The 39-year-old Latinx actor and writer has signed with Innovative Artists .
Navia can currently be seen starring in the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The series, a spinoff of Star Trek: Discoveryand a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, follows Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the crew of the USS Enterprise as they explore new worlds around the galaxy. Navia stars as ‘Lieutenant Erica Ortegas,’ the charismatic helmsman of the USS Enterprise. Season 2 premiered on June 15 and has already been renewed for a third season.
Additionally, Navia previously recurred on the CBS series Bull and AMC’s Dietland. She also guest starred on NBC’s New Amsterdam andBillions and Homelandfor Showtime.
On the big screen, she has appeared in a variety of indie films and shorts.
In 2013, she won the award for Best Actress at the Wild Rose Independent Film Festival for her leading role as ‘Dawn’ in The Paragon Cortex.
Her additional film credits include Sleeping with the Fishes, Bel Canto, The Chosen, Hymnsand What It Was.
In March 2020, she made her Off Broadway debut in the world premiere of Bundle of Sticksfrom J. Julian Christopher.
The 32-year-old Cuban American actress and singer will star in the indie feature Alina of Cuba: La Hija Rebelde.
Villafañe will portray Fidel Castro’s daughter and anti-communism activist, Alina Fernandez, in the film from Mankind Entertainment and Maven Pictures.
Alina of Cuba is based on the true-life story of Fernandez, a Cuban American immigrant and human rights advocate whose birth was the result of a passionate love affair between Castro and Natalia “Naty” Revuelta. Revuelta, a Cuban-born socialite, sacrificed her and her physician husband’s personal belongings and finances to help fund the revolution.
Fernandez learned of her connection to Castro at the age of 10: when after years of secret visits to her home, she was finally told by her mother that “El Comandante” was her biological father. Fernandez and her mother stayed in Cuba after the former’s stepfather and her sister fled to the U.S. after his medical clinic was shut down.
Fernandez eventually became one of Castro’s most outspoken critics; she was arrested on more than one occasion for trying to leave and classified as a dissident forbidden to travel outside of Cuba. She defected to Spain in 1993 and later made Miami her permanent home.
The biopic will shoot in Cartagena, Colombia this summer with Goya Award-winner Miguel Bardem set as director.
Alina of Cuba, formerly known as Castro’s Daughter, is written by Academy Award nominee Jose Rivera, and Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz.
Villafañe is best known for her breakout role in the Broadway musical On Your Feetportraying Gloria Estefan.
She later starred as Nina Rosario in the Kennedy Center’s 2018 production of In the Heights, and then made her off-Broadway debut in MCC’s critically acclaimed Collective Rage: A Play in Five Bettiesthat same year.
On television, Villafañe most recently portrayed Dr. Valentin Castro in NBC’s New Amsterdamand Diana Barea in Sunnyside for the network, as well as KT in the Paramount+ series Younger.
The 33-year-old part-Spanish and Dominican American Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter will perform “America the Beautiful” before the start of the game at Super Bowl LVI on February 13.
Country star Mickey Guyton will sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the game, while Sandra Mae Frank, who plays Dr. Wilder on NBC’s New Amsterdam, is set to perform both songs in American Sign Language on behalf of the National Association of the Deaf.
Also set to take the pregame stage is veteran gospel duo Mary Mary, who will accompanied by the LA Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles on “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Zedd will serve as the pregame DJ.
NBC will telecast the Big Game from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The NFL championship will pit the hometown Los Angeles Rams against the AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals.
The game will also air on Telemundo and stream live on Peacock.
Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar will headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show. The quintet, which never have appeared together onstage, have 43 Grammys and 22 No. 1 albums among them.
The 32-year-old Cuban and Salvadoran American actress/singer has joined the cast of Apple’s drama Bad Monkey, written and executive produced Bill Lawrence.
Villafañe, best known for her portrayal of Latina icon Gloria Estefan in the Broadway musical On Your Feet!, joins an ensemble cast that Rob Delaney, newcomer Ahmed Elhaj and Arturo Luis Soria as series regulars, joining Vince Vaughn, who also serves as executive producer, Michelle Monaghan, Jodie Turner-Smith and Meredith Hagner.
Based on Carl Hiaasen’s popular 2013 novel, Bad Monkey tells the story of Andrew Yancy (Vaughn), a one-time detective demoted to restaurant inspector in Southern Florida. A severed arm found by a tourist out fishing pulls Yancy into the world of greed and corruption that decimates the land and environment in both Florida and the Bahamas. And yes, there’s a monkey.
Villafañe plays Rosa, a Miami medical examiner who is starting to realize she may not be cut out for her job, so is happy to ditch work and help Yancy try to figure out the story of the severed arm he brings into her lab.
