Born July 12: Michelle Rodriguez

In the decade from her first feature when she was cast at an open call of 350 women vying for the lead in the micro-budget boxing movie Girlfight (2000) to her star turn as the butch, subversive pilot willing to die to save the blue people in the top grossing film of all time, Avatar, Michelle Rodriguez has always been adrenaline personified. She's perfected that role on screen in two of the Fast and Furious flicks, S.W.A.T., Resident Evil, the tv show Lost, and the surfer grrrl gem Blue Crush. Rodriquez has also cemented that persona off-screen with an arrest for assault, numerous speeding violations, DUI, opting for jail time rather than community service, violation of her probation, lying "clerical errors" about when she did / didn't do her forced community service, and a second stint in the slammer (18 days of a 180 day sentence, released because of overcrowding). Her lawyers blame her erratic behavior on the price of fame compounded by pressure to hide her sexuality a reaction to allergy medicine. Half Mexican, half Puerto Rican, and happy to play with her bad girl image in a Hollywood still obsessed with blond, squeak clean facades, Rodriguez is not quite so rad as to actually come out. Yet in the contest of cracking open the closet door by centimeters, she is whole inches ahead of Queen Latifah, Jodie Foster, et al. While she frequently says, "I am not a lesbian," she also tells the media she has been with both sexes. Her partners and film colleagues have been even more helpful, and more specific, as when Kristanna Loken went public about their relationship and out lesbian Guinevere Turner confirmed it. Rodriguez again played a marine earlier this year in Battle: Los Angeles. Today she's 33.

Comments

[mary]

Michelle Rodriguez is very beautifull. she's movie always waiting