- Born
- Height5′ 6½″ (1.69 m)
- Catalina Sandino Moreno made her screen debut as the title character in the critically-acclaimed film "Maria Full of Grace" from Fine Line Features/HBO. For her performance, Sandino was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role and won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. The film debuted in the U.S. at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award, and opened in limited release in July 2004. The film won the Grand Special Prize at the 2004 Deauville Film Festival. Sandino has earned other awards and nominations for her performance, including the Silver Berlin Bear for Best Actress at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Space Needle Award for Best Actress at the 2004 Seattle International Film Festival and the award for Breakthrough Actor at the 2004 Gotham Awards. She was named ShoWest's International Star of the Year for 2005. She currently lives in Los Angeles.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Catalina Sandino Moreno
- SpouseDavid Elwell(April 15, 2006 - present)
- ParentsRaúl SandinoMartha Moreno
- RelativesNicolás Sandino Moreno(Sibling)
- She is the first Colombian to be nominated for an Academy Award.
- Became the first actress ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Performance that was spoke entirely in Spanish throughout the entirety of the film.
- One of very few actors to receive an Academy Award nomination for their screen debut.
- Took acting classes at a Bogotá (Colombia) theater before getting "discovered" by an anonymous supporter who referred her name to the casting agent for Maria Full of Grace (2004).
- Reads Spanish-language books because she misses hearing the language as she did when living in Colombia.
- It is amazing. None of us ever expected ['Maria Full of Grace'] to be so big. It was a film that was made with all the love in the world and it is being so well received. We would have never expected it.
- I love theater. I want to keep learning and I think that by doing as much theater as I can, it will make me a better actress for film.
- "It's the story of this girl and at the end of the movie she's a woman." - on Maria Full of Grace.
- Maria had such an impact on me that I didn't want to do something so light. I wanted to do something with power. Anyone can be a beautiful girl. Any girl can be that. So I didn't do anything for three years. I was waiting for the right roles.
- I feel I have a responsibility, as an actress, as a Colombian immigrant, and just as a person, to show people reality. It would be nice to be an actress who loves action movies, but I'm not that kind of actress.
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