Catalina Sandino Moreno
Catalina Sandino Moreno is the most famous actress in her country. She is the first Colombian actress to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress, which she received for her portrayal of a character much like herself: one of those strong women that she very much enjoyed bringing to the big screen in the movie, Maria Full of Grace ( María llena de gracia ). However, she will always choose a good book over the glamour of Hollywood . This, coupled with the advice of her mother, keeps the feet of this 25 year old actress firmly planted on the ground.Eva Longoria
She is the actress that week after week we see in the show Desperate Housewives as Gabrielle Solis. Eva Longoria was born in Texas but all her family is from Monterrey, Mexico. Proud of her ethnicity the actress told us how much she loves to read the stories of Isabel Allende, her favorite author.Stephenie Meyer
There are books that sink their teeth into the reader and don’t let go until the very end. Such are those of 34-year-old bestselling American author Stephenie Meyer, who until five years ago was a housewife and mother of three with no literary preparation aside from the books she had devoured throughout her life. She is now the author of the moment thanks to her young adult Twilight series, which combines teenage romanticism with vampires’ thirst for blood.Matt Damon
Matt Damon is Hollywood’s most profitable actor, bringing in more gross income than any other star per dollar received. But the lone Oscar this 36-year-old Massachusetts native has received was a best original screenplay award for the 1997 film Good Will Hunting , in which he also starred. Damon is an avid reader and currently is studying Spanish – a language he has dabbled in since meeting Argentine Luciana Barroso, his current wife – in hopes of giving his daughters Alexia and Isabella the best possible bilingual education.
Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba doesn’t speak Spanish. Nor does she speak Danish for that matter, the language of her mother’s family. But this 26-year-old actress from California , best known for her roles in “Sin City ”and “Fantastic Four,” is eager to learn. She feels very proud of her Spanish-language surname and is very close to her father’s family even though she is a third-generation Mexican-American. While she is learning the language of her ancestors, however, she avidly reads everything she can get a hold of in her native tongue.Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu
Filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu, the first Mexican nominated for an Oscar in the best director category, said he survived the “Hispanic tsunami” that took over this year’s Academy Awards thanks to three things: good friends, a lot of water and a good novel. González Iñárritu – whose globe-spanning, multi-lingual film “Babel” was nominated for seven Oscars in total and was the last installment in a trilogy that includes “Amores Perros” (Love’s a Bitch) and “21 Gramos” (21 Grams), all with Guillermo Arriaga as screenwriter – is well aware of the power of words, having made people’s inability to communicate the main theme of his latest work.
