Nadine Velazquez

This Puerto Rican American was born on November 20, 1978, in Chicago, Illinois, US. She attended ‘Notre Dame High School for Girls’ and then ‘Columbia College Chicago’ from where she obtained a BA in marketing in 2001. She was married to Marc Provissiero, a talent agent from Philadelphia from 2005 to 2011.

Velazquez stepped in the world of glamour as a model and actress. In her career, the Latina has appeared in different print ads and worked in several television and film projects with the first acting performance being portrayal of a drive-through lady in a commercial for McDonald’s.

She made her debut in television and films more or less at the same time but success eluded her initially. Her early films starting with ‘Biker Boyz’ (2003) and ‘Blast’ (2004) saw her doing bit roles. Although she continued doing non-starring roles in films, Velazquez finally garnered attention and acclaim as an actress in some of the notable American films, sharing screen space with renowned stars. These include the Jet Li and Jason Statham starrer action-crime thriller ‘War’ (2007); Denzel Washington starrer drama film ‘Flight’ (2012); Dwayne Johnson starrer crime drama ‘Snitch’ (2013); and Ice Cube and Kevin Hart starrer action comedy ‘Ride Along 2’ (2016). Her first starring role was that of Kristin Peralta in the romantic comedy ‘The Bounce Back’, which released on December 9, 2016 in the US, but the film did not bring her much success. Her upcoming romantic comedy flick ‘Aztec Warrior’ will see her essaying lead role of Lisa starring opposite Terry Crews, Luis Da Silva and Luis Guzmán among others.

Starting in television with series and TV films doing bit roles she landed up being cast in the American TV serial drama ‘Prison Break’ as Maricruz Delgado, and portrayed the character of a sensuous hotel maid/stripper, Catalina Aruca, in the American sitcom series ‘My Name Is Earl’. After her successful audition, the ethnicity of Catalina was changed from Russian to Latina by the producers. The series that ran from September 20, 2005 to May 14, 2009 on NBC, where she played in all four seasons comprising 96 episodes, earned her accolades and recognition, and several nominations, including from the ‘Screen Actors Guild Award’ in 2006 and the ‘ALMA Award’ in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. Such fame paved her way for other notable American TV series. These include featuring in 26 episodes of the sitcom ‘The League’ (2009-2015) as Sofia; in 6 episodes of the comedy-drama ‘Hart of Dixie’ (2011-2012) as Didi Ruano; in 5 episodes of reality TV parody ‘Real Husbands of Hollywood’ (2013-2014) as herself; and in 17 episodes of police procedural series ‘Major Crimes’ (2013-2015) as D.D.A. Emma Rios.

This ravishing Latino diva was ranked #93 in the ‘Maxim’ magazine’s list of 100 Sexiest Women in 2004 and in its annual Hot 100 list at #39 in 2006, #61 in 2007 and #41 in 2008. An epitome of beauty, class and style, Velazquez appeared as a judge of Miss Universe 2008 beauty pageant nd also hosted Miss USA 2009 pageant.

She is quite active in social media where she has garnered around 44.5 K followers in her Instagram account and over 25 k followers on her Twitter account.