Gina Rodriguez

The Hundred-Episode Bet

Gina Rodriguez was born in Chicago in 1984 and grew up under the strict discipline of her father, a professional boxing referee. That fighter's mindset led her to study at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York, where she graduated in 2005. But the road to recognition was neither a straight line nor an easy one.

In 2012, she turned down a lead role on Devious Maids. She said she didn't want to be part of a project that reinforced stereotypes about Latina women on American television. It was a risky decision for an actress who barely had money in the bank.

And the gamble paid off.

Shortly after, the script for Jane the Virgin arrived, an adaptation of a Venezuelan telenovela that premiered in 2014. The series ran for five seasons and ended in 2019 after exactly one hundred episodes. In 2015, she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy, a milestone that put her at the center of every conversation in the industry in Los Angeles.

Cameras, Money and Creative Control

Acting wasn't enough for her business ambitions. She founded her own production company, I Can & I Will, with the goal of financing projects that give space to diverse stories. In 2018, she took part in the science fiction film Annihilation, directed by Alex Garland, where she shared the screen with Natalie Portman.

But her real interest was in having total control over the projects. She directed her first television episode in 2018, specifically episode seventy-four of her own series. She repeated the experience in 2019 with an episode of Charmed and in 2020 with Diary of a Future President for Disney+.

Because the film business is, above all, a matter of intellectual property.

In 2019, she starred in Miss Bala, a remake of the Mexican film from 2011. The movie grossed 15 million dollars in the United States, a modest figure that forced her to rethink her next steps on the big screen. So she decided to focus on the streaming market and animation.

A Haven for Streaming Platforms

She voiced the role of Carmen Sandiego on Netflix between 2019 and 2021. This job allowed her to maintain a steady presence without having to endure the exhausting press tours of commercial films. In 2021, she starred in the science fiction thriller Awake, also for the same streaming platform.

And the pace didn't let up.

In 2023, she premiered the comedy Not Dead Yet on ABC, playing a journalist who writes obituaries. The series lasted two seasons and was officially canceled in May 2024. That same year, she released the film Players on Netflix, a romantic comedy set in New York that had a budget of roughly 20 million dollars.