Daniella Alonso

Alonso was born in New York City and is of Puerto Rican, Peruvian, and Japanese heritage. She has stated that she "grew up in a pretty much all woman household in NYC", but added that her father, grandfather and uncles had "strong influences" in her life as well.

Alonso has a brother. She has participated in karate, in which she holds a fourth level green belt. She loves animals and supports PETA, posing in a 2013 advertising campaign that asked consumers to wear synthetic leather.

Discovered by the Ford Modeling Agency, Alonso began booking jobs for teen magazines like Seventeen, YM, and Teen, which led to her booking commercials for Clairol, CoverGirl, Clean & Clear, Kmart, Target, Footlocker, Volkswagen, and others. She has also done over thirty national commercials and at least twenty Spanish market advertisements.In television, Alonso began her career with guest appearances on Law & Order and As the World Turns. She had her first break with a recurring role as Anna Taggaro in Season 2 of The WB drama series One Tree Hill (2004–05). She then began appearing in a number of horror movies, including Hood of Horror (2006), The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007), Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007), and The Collector (2009). She has also had guest appearances in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Private Practice, Rizzoli & Isles, and Castle.

In 2007, Alonso began a recurring role in the NBC drama series Friday Night Lights (2007–08) as Carlotta Alonso. In 2010, Alonso starred in the short-lived ABC drama series My Generation. From 2012 to 2013, she starred in the NBC post-apocalyptic series Revolution as Nora Clayton. Alonso later starred in the first season of another NBC series The Night Shift as Dr. Landry de la Cruz, which aired on the summer of 2014. In 2015, she had a recurring role in the BET drama series Being Mary Jane.

In 2015, Alonso starred in two films: first was Re-Kill a horror film; and the box office hit comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, opposite Kevin James.

In 2016, Alonso starred in the first season of TNT crime drama Animal Kingdom. The following year, she went to star in the ABC drama pilot Las Reinas, but it not was picked up to series.

Alonso later had recurring roles on Criminal Minds and The Resident. In 2019, she joined the cast of The CW prime time soap opera Dynasty replacing Ana Brenda Contreras in the role of Cristal Jennings.