Biography
Brandho Linao is an American Navy Actor. He is known for his role in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. His first name was given to his parents inspired by Marlon Brando, the Godfather, with a slight Portuguese spelling Brandho. Raised in Houston, he played various sports in high school, football, track, and was very involved in art, choir, and theater arts. He is an avid cosplayer and renaissance fairgoer. He considers himself a chameleon, a master of disguise able to change his appearance to look like one of his favorite characters, such as Jack Sparrow, Tony Stark, and Poe Dameron from Star Wars, or just a regular old pirate. Growing up, people questioned his origins because of his exotic ambiguous look. Although his paternal grandfather's surnames were Pino-Linao, Pino having both Spanish and Italian origin; and Linao having roots in the Spanish colonized Islands of the Philippines and South America like Chile and Argentina, he considers himself multi-racial. He is the perfect person to play different roles in a film due to his diverse background.
He attributes his multi-facial appearance to both his late parents' mixed heritage. He is Filipino and Spanish from his paternal grandparent's side; Spanish, Portuguese, French Jewish, and Filipino Japanese on maternal grandparents' side. His late father Doroteo M. Pino-Linao was born in 1932, and paternal grandparents Lazaro Pino-Linao and Anna Vijano M. Perez-born during the Spanish era of the Philippines-were mestizos, or Filipinos mixed with European Spanish; very common among the population during that time as well as influx of migration of people from Spain to South America, and into the Islands of the Philippines. His late mother's name was Shalimar Abe Roqueza (Pacot), whose father was of mixed heritage (Spanish, Portuguese and French Jewish) and Filipino Japanese on her mother's side.
While remaining ambiguous within today's society, he celebrates his diversity by learning about the past and different cultures of the world through traveling and reading. With the navy and on his own, he has traveled to over 50 countries around the globe and has picked up multiple languages, such as Italian, French, German, and Ukrainian, etc. He has learned to decipher different languages through his travels and immersion in different cultures. He has also mastered mimicking the speech of the countries he has visited. He's picked up accents that can be used in films and voiceovers.
He joined the Navy at age 19, stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, for the first five years of his Navy enlistment. There, he worked with a couple of shorts with his long-time Navy friend Jon Stremel, who had a major in filmmaking back in college. Brandho played the pilot in the short stop-animation film Handle with Care and was one of the artists for the props made in the film. He did a few other projects with his friend uncredited as a side gig through a family relative hired to be a crew member for CBS. He assisted in the filming of the Florida Georgia Line music video shot in Virginia. His love for movies and film, as well as being a part of filmmaking, has driven him to be an actor. Some of his older role models growing up were Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro. The more modern ones he aspires to be are Robert Downey Jr., Dwayne Johnson, Johny Depp, Dave Bautista, Pedro Pascal, and Oscar Isaac. Some day he hopes to work with some of the big names in Hollywood, such as John Krasinski and Vin Diesel.
Brandho considers himself a singer and can emulate his favorite singers, such as Bruno Mars, Adam Levine, and classical singers like Frank Sinatra and Sam Cooke. He sings a variety of genres such as alternative, R&B, Latino, and Reggae. He sang on stage with Australian artist Dubfx during a concert at the NORVA theater in Norfolk.
He returned from being stationed overseas in Spain back to the United States with his wife and two kids. He hopes to get into small roles around Washington DC area where he currently resides for his shore duty with more opportunities to be in films or work on his musical passion.
