Issue Date: December 3, 2006
Up & Comer
Second helping
Academy Award nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno returns to the screen in "Fast Food Nation."
By Kevin Maynard
UPCOMING MOVIES
The Hottest State, directed by Ethan Hawke
Love in the Time of Cholera, co-starring Javier Bardemand Benjamin Bratt
Paris, Je T'aime with Nick Nolte, Juliette Binoche and Elijah Wood
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Catalina Sandino Moreno has been leading a charmed life -- thanks, in part, to playing characters whose lives are anything but.
The Colombian actress, 25, landed her first movie role as the title character in 2004's "Maria Full of Grace" when an anonymous admirer contacted the director and recommended Moreno, who was studying advertising in college at the time. She beat out 800 other hopefuls to play Maria, a pregnant, desperate teen who risks her life as a drug mule. Her moving performance earned her an Oscar nod for Best Actress -- and made her the first Colombian to receive a nomination in that category.
"It's so surreal," she says. "When I was 15, I visited Los Angeles and went to Six Flags. I never thought the next time I would come would be for the Oscars. So much has changed."
In her new movie, "Fast Food Nation," Moreno tackles another difficult role. Based on the best-selling non-fiction book by Eric Schlosser, the film examines the fast-food industry and features Moreno as Sylvia, a young Mexican woman who becomes a worker in a cattle slaughterhouse. For Moreno, it was another opportunity to show audiences the treacherous journey that many immigrants will face as they are pursuing the American dream. "It's important for people to see how hard immigrants' lives can be," she says.
Moreno did manage to have a little fun on set with members of the ensemble cast, which includes Greg Kinnear, Patricia Arquette and, as Sylvia's loving husband, Wilmer Valderrama -- the former star of "That '70s Show" and ex-squeeze of starlet Lindsay Lohan. "I know he's in the tabloids a lot, but I just know him for the work," she says. "He really blew me away. And he made me laugh a lot between takes, which was very necessary."
With three film projects in the works (see box), Moreno marvels at how much her life has changed since leaving Bogota, Colombia. She now lives in New York with her lighting tech husband, David Elwell, whom she met -- where else? -- on the "Maria Full of Grace" set. As if she wasn't lucky enough.
"It's important for people to see how hard immigrants' lives can be."
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