Daniela Vega Hernández (born June 3, 1989) is a Chilean actress and
mezzo-soprano singer.
She is best known for her critically acclaimed performance in the
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning film ''
A Fantastic Woman
''A Fantastic Woman'' ( es, Una mujer fantástica) is a 2017 drama film directed by Sebastián Lelio, written by Lelio and Gonzalo Maza, produced by Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín and starring Daniela Vega and Francisco Reyes. It was selected ...
'' (2017).
At the
90th Academy Awards
The 90th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2017, and took place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. The ceremony was held on March 4, ...
in 2018, Vega became the first
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
person in history to be a presenter at the Academy Awards ceremony. In 2018, ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' magazine named her one of the
100 most influential people in the world
''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine '' Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, ...
.
Early life
Born on June 3, 1989 in
San Miguel,
Santiago Province, as the first child of Igor Alejandro Vega Inostroza and Sandra del Carmen Hernandez de la Cuadra. Vega began studying opera with her grandmother at the age of eight.
Growing up, she attended an all-boys school where she was bullied.
It was while she was attending the all-boys school in her teens that she realized she was a girl and began to transition.
Her parents and younger brother Nicolás were supportive of her, despite the conservative nature of Chile at that time.
Vega described suffering depression for the three years of transition due to the lack of opportunities in Chile to progress her education or express herself, but Vega's parents were supportive and her father encouraged her to go to beauty school, and later theater school.
Career
2011–2017: Early roles and breakthrough
![Daniela Vega A Fantastic Woman Berlinale 2017](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Daniela_Vega_A_Fantastic_Woman_Berlinale_2017.jpg)
Vega was asked by a writer and director to collaborate on a stage piece about transitioning, using her experience as a foundation.
Her contribution resulted in her going on to star in the eventual stage production, Martin de la Parra's 2011 play ''La mujer Mariposa'' (The Butterfly Woman). This piece, where she also had the opportunity to sing, ran for eight years in Santiago. During this time, she participated in more pieces, most notably in ''Migrante'' (Migrant), a piece about migration. Vega's profile was elevated to a wider audience when she appeared in the music video of the famous song "Maria" by
Manuel García in 2014. The song and music video were made in collaboration with a gay suicide prevention organization, to help raise awareness and prevent suicide in gay teens. She made her screen debut in 2014 in a drama called ''
The Guest (La visita)'', playing a trans woman at her father's wake.
![Elenco de Una Mujer Fantástica Premios Fénix 2017 (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Elenco_de_Una_Mujer_Fant%C3%A1stica_Premios_F%C3%A9nix_2017_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The
67th Berlin International Film Festival
The 67th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 9 to 18 February 2017 with Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven as President of the Jury. '' Django'', directed by Etienne Comar, opened the festival. The Golden Bear was awarded to the ...
saw the release of ''
A Fantastic Woman
''A Fantastic Woman'' ( es, Una mujer fantástica) is a 2017 drama film directed by Sebastián Lelio, written by Lelio and Gonzalo Maza, produced by Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín and starring Daniela Vega and Francisco Reyes. It was selected ...
'' (2017), directed by
Sebastián Lelio
Sebastián Lelio Watt (born 8 March 1974) is a Chilean director, screenwriter, editor and producer. He received critical acclaim for directing the films ''Gloria'' (2013) and ''A Fantastic Woman'' (2017), the latter of which won an Academy Award ...
, a film for which her performance was acclaimed by critics.
''A Fantastic Woman'' tells the story of Marina (played by Vega) and Orlando (played by
Francisco Reyes), an older man with whom she is in love and planning a future. After Orlando falls ill and dies, Marina is forced to face family and society, and fight again to show who she is: a fantastic woman. Critic Guy Lodge in a review for ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' praising Vega's performance said: "Vega's tough, expressive, and subtly distressed performance deserves far more than political praise." He continued to note that "It’s a multi-layered, emotionally polymorphous feat of acting, nurtured with pitch-perfect sensitivity by her director, who maintains complete candor on Marina’s condition without pushing her anywhere she wouldn’t herself go." Her name was strongly mentioned for an Oscar nomination as Best Actress.
She won an award for her performance at the
Palm Springs International Film Festival
Palm Springs International Film Festival (sometimes stylized shortly as PSIFF) is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. Originally promoted by Mayor Sonny Bono and then sponsored by Nortel,here for Table of Contents it started in 1989 ...
for Best Actress in a Foreign Language Film.
''A Fantastic Woman'' went on to win the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Vega became the first openly transgender person ever to be a presenter at the
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
ceremony in
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...
.
In 2018, it was announced that Vega would have a recurring role in the
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
miniseries ''
Tales of the City
''Tales of the City'' is a series of nine novels written by American author Armistead Maupin from 1978 to 2014, depicting the life of a group of friends in San Francisco, many of whom are LGBT. The stories from ''Tales'' were originally serial ...
''.
Media image
Vega became the first transgender person in history to be an Academy Awards presenter in 2018.
''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' magazine named Vega one of the
100 most influential people in the world
''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine '' Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, ...
in 2018.
Filmography
Film
Television
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vega, Daniela
1989 births
Transgender actresses
Living people
Chilean film actresses
Chilean opera singers
Chilean LGBT people
21st-century Chilean actresses
Mezzo-sopranos
21st-century LGBT people