Cine Latino: 20 Hispanics Who Have Conquered Hollywood

It took only one drama course for Oscar winner Benicio del Toro to drop out of school in search of an acting career. Born Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez, the Puerto Rican actor had his big break in The Usual Suspects and soon established himself as a character actor. He received his first Oscar win in 2001 for Traffic and was later nominated for his performance in 21 Grams.

Last year he co-directed 7 Days in Havana, a French-Spanish production made up of seven shorts. Fun Fact: Earlier this year the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico granted del Toro an honorary degree for his film contributions.

The Spanish actress made her acting debut at 16 on TV. She achieved major success with her roles in Open Your Eyes for Alejandro Amenabar and Vanilla Sky. She went on to earn Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Pedro Almodovar's Volver and Nine.

Cruz won an Academy Award for best supporting actress in 2008 for her role in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, becoming the first Spanish actress to receive an Oscar. She recently co-starred in To Rome with Love and will play a single mother opposite Emile Hirsch in Sergio Castellitto’s Twice Born.  Fun Fact: Her debut movie role at 17 was with future husband Javier Bardem in Jamón, jamón.

Javier Bardem – It's hard to say that Javier Bardem stole our hearts in the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, but he definitely showed us what a riveting performance can look like. And just like his wife Penelope Cruz, he is the first Spanish actor to win an Academy Award, seven years after his breakthrough role in and best actor nomination for Before Night Falls. From his acceptance speech: "This is for Spain and this is for all of you."

Bardem's next film, Skyfall with Daniel Craig, will hit theaters this November. He is currently filming Ridley Scott's The Counselor with Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender. Fun Fact: Past jobs include bouncer, writer, construction worker, and stripper.

Guillermo del Toro got his first big break when his horror film Cronos won nine Academy Awards in Mexico. He then went on to win the International Critics Week prize at Cannes. Horror, fantasy, adventure and drama became his specialty, creating an array of titles from The Devil’s Backbone and Hellboy to Pan’s Labyrinth and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.

He's currently finishing up Pacific Rim and his list of upcoming projects is just too long to list but expect to hear about a stop-motion Pinocchio movie and Hellboy 3.

The limelight finally shined on Demián Bichir as he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination last year for his heartwarming performance as an undocumented father in A Better Life. Many Hollywood doors have opened for Bichir since then, as he candidly told us earlier this year while promoting Savages.

He's currently filming Words with God and is set to costar in Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills, The Heat with Sandra Bullock and in William Friedkin's indie thriller Trapped. So what else could he possibly want? Well, a call from Woody Allen…

Born in Mexico City to a Mexican father and a Cuban mother, Orci has written and produced many Hollywood hits, from Star Trek, The Legend of Zorro, Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, and Cowboys & Aliens. He's currently writing and set to produce The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Star Trek 2. His contributions to Hollywood since 2005 garnered him a spot in The Hollywood Reporter's 50 most powerful Latinos in Hollywood

Honduran actress America Ferrera wasn’t afraid to show off her bod in Real Women Have Curves, which centered on a high school Mexican-American teenager yearning for a better life that didn’t include working in near-sweatshop conditions with her mother and older sister. The coming of age-story led Ferrera to roles in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the hit TV series Ugly Betty.

In 2007, Ferrera won an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for Ugly Betty, the first Latina to win in that category. She'll appear next in End of Watch with Michael Pena and Jake Gyllenhal. Fun Fact: Ferrera teamed up with Voto Latino to launch America4America, a grassroots and online campaign to promote Latino voting.

Fun Fact:  Alfonso Cuarón once wanted to be an astronaut. While the Mexican director didn’t join NASA, he has in fact taken audience to other worldly experiences with his extraordinary imagination. A Little Princess, Great Expectations, Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men are just a few films that gained Cuarón international notoriety. In 2010, he started working on Gravity, a sci-fi drama starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. The film will be released next year.

Texas-born Robert Rodriguez began playing with video cameras at 11 years old. His passion for storytelling eventually led him to his first $7,000 feature film El Mariachi, which premiered at Sundance and won the Audience Award. The sequel, Desperado went on to launch the careers of Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas.

Over the years Rodriguez has helped put many more Hispanic faces on the big screen with movie like Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Spy Kids franchise, Sin City and most recently Machete and Machete Kills.

Martin Sheen's birth name almost rivals Benicio del Toro's: Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez. Sheen is of Spanish and Irish descent and began his film and TV career in the early '60s. With over 200 film and TV projects under his belt he's one of Hollywood's heavy hitters. He received his first acting nomination in 1968 with a Golden Globe nom for best supporting actor in The Subject Was Roses.

Sheen went on to work in Catch-22, Badlands, Apocalypse Now, The Departed and the list truly goes on—famous actor sons Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez are part of his legacy, too. Fun Fact: He's been an avid supporter of Cesar Chavez's farm worker movement and endorsed marches in an effort to force California to honor Cesar Chavez day.

