Adan Canto

Adan Canto was a Mexican actor known for his roles in American television and film, including Arman Morales in “The Cleaning Lady,” Aaron Shore in “Designated Survivor” and the mutant Sunspot in “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” Born on 5 December 1981 in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, near the US border, he grew up between Mexico and the United States and began his creative career in music before turning to acting.

Canto broke through on American television as the terrorist Paul Torres in the Fox thriller “The Following” (2013). He went on to play the Colombian official Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in the first season of Netflix’s “Narcos” (2015) and joined the Marvel universe as Sunspot in “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (2014).

He reached a wide audience as Aaron Shore, the deputy White House chief of staff, across all three seasons of the political drama “Designated Survivor” (2016–2019) opposite Kiefer Sutherland.

In 2022 he took one of his most prominent roles as Arman Morales, the charismatic crime-world fixer and love interest of Élodie Yung’s lead character, in “The Cleaning Lady.” He appeared across the show’s first two seasons and remained central to its story.

Canto died on 8 January 2024 at the age of 42, following a battle with appendiceal cancer, a rare and aggressive form of the disease. His death prompted tributes from co-stars and colleagues, who remembered him as a gifted, warm and dedicated performer. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood.

A bilingual actor who moved fluidly between Mexican and American productions — and a musician and aspiring director as well as a performer — Canto left behind a body of work spanning genre thrillers, prestige drama and comic-book blockbusters over little more than a decade on screen.

His sudden death at a relatively young age was widely mourned across the entertainment industry, and “The Cleaning Lady” paid tribute to him by writing his character’s passing into the series. Canto is remembered both for his on-screen charisma and for the range he showed across Spanish- and English-language productions during his career.