Sal Velez Jr. got his start in the entertainment industry in 2001 when he was discovered performing one of his various impersonations of actors and singing Jazz. Invited to audition for Chicago’s Second City, he won a three-year scholarship. In 2007, he made the decision to move to Los Angeles, where he officially began pursuing an acting career, landing roles in Chicago Justice and voice roles in Telltale Games’ “Walking Dead Michonne.”

Catching up with him at Indie Lounge, PopWrapped TV’s Arthur Marroquin had the chance to talk all things Gente-fied and Hand of God.

PopWrapped: Let’s talk about a few of the shows that you’re in right now.

Sal Velez Jr.: Sure. I’m here at Sundance right now [with] a series called Gente-fied that was produced by MACRO. It’s a great digital series, and it got officially nominated. We got invited. It’s a beautiful thing. MACRO’s a great production company. They just produced a movie you guys might have heard of called Fences with Denzel Washington. So all’s good. And then come March, both Season 2 of Hand of God on Amazon network with Ron Perlman, and Chicago Justice on NBC will come out, too — a Dick Wolf production. You guys will see me out there.

PW: Yeah! You know, you may have seen him out there in one of the many projects that he is in! All right, so let’s talk more about Gente-fied.

SV: Sure. Gente-fied is a series that’s based on Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. No drugs. No guns. No killing. It’s just talking about Latino life really from the internal point of view. I play a character named Eric who’s, uh, who’s a very book-smart type of guy, but he’s a street-savvy type of guy. And he ends up being able to go — we live through his daily life. You know what I mean? And also the story spirals on seven complete principles, and it stays in Boyle Heights. It’s a beautiful thing. Gente-fied, which is could have been gentrified, which is short for identification. So that’s what it’s really based upon. You guys really got to check it out.

Check out the full interview below.