Roman Zaragoza

Román Zaragoza’s Path From Stage to Screen and Animation

The New York-born son of actor Gregory Zaragoza and business professor Shirley Zaragoza, Román Zaragoza grew up absorbing storytelling from all angles – Broadway shows glimpsed through subway windows in Hell’s Kitchen, his father performing onstage in the 1999 revival of “Annie Get Your Gun,” and eventually the training grounds of Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles. Of Akimel O’otham and Mexican descent on his father’s side and Japanese and Taiwanese descent on his mother’s, he carries a layered identity that has shaped the kinds of stories he seeks out and the characters he fights to represent authentically.

Native Voices and the Making of a Performer

At 15, Zaragoza began working with Native Voices at the Autry, the only Equity Native American theatre company in the United States. Under the mentorship of director Randy Reinholz, he performed in the stage production “Off the Rails,” which was later selected for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival – an institution he returned to for three consecutive seasons (2017, 2018, 2019) while completing his Film Production degree at California State University, Northridge. Those years honed not just his craft but his sense of purpose: telling stories from communities that rarely see themselves centered on screen.

Sasappis and the Ghosts Breakthrough

Since 2021, Zaragoza has starred as Sasappis – a Lenape ghost from the 1500s with a dry wit and a love for pizza – in the CBS sitcom “Ghosts.” The role earned him a Red Nation Film Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor and another for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance in 2022. He pushed behind the scenes too, recommending the production hire a Lenape cultural consultant, Joe Baker, to ensure authentic representation. His real-life father Gregory Zaragoza appeared on-screen as his character’s father – a parallel that closed a circle Román had been drawing since childhood.

Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender and the Animation Leap

The voice role that catapulted Zaragoza into animation came with Avatar Studios’ 2026 film “Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender,” where he takes on Sokka alongside Dave Bautista, Steven Yeun, and Eric Nam. It marks his most prominent voice-over credit to date and arrives alongside a 2022 stint as Miy in Netflix’s animated series “Spirit Rangers” – a fitting early step for a performer whose instinct has always been to find underrepresented voices and bring them forward.