Catalina Sandino Moreno

Catalina Sandino Moreno (born April 19, 1981) is a Colombian actress. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Maria Full of Grace (2004). Life and career Sandino Moreno was born in Bogotá, Colombia to a pathologist mother and a cattle breeder/veterinarian father. She went to Saint George's School in Bogota where she graduated in 2000. Before becoming an actress, she studied advertising at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. Casting calls for Maria Full of Grace were conducted in both New York and Colombia where she was initially noticed for her talent at the Rubén Di Pietro acting school in Bogotá. She was then referred to a casting audition where she beat over 900 girls for the lead role. Sandino Moreno's role in this movie made her the first Colombian, the second South American, and third Hispanic actress nominated for an Academy Award. In 2006, she played roles in Fast Food Nation and Paris, je t'aime. In 2008, she appeared alongside Benicio del Toro in Steven Soderbergh's Che, playing the role of Aleida March de Guevara. She played the role of female Vampire Maria in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), based on the novel of the same name by Stephenie Meyer. In November of 2013, it was announced she would play the title role in the forthcoming biopic Castro's Daughter, based on Alina Fernández’s autobiography of the same name. Personal life Sandino Moreno lived with motion picture electrician David Elwell from 2002 to 2008, whom she met working on Maria Full of Grace. She married him on 15 April 2006 in a small ceremony held in Cartagena de Indias. In 2009, she gave birth to her first child, a boy, in New York City.