Michelle Rodriguez
Michelle Rodriguez
Mayte Michelle "Michelle" Rodríguez, is an American actress, screenwriter, and DJ. She got her breakout role as a troubled boxer in the independent film Girlfight, which was met with critical acclaim and earned her several awards, including the Independent Spirit Award and Gotham Award for Best Debut Performance. The following year, she starred as Letty Ortiz in the blockbuster film The Fast and the Furious, reprising her role in its sequels, Fast & Furious, Fast & Furious 6and Furious 7...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth12 July 1978
CitySan Antonio, TX
CountryUnited States of America
The way I survived growing up in Jersey City was by being funny. It wasn't by being tough. Nobody thought of me as a tough kid, except for the kids I beat up.
I do what I want, when I want, how I want, and because of that, it has taken me so long to grow into an adult human being.
I heard that the guy who invented the Jehovah's Witnesses was a Mason.That kind of turned me off, because when something's mysterious, all you can do is be scared of it. "He's a Mason? Ugh. It must be evil!" I didn't know much about it, so I was scared. Now I actually admire those guys - they're pretty talented. They founded a lot of the world that we look at today.
Sometimes I'd knock on the door of somebody I was going to school with, so it was like living a double life.
There was a lot of drama in school because, well, people have problems at home and they take it out on their friends in school. Trying to impress people, they became bullies. I hated it because I know what it's like to be picked on, and I never liked not fitting in, especially moving around so much as a kid because I was an Army brat. My dad was in the Army.
We all have our moments. But you can switch it around. Then you've got the activist type who bases their decisions in the development of a character on what it symbolizes to society - what the ethical code is.
[There is] type [of actors ]a true thespian who doesn't give a flying rat's ass what it is as long as it's deep, powerful, and painful, and they will dive in headfirst. I really respect those people. Meryl Streep is amazing at it.
I've never really been about looking good - I'm just bad at that stuff.
I wouldn't want to sacrifice the last years that I have of being youthful in this business to have kids.
I'd done two years' worth of extra work, and all my friends who I would go on auditions with went to school for acting. These were kids who knew when they were 14 years old that this was what they wanted to do with their lives, and they prepared for it, and they're getting canned at every audition.
Maybe I exclude myself from that genre by not getting dressed up often enough, by acting ghetto most of the time, and running around in sweats and Timberlands.
I don't have an agent. The only work I get is through friendships that I've already built.
There's a voice inside of me that I know people will relate to; I just haven't really had the opportunity to let it flourish. To sit there and explain to a guy what it's like to be a kick-ass woman is hard. I think there're only a handful of directors out there that get it.
I think there are three types of actors. There are the ones that do the ego thing, which is "I'm never going to look bad in a movie, ever." This is mostly the action film dudes, like, "Nah, hell no. He ain't punchin' me! I'd whoop his ass!"