[link=/name/nm5097044]Isabela Merced[/link], [link=/name/nm10695146]Leo Woodall[/link], and more stars who are on the rise in 2025.

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<a class="ipc-md-link" href="/name/nm5097044?ref_=nmtrv_eds_right-3_lk">Isabela Merced</a>, <a class="ipc-md-link" href="/name/nm10695146?ref_=nmtrv_eds_right-3_lk">Leo Woodall</a>, and more stars who are on the rise in 2025.

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IMDb's 2025 TV Guide

Take a peek at the biggest new and returning series coming to your screens in 2025, including new seasons of &quot;Yellowjackets&quot; and &quot;Stranger Things.&quot;

Just looking at him you'd never guess that that D'Angelo speaks Japanese fluently and in a native accent. Interestingly enough, he does. With roots in Kansas City, Missouri, D'Angelo was extremely fortunate to avoid becoming a statistic of gang-related violence as Kansas City had the nation's highest murder rate when D'Angelo's mother was able to move him far, far away...to Japan, where D'Angelo attended public school in the city of Kurume located Fukuoka Prefecture. Being such a rarity in rural Japan (at the time) and one of the few mixed-race American children that locals had ever seen, D'Angelo was regularly approached by and asked to take pictures with random strangers inquiring about how and why he was there. Around the same time, D'Angelo auditioned for a local community theater group called Gekidan Culture Shock headed by Craig Kingsley.

D'Angelo was cast as the lead character in several plays, one of which received critical acclaim, called "GO-JI-RA (Godzilla)" a three-act romantic-drama with all Japanese dialogue. Soon after, D'Angelo was cast as the lead on a Prime-Time radio show in Fukuoka called Homeroom #2, which was led to offers from TV Stations for D'Angelo. After consulting with his father, D'Angelo made the difficult decision to leave the Radio Show and decline the TV Show offers as he chose to follow in his father's footsteps. At age of 15, he convinced his mother to let him move back to the United States on his own, to finish high school and get into college. She helped D'Angelo rent a room in one of his childhood friend's father's house and D'Angelo had to work several jobs through high school, to make ends meet, while at the same time being a three-sport athlete.

After receiving a limited number of scholarship offers out of high school, D'Angelo defied the odds yet again as he was able to do what no other local high school graduate had done in over 5 years: make the Varsity Men's Basketball Team at Arizona State University. Out of the 134 who tried out, D'Angelo was one of only two Walk-On players to make the team. Where he was coached by Coach Don Newman (who later became a 2-time NBA Champion with the San Antonio Spurs in 2005 and 2007), alongside teammates Jeremy Veal (the Pac-10 Leading Scorer), Mike Batiste (3-time EuroLeague Champion with Panathinaikos 2007, 2009, and 2011) and Eddie House (NBA Champion, Boston Celtics 2008).

Since moving to Los Angeles, D'Angelo has work in various roles on over 80 Hollywood Projects ranging from Commercials, TV Shows, Independent Films to Major Motion Pictures including projects with Stars including but not limited to Channing Tatum, Gabrielle Union, Jeremy Renner, and Samuel L. Jackson, to name a few.

Practices Nichiren Buddhism (based on The Lotus Sutra) within the Soka Gakkai International, which promotes social understanding, world-peace and creating value in all aspects of humanity.

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D'Angelo Jones

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