Catalina Sandino Moreno

Since we love actors and since this blog is increasingly actor-friendly, I find myself being asked more and more these days who may favorite actors are. I always answer how I really feel - my favorite actors are some of the actors we are lucky enough to be working with here at One Way. So usually, they specify by asking who my favorite "mainstream" actors are. THOSE actors change from time to time of course, because movies are so full of new, exciting talents that continuously pop up.

Right now my favorite "mainstream" actress handsdown is Catalina Sandino Moreno. I first saw her where most people did - with her breakthrough role in the multi-award winning indie film Maria Full of Grace. I later saw her in Linklater's Fast Food Nation and I knew immediately that she was my favorite, and that Maria wasn't any kind of a fluke. She is great in a lot of different ways in terms of her choices, but one of the things I really respond to in Catalina is the way she has help bring naturalism back into the mainstream. As a fan of DIY, smaller films, to see this style of acting further cross over into the mainstream is exciting and encouraging.

Catalina is currently in Steven Soderberg's new film Che, which is getting a lot of good buzz and is in theatres now. Here is more about her.

Catalina Sandino Moreno (born April 19 1981) is an Academy Award-nominated Colombian actress.

Sandino was born in Bogotá, Colombia to a pathologist mother. Before becoming an actress, she studied advertising at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. She relocated to New York City in 2004, after she was "discovered" at the Rubén Di Pietro acting school in Bogotá. She was then referred to a casting audition for the 2004 film Maria Full of Grace where she beat over 900 girls for the lead role.

Sandino received a nomination for Best Actress at the 77th Academy Awards.

2005 Best Female Lead Award in the Independent Spirit Awards.
2004 Silver Berlin Bear for Best Actress in the Berlin International Film Festival.
2004 Most Promising Performer in the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards.
2004 Breakthrough Award in the Gotham Awards.
2004 New generation Award in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards.
2005 Golden Space Needle Award for Best Actress in the Seattle International Film Festival.

Sandino has lived with David Elwell from 2002 to the present. She married him on 15 April 2006 in a small ceremony held in Cartagena de Indias. She reads Spanish-language books because she misses her native language. She is the first Colombian to be nominated for an Academy Award, and was in New York when she heard on TV that she was nominated for Best Actress in the 2004 Oscar race for her role in Maria Full of Grace.

Filmography
Che (2008)

Heart of the Earth (2007)
The Hottest State (2007) as Sarah
Paris, je t'aime (2006)
Fast Food Nation (2006)
Journey to the End of the Night (2006) as Angie
Maria Full of Grace (2004) as María Álvarez