GINA TORRES -Visionary Award
Included amongst Torres’s most notable television credits are her performances as the Russo-Cuban assassin Anna Espinosa on “Alias,” the shotgun-toting mercenary Zoe Washburn on Joss Whedon’s “Firefly” (whom she also played in his feature film SERENITY) and the soul-eating Jasmine on Whedon’s “Angel.” Additional television credits include “Huge,” “The Shield,” “24,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Flash Forward,” “Gossip Girl,” “Boondocks,” and “The Vampire Diaries.” She has also voiced the roles of Vixen in “The Justice League” series and Superwoman in “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths” opposite James Woods. She began her onscreen career with roles on “Law & Order,” “One Life to Live,” “Any Day Now” and “La Femme Nikita” but it was her collaboration with producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert on four different shows – “MANTIS,” “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,” “Xena: Warrior Princess” and “Cleopatra 2525” (the latter of which earned her an ALMA Award) – that brought her to the masses and promptly shifted her career.
Torres’s film credits include THE MATRIX RELOADED and THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, JAM, SOUTH OF PICO, I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE with Chris Rock, HAIR SHOW with Mo’Nique, FIVE FINGERS opposite Laurence Fishburne and DON’T LET ME DROWN (critic’s choice at the Sundance Film Festival 2009).
The youngest of three children, Torres was born in Manhattan and raised in The Bronx with her close-knit Cuban family. She graduated from Fiorello LaGuardia School of Arts where, before entering the world of acting, she studied opera and jazz as a vocal major. Within a year of graduating, she was cast as Deena Jones in Dreamgirls, her first professional acting job. It wasn’t long before she started appearing on Broadway being directed by such legends as Tommy Tune and Pete Masterson in Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public and Jerry Zaks in Face Value. Her additional theater credits include Off- and Off-Off Broadway plays and musicals that ranged from classic Greek tragedy in Antigone and Amphytrion; to Shakespeare’s Pericles of Tyre and Julius Caesar; to contemporary classics such as Lorca’s Blood Wedding; to the world premieres of Sheila’s Day and Heliotrope Bouquet.
Torres and her husband, Laurence Fishburne, reside in Los Angeles with their daughter.