Who is Gina Rodriguez? 5 things about Golden Globe-winner
Handout/Getty Images Gina Rodriguez speaks onstage during the 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards on Sunday. 
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Gina Rodriguez walks the red carpet for Sunday’s Golden Globes award show.
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Reverse a few months and Gina Rodriguez was just gearing up for her first starring role in a television series.
Now, the “Jane the Virgin” star is a Golden Globe-winner, picking up the award for best performance by an actress in a television series – musical or comedy for her hit CW show.
“The nomination alone was a win for me because it allowed our culture, it allowed Latinos to see themselves in a gorgeous light,” the 30-year-ancient Puerto Rican actress told Entertainment Weekly after her win. “For me, the win meant everything.”
While the show already picked up a People’s Choice Award for favorite new TV comedy, the focus was certainly focused on Rodriguez at Sunday night’s Globes.
Overnight, she went from an almost unknown to the “it girl” everyone wants to know more about.
MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS Gina Rodriguez, right, is hugged by her sister, Ivelisse, after she posed with her Golden Globes award for Best Actress in a TV Series, Musical or Comedy for her role in ‘Jane the Virgin.’ 
Danny Feld/The CW A scene from ‘Jane The Virgin.’ 
John Castillo/AP A scene from ‘Filly Brown.’ MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS Gina Rodriguez holds the Golden Globe she earned for her work in ‘Jane the Virgin.’
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Here are five things you need to know about Gina Rodriguez:
1. She is best known for her starring role as Majo Tenorio in the 2012 musical drama “Filly Brown,” which she co-starred alongside the late Mexican singer, Jenni Rivera, shortly before her premature and tragic death in a plane crash. Rodriguez won an Imagen Award for her part in the film.
2. She was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois to her parents, Genaro and Magali Rodriguez, and is the youngest of three with two older sisters — Ivelisse and Rebecca.
3. She attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts before joining the Atlantic Theatre Company and Experimental Theatre Wing and later described Frida Kahlo in “The Last Moments in the Life of Frida Kahlo” at the American Stage Theatre.
Steve Granitz/WireImage Actors Henri Esteve (L) and Gina Rodriguez attend the 2015 BAFTA Tea Have fun at The Four Seasons Hotel on January 10 in Beverly Hills, California. 4. Her first recurring television role was as Beverly in “The Bold and the Gorgeous” in 2011.
5. Rodriguez is currently in a relationship with actor Henri Esteve, who plays Javier Salgado in the ABC drama “Revenge.”
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More than her resume can ever clarify, Rodriguez is as down-to-earth and humble as they come, which is arguably a rarity in Hollywood.
In fact, she doesn’t take her new title as “Golden Globe-winning actress” lightly because it speaks to a community that is changing the landscape of American culture both on and off screen.
“We are production with a the high classes that is so diverse, so gorgeous and so human,” she told EW on Sunday. “We need to remember that we have the same tales, and see it as such.”
In October, even before awards season nominees were announced, Rodriguez spoke to the New York Day after day News’ Viva about “Jane the Virgin” and the impact she felt the show would have, without the need to force the Latino peg.
“Unknown discussion about ethnicity on my show,” she said. “It’s never discussed. Why? Because I don’t need to tell you what you can already see: My skin is brown.
“Jane could be anyone,” she added to Viva. “She could have been a white girl or an Asian girl. They just happened to choose a Latina, and boy, am I pleased they did.”
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