Latin beauty Veronica Diaz was born in Argentina far away from the bright lights of Hollywood, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to be a star. “I feel like from the time I came out of my mom I was acting,” Veronica recalls. “Immediately I developed love for the arts, all kinds of art like music, dance, acting and painting.”

One can assume that love for the arts may have come to Veronica from her father, who was a professional actor in the local theatres in Argentina. Growing up Veronica used to practice lines with him and used to watch American television programs like The Academy and Grammy Awards, and often dreamt about becoming an actress. “I would think, ‘How do I get that? We don’t have anything like that of that magnitude here in Argentina,’” Veronica said.

So at a very early age the Argentina native decided she wanted to leave her hometown behind in hopes of creating something bigger for her life. She began studying ballet at 7-years-old at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and a few years later won a dance competition that changed her life forever. The competition was held by The International Festival of Ballet of Brazil and after she won Veronica was given a scholarship to study dance at the Miami Hispanic Ballet. She convinced her parents to let her move away from Argentina, packed her bags and boldly moved by herself to Miami at 15 years-old.

Soon after arriving in America the Argentinean teenager found herself struggling to survive. She was in a foreign place, didn’t speak English and because she was underage it was difficult for her to find a job. One day she met a woman from Nicaragua who helped her rent a studio apartment but times were still tough, and she was only 17.

“I was taking dance classes, eating like once a day and then Christmas came around and I heard a knock on the door,” Veronica said. “I opened the door to find that the Latino people from the different apartments in my building left furniture and other things they didn’t need and a huge basket of food for me.” Veronica was thankful and although her struggles were far from over, she stayed in Miami and began working. She landed a part in the play Requiem for Yarini and played the role of a legendary Cuban mistress. The part led to her first award as “Revelation Actress of the Year.” She went on to nab a recurring role on the popular Univision show Sabado Gigante and later moved to New York City.

Veronica still only knew very limited English, in fact she only knew how to say ‘bagel’, ‘coffee’ and ‘token’, yet she believed in herself enough to give New York everything she had. Veronica continued her dance lessons and managed to get a full scholarship with the world renowned Joffrey Ballet School and Company and later danced with the Ballet Hispanico of New York. Veronica studied acting with Tony and Maria Greco and had the chance to work with the legendary George Faison and Bob Fosse’s muse, Anne Reinking. She later decided to move to Los Angeles and pursue her lifelong passion of acting.

“In 2003 as soon as I got off the plane I said this was it, I wasn’t going to travel back and forth anymore,” Veronica said. “I went to an audition and there were hundreds of people, it felt like a cattle call and I didn’t even want to go in.”

But despite her apprehensions Veronica auditioned and was one of 20 Latinos, selected out of 600 people, to be a part of a Latin showcase.

Since arriving in Los Angeles Veronica has continued to work hard. She landed an exclusive holding deal with CBS and worked on Jake in Progress, Nip/Tuck, Emotion, The Unit and A13.

But in the midst of all the work Veronica often thinks back on her journey from Argentina.  She says it’s been interesting and admits there was a time when she was lost and felt invalidated.

“I’d go on an audition and they’d tell me I look ‘so American’. I’d say no I’m like 300 percent Latino. I’m not making up my accent just to be more exotic.”

Veronica tried to conform to what the stereotypical Latina actress was supposed to look like. She dyed her hair dark, got super tanned and even thought about getting breast implants. Her identity issues led her to experiment with drugs until one day she realized she was letting all her hard work go to waste.

“I thought what the hell am I doing? I’ve gone through so many things like living in my car, not having food and now I’m going to waste all of this just because I got invalidated,” Veronica explains. “So I stopped and I went back to working hard for what I wanted.”

Today Veronica remains focused on what she set out to do many years ago and wakes up everyday striving to make her dreams happen. She recently produced and co-created the soon-to-be-launched Quantum Force and is working on a few other features. She is also working on a campaign - which she will be the face of – and it’s not even a Latino product.

Yet despite the success she has found since moving to America, Veronica Diaz still has a lot of dreams to attain. One of the most important is to help create more positive roles for Latinos in hopes of inspiring children around the world to pursue acting.

“I am very proud of being Latina,” Veronica says. “And through my work I want to break the cycle by showing Latinos have choices and we can make it happen no matter what.”