American actress Michelle Rodriguez flashes her nipple on the beach in Tulum, Mexico 2018
Mayte Michelle Rodriguez (born July 12, 1978) is an American actress. Her breakout role was as a troubled boxer in the independent film Girlfight (2000), 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 in the blockbuster film The Fast and the Furious (2001), a role she has reprised in seven additional films in the Fast and Furious franchise to date. During her career, Rodriguez has played in a number of successful action films, including Resident Evil, S.W.A.T., and Avatar.
Rodriguez also branched into television, playing Ana Lucia Cortez in the second season of the television series Lost. She has also had numerous voice work appearances in video games such as Call of Duty and Halo, and lent her voice for the 3D animated film Turbo and the television series IGPX. With her films grossing over $5 billion (U.S.) collectively, a 2013 Entertainment Weekly article described Rodriguez as “arguably the most iconic actress in the action genre, as well as one of the most visible Latinas in Hollywood”.
Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, Texas. Her mother, Carmen Milady Rodriguez (née Pared Espinal), is Dominican, and her father, Rafael Rodriguez, was a Puerto Rican who served in the U.S. Army. Rodriguez moved to the Dominican Republic with her mother when she was eight years old and lived there until age 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. In total, she was expelled from five schools. 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.
