed an agent, and his first recurring TV series role as Prince Charming, in the animated Disney Channel series “Sofia the First”.
In 2016 and 2017, he had another voiceover role, as Rowan, in the animated action adventure “Lego Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventure”. From 2016 to 2018, he voiced the character Paco in the animated comedy “Future-Worm!”, centered on a worm with time-travelling abilities.
From 2017 to 2019, Nicolas voiced the main protagonist Gumball Watterson, in “The Amazing World of Gumball”, replacing the previous voice actor, Logan Groove. The series was created for Cartoon Network by Ben Bocquelet, and aired for six seasons from 3 May 2011, to 24 June 2019. It’s centered on a blue cat called Gumball, his goldfish best friend, and his adoptive brother Darwin.
“Gumball” is known for its intentionally disjointed animation style, as well as for its extensive references to popular culture, and has since developed a cult following. For his performance in the series, Nicolas was nominated for the 2018 Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement for Voice Acting in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production.
Since then, Nicolas has appeared in several live action TV series, including “The Good Place”, “Bizdaavark” and “Sydney to the Max”. Since 2020, he has been playing the role of Elton Ortiz in “The Walking Dead” spin-off series, entitled “The Walking Dead: World Beyond”, created by Matthew Negrete and Scott M. Gimple, and which also stars Julia Ormond and Alexa Mansour.
The series is set 10 years after the original, focusing on the first generation of children growing-up during the zombie apocalypse. The second and final season premiered on 3 October 2021 on AMC.
Roles in movies
Nicolas made his film debut in the 2017 romantic comedy “Vikes”, written and directed by Tenney Fairchild, and which starred Aidan Alexander, Sydeny Sweeney and Carter Hastings. In the same year, he starred in the award-winning short drama “The Impossible Joy”, about a young immigrant boy who fights violent prejudice from other kids at school, and then had a supporting voice-over role in the animated comedy “Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie”.
Despite only appearing in three movies so far, Nicolas was recently cast in the upcoming Steven Spielberg film entitled “The Fabelmans”. The film is loosely based on the early life of the famous director, with Nicolas set to play one his childhood friends. It will also star Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams, and is scheduled for release in early 2022.
Career on YouTube
Nicolas isn’t only a successful actor, but has also built himself a big fanbase on YouTube, through his channel Junky Janker. Nicolas launched the channel in August 2016, uploading his first video entitled “Welcome to the Channel” in January 2018. He posts various types of videos, including vlogs, commentary and gaming.
His most popular video to date is “The Minecraft Revival of 2019”, viewed more than two million times, since it was uploaded. It’s a video essay on the changes brought to the video game “Minecraft”, and is considered to be a reference to jschlatt’s video “A Tribute to Minecraft”. Another popular video of Nicolas’ is his 2018 Q&A video entitled “Quohog and Albatross”.
As of October 2021, Junky Janker channel numbers more than 440,000 subscribers, with over seven million total views. Due to Nicolas’ filming obligations, the channel has been on an hiatus since 2020.
Nicolas was previously active on the channel AVB Productions, onto which he and his friend uploaded videos related to parkour.
Love life and girlfriend
Nicolas is a very private person, and hasn’t spoken about any potential relationships publicly. Recently, he was seen spending time with his “Fablemans” co-star Isabelle Kusama, which sparked rumors about them possibly dating, which neither of them have confirmed nor denied.
Hobbies and interesting facts
Unlike many other young actors, Nicolas isn’t active on Instagram, Twitter or TikTok. He holds the opinion that social media can be toxic, and also prefers not to share details about his private life with everyone.
When he isn’t working, he enjoys typical teenage activities, such as skating and riding his RipStick.
In 2020, he teamed up with SMP Live to raise money for the Crisis Text Line, which offers free services for people during a mental health emergency.
Nicolas likes to play video games in his spare time, with some of his favorites being “The Last of Us II”, “Counter Strike: Global Offensive” and “Ghost of Tsushima”.
He is a big fan of the actor Jim Carrey, and revealed that it’s his dream to eventually work with him.
He has three dogs called Lola, Rocco and Fiona.
Appearance, age and net worth
Nicolas is 18 years old. He has short curly brown hair and brown eyes, is 5ft 5ins (1.65m) tall, and weighs around 121lbs (55kgs).
As of October 2021, his net worth is estimated at already more than $2 million.
