Ana de Armas, Aubrey Plaza and Jenna Ortega: Latinas the Top

This year, Michelle Yeoh accepted the Oscar for Best Lead Actress, the first Asian performer to walk away with the award in the Academy’s 95-year history. This historic achievement sheds light on the changes around representation currently sweeping Hollywood.

For the Latin community, too, there are talented actresses offering new narratives. Let’s take a look at three Latinas on camera to keep an eye on this year.

Aubrey Plaza 

Getting started on the NBC sitcom, Parks and Recreation, the Puerto Rican-American actress is starting to become a household name. Some of her leading credits include Ingrid Goes West (2017), Black Bear (2020), and Emily the Criminal (2022). Most recently, she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for starring as “Harper Stiller” in the second season of HBO’s popular anthology series The White Lotus. Her dead-pan acting style and grounded-yet-quirky characters has continued making her a top choice in casting pools.

The New Yorker comments:

“She has developed a reputation for being exceedingly dry and awkward.”

Latina Media Co’s Ingrid Cruz says:

“In each of [Plaza’s] characters, she’s managed to play icy, quirky, hilarious, and sometimes unhinged characters that allow . . . Latinas to be a bit [freer] to be stoic.”

Right now, catch her in Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, an action-comedy film directed by Guy Ritchie. The film is currently in theatres.

Ana de Armas

Born in Havana, Cuba, de Armas got her career started in Spanish cinema. When she moved to Los Angeles in 2014, she started over in a language that was not her own. Her break-through role as a holographic AI in Blade Runner (2017) put her on the map. Two years later, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her leading role in Knives Out (2019). And last year, she stepped further into the spotlight for her intriguing portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in the bio-epic drama, Blonde (2022), which won her a nomination for Best Leading Actress at the Oscar’s last Sunday.

“When Blonde premiered at the Venice International Film Festival over the summer, the NC-17-rated film garnered a 14-minute standing ovation,” says The Hollywood Reporter. “…de Armas has been hailed as a tour de force.”

De Armas told The Hollywood Reporter:

“I think one thing that I had that helped me was actually not being American. All this information that people have of Marilyn, [they] just have a very specific narrative about her life and who she was. I didn’t have all that.”

Up next, she will be starring in and producing Ghosted (2023), premiering on AppleTV+ at the end of April.

Jenna Ortega

Born in the Coachella Valley to Latin American parents, Ortega started her career as a child actor on Disney Channel and as a recurring guest star on Jane the Virgin. As a teenager, she rose to prominence for various TV shows and films including Saving Flora (2018), The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020), and Yes Day (2021).

Her iconic title role in Netflix’s Wednesday (directed by Tim Burton) has forever changed her career. The series has become one of the most watched shows on TV.

Vogue comments:

“Jenna Ortega is quickly becoming Gen Z’s scream queen—and for good reason. Between her turns in X, Scream, and Wednesday, the star is a master at portraying all things creepy on-screen.”

She hosted Saturday Night Live for the first-time last Saturday, and she will be seen in a handful of films currently in post-production and slotted to release later this year.