Being Latina playing into my goals or passion for acting - I will say that being raised in a large Puerto Rican family of mostly all women who are extremely passionate has taught me how to be not only passionate but driven and goal oriented. In my family I wasn't necessarily pushed into anything but at the same time if I said I wanted to do it everyone always assumed I could. So I did as well I guess. But only with hard work, preparation and a little bit of luck!

My family's funny. They're very supportive, but they don't know who actors are and they don't really care. They're just like, 'Oh, if you wanna do it, sure, go!'" They don't want to come to set and sit there and look at a screen. It doesn't impress them.

I've always loved movies and ever since I was little I've always wanted to make people feel how movies made me feel - happy, sad, adventurous... There was never a specific moment where I said this is what I want to do. I've just always known and luckily when I was old enough I was lucky enough to work.

I grew up in Manhattan, so I'm used to for all time running about and having a billion things to do. In LA everything's slower paced, everybody takes their time and actually enjoys things: hiking, eating healthy. In New York there's no time to go hiking, you just walk 30 blocks. Also in LA it's typically the movie business or TV business, and that's what everybody talks about because that's everyone's job in some way or another. In New York it's so diverse, you can be sitting at a table with a doctor and a cab driver and a musician.

It seems to find me - the tough military girl [role]. But in real life, i'm like, 'Let's go shopping, guys!' 'Let's take our dogs to the park!' But I can pull it off.

I actually take Karate and tae-kwon-do. And so I love sparring and grappling and all that physical stuff. I studied a hybrid form of grappling, sparring, and self defense, it's more of a get yourself in shape and if you want to take it to the next level, so you're really learning valuable skills with self defense, and I really enjoy it.