Mayte Michelle Rodríguez (born July 12, 1978), better known by her stage name Michelle Rodriguez, is an American actress. Rodriguez began her career in 2000, playing a troubled boxer in the independent sports drama film Girlfight (2000), where she won the Independent Spirit Award and Gotham Award for Best Debut Performance. Rodriguez then began starring as Letty Ortiz in the Fast & Furious franchise, and portrayed Rain Ocampo in the Resident Evil franchise. She appeared in the crime thriller S.W.A.T. (2003), and later starred in James Cameron's science fiction epic Avatar (2009) and in the action film Battle: Los Angeles (2011).
After portraying Minerva Mirabal in the biopic Trópico de Sangre (2010), Rodriguez headlined the exploitation films Machete (2010) and Machete Kills (2013), and starred in the computer animated comedy films Turbo (2013) and Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017), while her performance in the heist film Widows (2018) was critically praised.
Outside of film, Rodriguez played Ana Lucia Cortez in the drama television series Lost (2005–2006; 2009–2010), and voiced Liz Ricarro in the English-language translation of the anime Immortal Grand Prix (2005–2006). She reprised her roles in video game spin-offs of Avatar and Fast & Furious, and also appeared in True Crime: Streets of LA (2003), Driver 3 (2004), Halo 2 (2004), and Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012).
Early life
Mayte Michelle Rodriguez was born on July 12, 1978, in San Antonio, Texas. Her mother, Carmen Milady Rodriguez (née Pared Espinal), is Dominican, while her father, Rafael Rodriguez, was Puerto Rican and served in the U.S. Army. Rodriguez moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother when she was eight years old, and lived there until age 11. Later, she moved to Puerto Rico until the age of 17, and finally settled in Jersey City, New Jersey. She dropped out of William L. Dickinson High School, but later earned her GED. In total, she was expelled from five schools. She briefly attended business school before quitting to pursue a career in acting, with the ultimate goal of becoming a screenwriter and director. Rodriguez has 10 siblings and half-siblings. She was partly raised by her devoutly religious maternal grandmother, and was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness (her mother's religion), although she has since abandoned the faith. A DNA test of Rodriguez, performed by the television program Finding Your Roots, found that her ancestry is 72.4% European, 21.3% African, and 6.3% Native American. She also stated on the show that there was some racial conflict between her families, since her Puerto Rican father had a light complexion, and her Dominican mother had a dark complexion.
