Daniela Ruah

The Anglo-Saxon leap into the void

Daniela Ruah was born in Boston in 1983, but her career took off on the sets of Lisbon. At sixteen, she debuted in the telenovela Jardins Proibidos. That first paycheck was not just an anecdote but the start of a military-style work routine.

She moved to London to study performing arts at London Metropolitan University. She wasn't looking for quick fame but for technique. Then came New York and her time at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute to refine her method.

And the gamble paid off.

In 2007, she won the first edition of the competition Dança Comigo in Portugal. That dance trophy was her last connection to local entertainment before she moved to the United States for good in search of roles with more dramatic weight.

Fourteen Years in the Same Skin

In 2009, she landed the role of Special Agent Kensi Blye in NCIS: Los Angeles. The series remained on the air until 2023. She filmed a total of 323 episodes playing the same character in one of the most profitable franchises on global television.

Fourteen years on the same set.

That kind of time would dizzy any actor used to the instability of the industry. But Ruah used that time to learn the technical language of directing. In 2021, she decided that being in front of the camera was not enough and began directing episodes of the series itself.

Her first experience was the episode titled Russia, Russia, Russia. She repeated the job six more times before the production's final close. Because Ruah doesn't understand the craft without total control over what happens in the frame.

Consistency is her greatest technical virtue.

In 2024, she directed episodes of NCIS: Hawai’i and the series S.W.A.T. for the network CBS. Her transition from actress to director was carried out with surgical precision while the rest of the industry was looking for new projects after the writers' strike.

The Return to the European Market

In 2023, she joined the cast of the Netflix series Rabo de Peixe. The project tells the story of a shipwrecked cocaine shipment off the Azores. It was her return to Portuguese-language fiction after more than a decade of exclusively English-language dialogue.

She hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2018 when the contest was held in Lisbon. It was an exception in a career focused on drama and action. In 2023, she also took on the role of host of the show Os Traidores for the SIC channel.

Production on NCIS: Los Angeles officially ended on May 21, 2023 after 14 seasons.