Gina Rodriguez

Rodriguez was born on July 30, 1984 in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest daughter of Puerto Rican parents, Magali and Gino Rodriguez. Her father was a boxing referee. She has an older brother and two sisters. She was raised in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood on Chicago's Northwest Side.

At the age of seven, Rodriguez performed at the salsa dance company Fantasia Juvenil. Rodriguez was raised Catholic, and went to high school at St. Ignatius College Prep where she was two years behind the comedian John Mulaney. She has stated that she did not attend "Jake McNamara's party" which is the subject of one of Mulaney's bits. She focused on salsa dancing until age 17 when she began acting more.

At the age of 16, she was among thirteen teenagers to be accepted into Columbia University's Theatrical Collaboration. She attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. She trained for four years at the Atlantic Theater Company and Experimental Theatre Wing, and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2005.

She portrayed Frida Kahlo in the world premiere of Casa Blue in the UK, in the play called The Last Moments in the Life of Frida Kahlo at the American Stage Theatre.Rodriguez made her screen debut appearing in an episode of Law & Order in 2004. She later has appeared on Eleventh Hour, Army Wives and The Mentalist. On October 19, 2011, Rodriguez landed the recurring role, Beverly, in the soap opera series The Bold and the Beautiful. She received a role in the musical film Go for It!, for which she received a 2011 Imagen Awards nomination.

In 2012, Rodriguez played young hip-hop artist Majo Tenorio in the independent musical-drama film Filly Brown, for which she won an Imaged Award. She received good reviews for her performance in film. She also was the recipient of the Best Actor Award at the First Run Film Festival in New York. On June 9, 2013, Gina won the Inaugural Lupe Award. On April 16, 2013, during an interview, she revealed she was offered a role in the Lifetime television series Devious Maids, but turned it down. On October 16, 2013, she joined the cast of the film Sleeping With The Fishes.

On February 27, 2014, Entertainment Weekly announced that Rodriguez would play the titular role of Jane Villanueva in Jane the Virgin, for which she went on to win a Golden Globe Award. On June 4, 2014, Rodriguez joined the cast of the drama film Sticky Notes. In August 2015, she co-hosted the 2015 Teen Choice Awards with Ludacris and Josh Peck. She voiced Mary in the animated film The Star, which was released in November 2017, as well as Una in Blue Sky Studios' Ferdinand a month later and played Anya in the science fiction thriller film Annihilation, opposite Natalie Portman. She also voices Carmen Sandiego in the Netflix animated series Carmen Sandiego which premiered on January 18, 2019. In March 2018, Netflix announced that they had acquired the live-action film rights for Carmen Sandiego and that Rodriguez would star as Sandiego in the film.

Rodriguez owns the production company I Can & I Will Productions. She worked on projects at CBS and The CW centered around the Latino community. She served as a producer and starred in the 2019 Netflix romantic comedy film Someone Great, where her character sang and danced to Lizzo's Truth Hurts, ultimately popularizing the song further and hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 2019, Rodriguez starred as the title character in the action thriller film Miss Bala. In the same year, it was announced that Rodriguez was cast in the upcoming Netflix science fiction thriller Awake. She also voiced the role of Velma Dinkley in the animated adventure film Scoob!.

Rodriguez served as the executive producer for the Disney+ show Diary of a Future President, where she also starred as the title character as an adult. She was nominated for the Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Performance for the show's second season.

On May 3, 2024 Rodriguez was announced as one of the co-hosts (along with Shaquille O'Neal) of the upcoming ABC game show Lucky 13. The series premiered on July 18, 2024.