Alejandro González Iñárritu –Iñárritu is the first Mexican director to be nominated for an Academy Award. He introduced us to Gael Garcia Bernal in his first feature film Amores Perros, which garnered him a best foreign language film Oscar nomination (as did his latest, Biutiful). His next film, 21 Grams, earned Benicio del Toro and Naomi Watts best acting Oscar nominations.  For his third film, directing Brad Pitt in Babel, he received a best director and best picture Oscar nomination.

Eva Longoria became a household name when she appeared in the hit TV series Desperate Housewives in 2004. It didn’t take long for film producers to approach Longoria and by 2006 she was co-starring with Kiefer Sutherland in The Sentinel and Christian Bale in Harsh TimesHer next film The Truth stars Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia and Kevin Durand.

Longoria is an avid proponent for immigration reform and recently teamed up with Obama’s reelection campaign. Longoria was nominated this year for an ALMA Award for favorite movie actress in a drama/adventure, and will also be co-hosting the ceremony with George Lopez that airs Friday, Sept. 21 on NBC.  Fun Fact: Longoria was Miss Corpus Christi 1998.

Pedro Almodóvar – Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar was born in a small impoverished town. As a young man he moved to Madrid and made ends meet by selling used items at a flea market. He never went to film school but from 1972 to 1978 he devoted his time to making short films after saving enough money to buy a Super 8 camera...

...By 1987 he started his own production company with his brother and released Law of Desire, a film that would ignite his career and that of his leading star Antonio Banderas. Since then Almodóvar has created hits like Talk to Her, Volver, Broken Embraces, Bad Education and The Skin I Live In. 

Zoe Saldana catapulted to fame in what some would consider a very short period of time thanks to two little projects you might have heard of, Avatar and Star Trek. Last year she starred in her first lead Latina role in Colombiana. Now she’s one of the most sought-after Latinas in Hollywood, her latest film project The Words with Bradley Cooper is out in theaters. The Dominican-Puerto Rican star is also working on Out of Furnace, Star Trek 2 and Avatar 2.

If you saw Rudo y Cursi or Amores Perros, you’ll know why Gael García Bernal is so admired and followed by the ladies--consider him the Mexican Jude Law who’s not afraid to push the envelope. After Iñárritu's Amores Perros he achieved international success with Y Tu Mama Tambien, Babel, Motorcycle Diaries, Rudo y Cursi and Casa de Mi Padre.

Earlier this year it was announced that Bernal would be the next Zorro in Zorro Reborn, a futuristic reboot of the classic Zorro tale.

It's no secret that Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal are best buds but after playing out a threesome in Y Tu Mama Tambien, you can't blame them for getting so close. Luna is probably one of the most talented actors to have come out of Mexico; he’s rubbed shoulders with heavyweights like Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Tom Hanks. He'll share the big screen next year with Matt Damon in Neill Blomkamp's Elysium. When he's not acting he's focusing on his real passion—directing, as he told us in our interview.

Puerto Rican star Jennifer Lopez first debuted her acting skills in the biopic Selena, based on the life and career of Texmex music singer Selena Quintanilla. Like wildfire, her career as an actress and singer quickly took off; becoming one of the most commercially successful Latina's in Hollywood. Her most notable roles include, Out of Sight, The Wedding Planner, Enough, Monster-in-Law, The Back-Up Plan and What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Fun Fact: This year, Forbes named Lopez the most powerful celebrity in its annual Celebrity 100 list. The former fly girl earned a total of $52 million from May 2011 to May 2012.

Rita Moreno, Puerto Rican actress known for West Side Story, Singin' in the Rain, The King and I and The Electric Company. Moreno is the only Hispanic performer to have won an Emmy (1977), a Grammy (1972), an Oscar (1962) and a Tony (1975).

Katy Jurado, first Latin American actress to win a Golden Globe and be nominated for an Academy Award. She's best known for her roles in High Noon, Broken Lance and One-Eyed Jacks.

Ricardo Montalban, actor known for Fantasy Island, Star Trek II and the Naked Gun franchise, first Hispanic actor to grace the cover of Life magazine, founded Nosotros, the oldest National Latino Arts Advocacy non-profit organization in the U.S.

Gregory Nava, writer and director known for El Norte, Selena, Mi Familia and Frida.

Oscar Isaac, actor known for The Nativity Story , W.E., Drive, and The Bourne Legacy. Isaac will appear next in the Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis, a drama based on the early 1960s folk-music scene in Greenwich Village.

Michael Peña, actor who recently co-starred in End of Watch, 30 Minutes or Less, The Lincoln Lawyer, Battle Los Angeles and Crash.

Other notable mentions: Lupe Ontiveros, Antonio Banderas, Dolores del Rio, Anthony Quinn, Rita Hayworth, Lupe Velez, Beatriz Michelena, Ramon Navarro and Luiz Valdez.