Soria portrays Rogelio, a good Key West police detective who comes to his best friend and ex-partner, Andrew Yancy, with a life-changing assignment. It further complicates things that Rogelio’s husband is also Yancy’s attorney.
Villafañe was most recently seen in a recurring role on the final season of Younger. Her other previous credits include a heavily recurring role on NBC’s New Amsterdam. She was most recently seen in a starring role in the Broadway production of Chicago.
Soria’s guest star/recurring roles include Insatiableand The Blacklist.
The Latina actress has joined the cast of NBC’s long-running drama The Blacklist for its upcoming ninth season of the series.
Rodriguez, who has appeared onLaw & Order: Organized Crime, will appear in a heavily recurring role.
Rodriguez will play Weecha Xiu. With a tough physical presence and a hardened demeanor, Weecha is more than capable of defending herself against anyone who might threaten her or her associates.
The Blacklist, starring James Spader, Diego Klattenhoff and Amir Arison, will jump forward two years in its season 9 return airing on October 21 (8/7c) on NBC.
In The Blacklist, in the two years following the death of Elizabeth Keen, Raymond Reddington (Spader) and the members of the FBI Task Force have disbanded – their lives now changed in unexpected ways and with Reddington’s whereabouts unknown. Finding themselves each at a crossroads, a common purpose compels them to renew their original mission: to take down dangerous, vicious and eccentric Blacklisters.
The Blacklist is produced by Sony Pictures Television Studios and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.
Rodriguez is best known for her role as A.D.A. Maria Delgado on NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime. She will soon be seen opposite Eugenio Debrez in Hulu’s upcoming rom-com The Valet.
Other credits include HBO’s The Outsider,Showtime’sRay Donovanand NBC’s New Amsterdam, among others.
The Latina actress has been cast as a series regular in CBS’ drama pilot True Lies, the television adaptation of James Cameron’s 1994 action comedy movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Hernandez will star opposite Omar Miller, Mike O’Gorman, Steve Howey and Ginger Gonzaga in the series.
Written by Matt Nix and to be directed by Anthony Hemingway, the pilot’s plot is true to its movie roots: Shocked to discover that her bland and unremarkable computer consultant husband (Howey) is a skilled international spy, an unfulfilled suburban housewife (Gonzaga) is propelled into a life of danger and adventure when she’s recruited to work alongside him to save the world as they try to revitalize their passionless marriage.
Hernandez will portray Maria, another of the operatives working with Harry (Howey). Tough and capable, she is a cool-headed, first class spy. But she never misses a chance to get in a dig at Luther’s expense, reminding him of something that went down between them while on a mission in Berlin.
20th Century Fox Television is the studio.
Hernandez can currently be seen as a series correspondent on the Emmy-nominated CBS show Mission Unstoppable, and in a recurring role on Epix series Bridge and Tunnel.
Her other television and film credits include NBC’s The Braveand New Amsterdam, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt andBrittany Runs a Marathon.
The 32-year-old Cuban and Salvadoran American actress/singer has landed a series regular in NBC’s half-hour pilot Night Court.
The project is a follow-up to the classic legal comedy series headlined and executive produced by The Big Bang Theory’s Melissa Rauch, with the original series’ John Larroquette reprising his Emmy-winning role.
Written/executive produced by Dan Rubin based on the original series created by Reinhold Weege, the multi-camera Night Court centers on unapologetic optimist judge Abby Stone (Rauch), the daughter of the late Harry Stone, who follows in her father’s footsteps as she presides over the night shift of a Manhattan arraignment court and tries to bring order to its crew of oddballs and cynics, most notably former night court prosecutor Dan Fielding (Larroquette).
Villafañe will play Monica, the court’s assistant district attorney. Type A, superficial and tightly wound. Monica sees the night court as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. She’s above this place and all the people in it, but it’s a good way to get some courtroom experience under her belt. It’s all part of her plan to land a job at one of the big firms. Thirty will be here before she knows it and if she’s not wildly successful by then…well it’s best not to think about it.
Villafañe is recurring on the final season of Younger, which streams on Paramount+.
She has also recurred on two NBC/Universal Television series, dramaNew Amsterdamand comedySunnyside.
On stage, Villafañe originated the role of Gloria Estefan in the Broadway production of On Your Feet and starred throughout the musical’s entire 2014-2017 run, winning the 2015 Theatre World Award for Best Actress.
She later starred as Nina Rosario in the Kennedy Center’s 2018 production ofIn the Heightsand made her off-Broadway debut in MCC’s Collective Rage: A Play in Five Bettiesin 2018. She is a two-time Drama League Award nominee for On Your Feet and Collective Rage.
