ACTOR DANIELA VEGA is making history at this year’s Academy Awards.
Vega will be the first openly transgender performer to present at the Oscars. She joins a bevy of other stars, including Tiffany Haddish, Viola Davis and Greta Gerwig.
The 28-year old stars in the Oscar-nominated A Fantastic Woman - the story of Marina and Orlando. After Orlando suddenly falls ill and dies, Marina is forced to confront his family and society, and to fight again to show them who she is: complex, strong, forthright, fantastic.
Can’t watch the trailer? Click here.
Before A Fantastic Woman, Vega had previously appeared onstage as an actor and singer and appeared in one Chilean feature, as well as various music videos. A Fantastic Woman is actually only Vega’s second feature length movie ever.
Born in Santiago de Chile, Vega first experienced discrimination between the ages of 10 and 12, attending an all-boys school where her emerging female identity was met with brutal reactions from fellow pupils.
“I faced a certain amount of violence,” she told The Guardian. In Chilean interviews, she’s talked of being pushed down staircases and urinated on in the lavatories.
It taught me that I had to learn to protect myself – and it made me stronger. It could have made me step backwards with my self-discovery. Instead, it pushed me further.”
On being transgender within the industry, Vega said:
It actually gives me a physical pleasure to annoy conservatives. I don’t have to be violent, I don’t have to insult anyone – my mere existence shakes those people up.”
