Rodriguez at the New York Fashion Week in 2006 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.Ĭareer Film and television 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 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. Rodriguez has 10 siblings and half-siblings. She briefly attended business school before quitting to pursue a career in acting, with the ultimate goal of becoming a screenwriter and director. In total, she was expelled from five schools. Dickinson High School, but later earned her GED. Later, she moved to Puerto Rico until the age of 17, and finally settled in Jersey City, New Jersey. Rodriguez moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother when she was eight years old, and lived there until age 11. Her mother, Carmen Milady Rodriguez (née Pared Espinal), is Dominican, while her father, Rafael Rodriguez, was Puerto Rican and served in the U.S. Mayte Michelle Rodriguez was born on July 12, 1978, in San Antonio, Texas.
She also 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), and the critically acclaimed Halo 2 (2004) and Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012).
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). (2003), and later starred in James Cameron's science fiction epic Avatar (2009) and in the action film Battle: Los Angeles (2011).Īfter portraying Minerva Mirabal in the biopic Trópico de Sangre (2010), Rodriguez headlined the exploitation films Machete (2010) and Machete Kills (2013), and then 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. She also appeared in the commercially successful crime thriller S.W.A.T. Rodriguez then began starring as Letty Ortiz in the Fast & Furious franchise, and also portrayed Rain Ocampo in the Resident Evil franchise. 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. Mayte Michelle Rodriguez (born July 12, 1978) is an American actress and screenwriter.