The South Bay native has a background as diverse as his roles, which have ranged from Pablo Picasso to Stanley Kowalski to his latest character, James Bates, the politically ambitious golden boy of a small Midwestern town. James is one of the major players in Lanford Wilson's drama Book of Days, which receives its West Coast premiere at TheatreWorks this month (see related story on section cover).

Carvalho, who was born and raised in San Jose and currently lives in Los Gatos, had some unique interests at a young age. "As a child, growing up, I always wanted to be either an actor or a priest," says Carvalho, who found a lot of memories stirred by his recent performance in San Jose Stage Company's holiday show, Incorruptible, which had a religious setting. "I think that my first acting experience was in church, probably. We used to perform plays during masses," he recalls.

Carvalho graduated in 1999 from San Jose State University's School of Radio, Television and Film, but he began college as a Political Science major. He worked for five years as an intern with Santa Clara County supervisor Jim Beall, and also interned for county supervisor Pete McCue.

A challenging experience with Shakespeare permanently changed his course from politics to acting. "I have dyslexia, so it was very intimidating for me to start theater, and actually the first book I'd ever read from cover to cover was Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, and the only reason why I'd read it cover to cover was because we were in the first rehearsal," says Carvalho, who remembers his difficulties reading the script for the first time—aloud—at rehearsal. "So I proceeded to humiliate myself in front of about 40 people who sat there as I butchered Shakespeare," he recalls. "And it was that moment right there—how hard it was for me!"

That first book he read from cover to cover had made him really want to be good at this. "I really had something to prove after that, and I think that's carried into every other show that I've done. It's kind of a work ethic, I guess."

A major aspect of that work ethic for Carvalho is preparation, a process that, for him, almost always includes music, whether from the setting of a play—Carvalho listened to jazz while preparing for A Streetcar Named Desire—or from the production itself. Preparing to play James for Book of Days will also incorporate something of a physical transformation, with Carvalho dressing the part of his yuppie character both on stage and off. The temporary makeover will include a haircut that Carvalho has been looking forward to because his last three roles required him to continue growing out his hair. "I haven't had a haircut since April," he says with a laugh.

A unique entrée into James' psyche comes from Carvalho's own childhood experiences of frequent hunting trips with his father in the East foothills of the Santa Clara valley. He remembers the pastime landing him in trouble when he tried to bring one of his trophies—a duck's head—to second-grade show-and-tell. "I thought it was so cool," he says. That incident may not have gone quite the way he had hoped at the time, but now his knowledge should serve him well, with the important role that hunting plays in Book of Days.

Although he says he prefers comedies, especially those with a dark edge, Carvalho finds plenty of challenges in his current role, and even some unexpected humor in the play. "Lanford Wilson actually has a very strange way of throwing a joke into the most dramatic points of his scenes," he says. "A lot of times, he'll suck you into this story that they're telling and get you emotionally involved in it, and then he'll give you a little joke. Sometimes it's just an uncomfortable laugh that's going to come from it, but it's really beautiful writing."