The 35-year-old Puerto Rican actor and comedian will star in Lionsgate’s The Valet, the English-language remake of Francis Veber’s French film.
Santos joins a roster of new cast additions that includes Noemi Gonzalez (Selena: The Series, East Los High), Tiana Okoye (Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, The Good Place), Diany Rodriguez (Law & Order: Organized Crime, New Amsterdam), Armando Hernandez (El César series on Prime Video, Disney+ series El Repatriado.
They join stars Eugenio Derbez and Samara Weaving in the film, which is being directed by Richard Wong.
The film, written by Rob Greenberg and Bob Fisher, follows Olivia (Weaving), a movie star who enlists Antonio (Derbez) – a parking valet – to pose as her lover to cover for a relationship with a married man. As a valet, the hard-working Antonio usually flies under the radar but his ruse with Olivia thrusts him into the spotlight and brings him to see himself more clearly than ever before.
Santos and Hernandez will play the valets who work with Antonio at a tony Beverly Hills restaurant.
Gonzalez will play Clara, Antonio’s sister and the wife of Benny, Antonio’s boss.
Okoye is Amanda, Olivia’s dedicated but jaded assistant.
Rodriguez will play Natalie, who works at Antonio’s neighborhood bike shop.
Derbez and Ben Odell are producing through their 3Pas Studios banner, while Meredith Wieck and Aaron Edmonds are overseeing the project for Lionsgate.
NBCUniversal will launch a new series of its popular The More You Know PSAs that tackle systemic racism and speak up for social justice, equality and equity, with the 38-year-old Cuban American actress and Brooklyn Nine-Nine star among the artists taking part.
Fumero joins a roster of NBC talent that includes Dulé Hill, James Roday Rodriguez and Kelly Clarkson, among others.
The campaign was developed in collaboration with social and racial justice organizations Fair Count, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP, the National Action Network and the National Urban League, and focuses on standing up against injustice, teaching children about equity, and the importance of voting and completing the census, especially for how it impacts the Black community and communities of color.
The campaign kicked off this week on NBC’s Todaywith a spot on teaching children about inclusion and acceptance. The campaign will be rolling out over the next few weeks, with spots now available on TheMoreYouKnow.com and YouTube.
The More You Know site also includes comprehensive resources and educational guides.
“For over 30 years, ‘The More You Know’ has sought to bring light to the nation’s most pressing social issues,” said Craig Robinson, Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, NBCUniversal, “and we hope this new iteration will continue to educate, encourage and inspire people of all ages to take an active role in improving the world we live in.”
In addition to Fumero, Hill, Roday Rodriguez and Clarkson, stars participating in the campaign include: Carlos Adyan (En Casa con Telemundo), Freema Agyeman (New Amsterdam), Notah Begay III (NBC Sports), Gizelle Bryant (The Real Housewives of Potomac), Kandi Burruss (The Real Housewives of Atlanta), Victor Cruz (E! News), Dexter Darden (Saved by the Bell), Ester Dean (Songland), Ryan Eggold (NewAmsterdam), Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster), Damon Hack (Golf Channel), Zuri Hall (Access Hollywood), Ana Jurka (“En Casa con Telemundo and Titulares y Más), Aneudy Lara (100 Días Para Enamorarnos), Howie Mandel (America’s Got Talent), Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: Organized Crime), Wendy Osefo (The Real Housewives of Potomac), Jeimy Osorio (Telemundo), Nina Parker (E! News’ Nightly Pop), Nichole Sakura (Superstore), Jocko Sims (New Amsterdam), Chris Sullivan (This Is Us”), Justin Sylvester (E! News’ Daily Pop), Elyfer Torres (Enemigo Íntimo) and Reno Wilson (Good Girls).
The 15-year-old Puerto Rican actor, who stars in Jon Chu’s upcoming Warner Bros. feature musical In The Heights, has signed with United Talent Agency (UTA).
Diaz previously appeared on Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and NBC’s New Amsterdam.
Diaz made his name on Broadway with his performance as Bruce in Matilda the Musicalin 2016 and also performed Off-Broadway in Pedro Pan, Zurich and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
He plays Sonny de la Vega in In the Heights, which is based on the musical by Quiara Alegria Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The film is scheduled for release in June 2021.
Diaz can also be seen in upcoming comedy film Vampires vs. the Bronx, written and directed by Oz Rodriguez and produced by Lorne Michaels.
Navia can currently be seen starring in the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The series, a spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery and a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, follows Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the crew of the USS Enterprise as they explore new worlds around the galaxy. Navia stars as ‘Lieutenant Erica Ortegas,’ the charismatic helmsman of the USS Enterprise. Season 2 premiered on June 15 and has already been renewed for a third season.
