Sandoval was born in
Washington, D.C. He began working as a professional actor in 1975 when he joined a
mime school in
Albuquerque,
New Mexico. He later joined the troupe full-time and continued his study of mime. He began his film career in the early 1980s. He had small roles in such acclaimed films as
Do the Right Thing,
Jungle Fever, and
Sid and Nancy, Sandoval has also played the major roles of Treviranus (in
Death and the Compass), Bennie Reyes (in
Three Businessmen) and Arizona Gray (in the "
microfeature"
Repo Chick) for director
Alex Cox. In addition to film, Sandoval has acted in numerous television shows, often in recurring roles. Though shows such as
The Court and
Kingpin failed, he found success with
Medium in 2005, where he played
D.A. Manuel Devalos Sandoval co-starred as Judge Hernandez in
Bad Judge, an American legal comedy television series co-created by Chad Kultgen and
Anne Heche. It premiered on
NBC on October 2, 2014. After that, he had roles in ''
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Sharp Objects, and Station 19''. ==Personal life==