Albania

Valon Marku (born 28th November, 1990) is an actor and musician born in Tirana, Albania. He started out performing in clubs but was signed up to Meraviglie Productions lat 2007 and properly kicking off his career in 2008. While he does a mix of TV and film appearances, Valon is perhaps better known for his music career, having released two albums in 2009 and 2010.

Early Life
Valon Marku was born 28th November 1990 in Tirana, Albania. His background was middle-class and when he was five years old, his family moved to California, USA. He received a very average education and was said to have developed an explosively violent temper at a young age, going as far as throwing chairs at other students. It was also said that Valon had kleptomania and has been arrested for shoplifting numerous times in his youth. He eventually had to go to a different school to break him out of these habits and is said to still get counselling to stop him from losing his temper and lashing out and also to put a stop to his kleptomania.

While going through counselling to break Valon out of this behaviour, he was encouraged to get involved in performing arts. He was said to have a natural talent for it, getting involved in acting, singing and dancing classes outside of school and developing a passion for it as well. When he turned 17, Valon dropped out of high school and moved out of his house to go flatting. From there, he made a living performing at the local night clubs around California.

Career
Valon started out performing the latest club hits in the various nightclubs around California until he was discovered by one of the agents at Meraviglie Productions in late 2007. After auditioning, he was signed up to the company and started out by doing commercials here and there. He also played extras in various shows here and there, guest starring as the murder victim in Investigate L.A. in season four. Then he played one of the police officers in Nowhere Home in which Alfred Jones won Best Upcoming Actor in 2008. That same year, Valon played Ethan in the romance comedy Make Me Sway, which made him particularly popular with teenage girls and young adult women for a while. It was rumoured that he was going to star in another romance comedy film early 2009, but those rumours died down when it was announced that he was releasing his debut album that year and was going to focus his career more on his music.

His debut album titled ‘Flip the Bird’ was fairly well-received by critics, who said it was ‘good for a debut’ but felt that there wasn’t enough of a variety between each of the songs sound-wise. It was heavily noted that while Valon was said to have good vocals, he preferred to rap in the songs he wrote. The album was aimed at the club scene, composed of dance-techno tracks with lyrics written by Valon himself.

2010 was said to be Valon’s busiest year, as he released his second album Disease and starred in the recurring role of Alexander ‘Xander’ Parker in C’est La Vie. His acting was well-received and Valon commented that Xander reminds him a lot of people he was close to at a younger age and thus getting into character was quite easy for him, though he hopes Xander will get more of a role in upcoming seasons. His second album was more successful than the first and said to incorporate more variety into the sound from his debut. He still continued to write his own songs but this time made more use of his vocals. His first single off this album Infectious going straight to the top 10 in the US charts, peaking at no. 7. His second single did well, with Plot Twist peaking at no. 20 though the third Head to Toe not so much, with critics believing other songs on the album would’ve been a better choice for the third single.

It is rumoured that Valon will star as the one of the leads in an upcoming musical TV series in 2011.

Personal Life
Since signing up to Meraviglie Productions, Valon has been living quite a private life with his main focus being on his career. He quoted once that his “career helps to keep him in check from doing bad shit”, though it’s said that he still occasionally nicks things off his cast mates when filming with them. However, he does give whatever he stole back usually within the day and so hasn’t caused too much trouble with that. What has made Valon get in trouble a few times is his tendency to sometimes get stoned prior to filming a scene. When asked about it, Valon responded “At least I’m not smashing the set up?” Outside of filming, Valon can often be seen at the different nightclubs doing rather spontaneous performances of songs off his two albums. He’s said to have a high tolerance of alcohol and rarely ever gets drunk, even after many drinks.

Another note about Valon is that he is quite outspoken on his opinions of other celebrities. He’s commented many a times on being Sadik Adnan’s biggest fan and has been seen a few times reading his novels. However, he has made comments that weren’t as favourable like how Alfred Jones is far too overrated, despite being cast in a movie alongside him in 2008. Valon has commented a few times that he does most of his song writing when exploring the city, particularly at night. He also knows various styles of dances, such as Hip-Hop and Tap dance.

When it comes to socialising, Valon can seem quite neutral for the most part. He would sign autographs, but he’s not as interested in taking photos or holding conversations with them. If he doesn’t like someone, he keeps his distance from them. However, there have been times where Valon’s come close to snapping at someone and got kicked out of a club for threatening someone with a bar stool. He claimed to be drunk at the time. However if he likes someone, he has a tendency to cling to them like glue to the point of being annoying. He’s said to sometimes spout strange comments as if he was professing love for them, even if he only sees them as a friend.

Trivia
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