Néstor Gastón Carbonell ([ˈnestor ɣasˈtoŋ karβoˈneʎ]; born December 1, 1967) is an American actor. He is perhaps most famous for his roles as Richard Alpert in ABC's drama series Lost, and Mayor Anthony Garcia in the Christopher Nolan films The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. He is also known for his regular roles as Luis Rivera on the sitcom Suddenly Susan, and Batmanuel on the live-action sitcom The Tick. Carbonell currently portrays Sheriff Alex Romero on A&E's drama-thriller series Bates Motel.

Biography

Carbonell has been married to Australian actress Shannon Kenny since January 3, 2000. They originally met while working together on the 1995 television series Muscle and went on to co-star in the 2000 film Attention Shoppers, which Carbonell wrote. The couple have two children, Rafael (born 2002) and Marco (born 2005). He is a practicing Roman Catholic.

Carbonell's dark eyelashes have been a staple topic of discussion in interviews, and both Carbonell and the producers of Lost made it clear they are not enhanced by any form of makeup. A short skit during the Lost panel at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International featured Carbonell allegedly applying eyeliner before throwing a Christian Bale-esque rant upon receiving the wrong color makeup from an assistant. In a season 5 episode of Lost, James "Sawyer" Ford refers to Carbonell's character as "your buddy out there with the eyeliner." In addition, in the Psych episode "Shawn 2.0", Shawn Spencer makes a comment about him having "impossibly dark eyelashes."

He is fluent in Spanish, a skill he put to use in the sixth season episode of Lost, "Ab Aeterno", in which numerous scenes contain dialogue mostly or solely in Spanish. He also starred in a Spanish-language Pepsi commercial alongside Eva Longoria, and in a Spanish-language Heineken commercial.