Michelle Rodriguez Biography
Mayte Michelle Rodriguez came from a large family of thirteen that was headed by parents Carmen Milad and Rafael Rodriguez, she is popularly known by the professional name Michelle Rodriguez and her career in film started in 1999. Rodriguez came from a mixed heritage of Dominican and Puerto Rican blood she was born on July 12 1978 in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
With such a large number of siblings in her family, it was difficult for young Rodriguez to enjoy the attention of her parents and with the family’s constant move from her father’s Puerto Rico nation to her mother’s Dominican Republic and back she was never able to settle down to friendships with her peers at school and in the neighbourhoods where she lived. This proved detrimental to the young girl and she was drawn to other activities that would give her the satisfaction of association.
Rodriguez joined illegal gangs where she befriended other teenagers that were involved in crime and drugs, with the tough life of her low income neighbourhood she was forced to adopt a tough-girl personality that would later feature in many of her film roles. At school, Rodriguez was not one for books and this was translated into consistent F’s in all her classes, in addition to this she never got along with her classmates and in many instances her fights extended to members of the school administration. With this behaviour Rodriguez was expelled from every school that she joined and after pleas from her parents in one school then another, she entirely gave up on education before graduating from high school.
Jobless and out of school, Rodriguez was left with nothing but to audition for film roles since with her talent she could at least make a living for herself. Her debut role came in 2000 in the film Girlfight, this was not a highly publicized production but Rodriguez’s natural ease on screen was well received. She won numerous awards including the Deauville Festival Award for Best Female Performance, Independent Spirit Prize for Best Debut Performance, National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actress, Gotham Award for Breakthrough Performance, and the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Performance.
Rodriguez continued with her award winning roles with the films The Fast and the Furious, 3 A.M., Blue Crush, Resident Evil, S.W.A.T., Control, The Breed, Battle in Seattle, Cats: The Movie, Gardens of the Night, Trspico de Sangre, and Fast & Furious. In 2009, Rodriguez hit media headlines along with other co-stars in the sci-fi thriller titled Avatar. In this film she played the role of Trudy Chacon and on the premiere night the production grossed billions of dollars in ticket sales making it one of the best performing movies of all time. The latest film appearance by Rodriguez is in Battle: Los Angeles which will air in 2011.
The actress has also gained fame and wealth for appearing as Ana Lucia Cortez in the television series named Lost, starting in 2005, she reprised her role in the show until 2010.
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