Michelle Rodriguez Fans

Rodriguez moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother when she was eight years old and lived there until the age of 11. Later, she moved to Puerto Rico until the age of 17, and finally settled in Jersey City, New Jersey. She dropped out of high school, but later earned her GED.  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.

​

Having run across an ad for an open casting call and attending her first audition, Rodriguez beat 350 other applicants to win her first role in the low-budget 2000 independent film Girlfight. With her performance as Diana Guzman, a troubled teen who decides to channel her aggression by training to become a boxer, Rodriguez accumulated several awards and nominations for the role in independent circles, including major acting accolades from the National Board of Review, Deauville Film Festival, Independent Spirit Awards, Gotham Awards, Las Vegas Film Critics Sierra Awards, and many others. The film itself took home a top prize at the Sundance and won Award of the Youth at the Cannes Film Festival.

​

After her film debut, Girlfight, Rodriguez has consistently portrayed tough and tomboyish characters who operate in traditional male fields such as the police force or armed forces.

​

Rodriguez has had notable roles in other successful movies, including Letty Ortiz in The Fast and the Furious (2001) and Rain Ocampo in Resident Evil (2002). She also appeared in Blue Crush and S.W.A.T.  

 

In 2004, Rodriguez lent her voice to the video game Halo 2, playing a Marine. She also provided the voice of Liz Ricarro in the Cartoon Network series IGPX. From 2005 to 2006, she played tough cop Ana Lucia Cortez on the television series Lost during the show's second season (the character's first appearance was a flashback during the first season's finale, "Exodus: Part 1"), and returned for a cameo in the second episode of the show's fifth season, "The Lie", in 2009. She returned again in the penultimate episode of the series, "What They Died For", in 2010. In 2006, Rodriguez was featured in her own episode of G4's show Icons.

​

In 2008, Rodriguez appeared in Battle in Seattle. In 2009, she appeared in Fast & Furious, the fourth installment of the The Fast and the Furious film series. Later that year, Rodriguez starred in James Cameron's high-budget sci-fi adventure film Avatar, which became the highest-grossing film in history and Rodriguez's most successful film to date. She has expressed interest in returning for the film's two sequels. 

​

In 2010, Rodriguez appeared in Robert Rodriguez's Machete. The film received mostly positive reviews and earned US$44 million at the box office. In 2011, she appeared with Aaron Eckhart in the science fiction film Battle: Los Angeles which grossed over US$200 million in the worldwide box office. In 2012, she returned to play the good clone and bad clone of Rain Ocampo in Resident Evil: Retribution.

 

In 2013, Rodriguez appeared in Robert Rodriguez's film Machete Kills. she reprised her role as Letty Ortiz in Fast & Furious 6 in the same year.

​

​