Early life

Carrillo was born in Santa Elena, Michoacán, Mexico, a rural mountain town. One of eight children in a family of farm laborers, her childhood was marked by violence and poverty. At the age of three, her father was murdered, forcing her eldest brother to assume control of the family. Wanting Carrillo to get an education, he forged a birth certificate so she could begin first grade at age four.

When she was six, her brother was also gunned down outside a theater and the family faced constant threats to their lives. When she was ten, Carrillo moved to the town of Uruapan with an older sister where she dropped out of school as she began working alongside her sister at a Chinese restaurant.

Career

Early career

Carrillo was discovered by a local photographer in Uruapan, Mexico and soon received a modeling contract. At 12 years old, director Rafael Corkidi cast Elpidia as Malinche in the surrealist Mexican feature film Pafnucio Santo. The film was Mexico's official submission to the Academy Awards that year, but with its many esoteric elements, it failed to garner a nomination. Due to the role involving nudity and her being under age, Carrillo was credited under the fake name Piya. Corkidi cast Carrillo again for a larger role in his film Deseos.

By age 16, she shot her first lead role in the controversial Mexican feature Nuevo Mundo, directed by . Having worked numerous films, she decided to enroll in the Bellas Arts School in Mexico City.

Hollywood career

After numerous Mexican and International film and television credits, Carrillo's US film career quickly emerged as she did a series of critically acclaimed roles in award nominated US projects. Her first US film came when Academy Award winning director Tony Richardson cast her in a co-starring role in the film The Border opposite Jack Nicholson and Harvey Keitel. That was soon followed by a co-starring role in the British drama Beyond the Limit opposite Richard Gere, Michael Caine, and Bob Hoskins, with the latter two British actors receiving BAFTA Nominations for their performances.

For her third US film, Carrillo performed a small supporting role in another successful Academy Award nominated art film Under Fire for which Gene Hackman's performance received a Golden Globe nomination.

Next she made her US television debut in the role of Coana in the Primetime Emmy nominated mini-series Christopher Columbus.

Her first award nomination came when Oliver Stone cast her as the female lead of Maria in Salvador which earned Carrillo an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead, earned her co-star James Woods an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and earned Oliver Stone an Academy Award nomination with co-writer Rick Boyle for Best Original Screenplay, which they would both lose to Stone's other nominated screenplay that year, Platoon.

With awards and critical recognition all by the age of 25, Carrillo then accepted what would be one of the most recognizable and commercially successful roles of her career as the female lead and only actress appearing in the iconic 20th Century Fox action film Predator opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Shane Black, and Jesse Ventura. Her character of Anna is also the only character to recur in more than a single film during the Predator franchise as she would also briefly appears in Predator 2.

Predator is widely consider the most commercially successful film of Carrillo's career and her most recognizable role. Though initially weakly received by critics, the film has subsequently gone on to become an action film classic making numerous "best of" lists in later years. At the time of its release, the film received an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.

Post Commercial Success

Following the massive commercial success of Predator, and performances in television guest starring roles on commercially successful shows like Miami Vice and 21 Jump Street, Carrillo increasingly focused her career once again on US critical appealing roles in film and television, as well as returning to Mexican independent cinema with roles in a number of international award winning films including Guldbagge Award winning La Hija del Puma, Una Cita con el Destino, Ariel Award winning City of the Blind, and the Guillermo Del Toro produced Un Embrujo, a winner of 9 Ariel Awards.

Carrillo appeared in Gregory Nava's critically acclaimed Mexican-American film My Family playing Isabel Magaña, the El Salvadorean refugee wife of Jimmy Smits, who won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for the role. The film also won the Casting Society of America's Artios Award for Best Casting for a Drama Feature.

Johnny Depp cast her as the female lead of his only directorial effort, the controversial The Brave, which he also starred in along with Marlon Brando. Despite the highly acclaimed cast and Palme d'Or nomination at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, the dark subject and mixed reception resulted in the film only receiving an international theatrical release.

Despite the critical recognition and various nominations throughout her career, Carrillo's first US acting award win was for her performance as Rosa in the drama Bread and Roses, which was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Carrillo would go on to win the 2002 ALMA Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, but in an improbable twist, she tied with Elizabeth Peña for the award. During the telecast, both women came to the podium together and shared time in giving their acceptance speeches.

Later Carrillo would win the same award four years later, this time as sole recipient of the 2006 ALMA Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for her performance as Sandra in Nine Lives written and directed by Rodrigo García. This was soon followed by a co-starring role in the commercially successful film Seven Pounds which starred Will Smith and went on to earn $165M at the box office.

Rodrigo García would then once again cast Carrillo, this time to co-star in the ensemble drama Mother and Child, this time sharing the screen and not the podium with Elizabeth Peña as well as Annette Bening, with whom she shares the majority of her scenes. The ensemble film also featured her former My Family co-star Jimmy Smits and actors, and . The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and Sundance Film Festival.

Recent career

Post Mother and Child, Carrillo took a hiatus from the spotlight after giving birth to her own children. She returned to star in the Mexican family comedy Familia Gang and the independent features Relentless and Foreign Land.

She made her return to television with a major recurring arc as Linda Brenner on the highly decorated ABC series Nashville.

Personal life

Active in social justice issues, Carrillo staged a number of public demonstrations protesting the massacre of 43 innocent students in Ayutzinapa, Mexico in 2014. She also plays an active role in teaching young actors and filmmakers, including lecturing in her native Mexico and worldwide.

She currently lives in Santa Monica, CA.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1977	Deseos (film)		Mexican movie
1978	Pedro Páramo	Isabel	Mexican movie
	Nuevo Mundo		Mexican movie
1979	Bandera Rota
1980	Winnetu Oule Mascalero	Wetaton	Television series
	El Jugador de Ajedrez		Mexican movie
1981	La Virgen Robada		Mexican movie
1982	Bartholome - oder die Rückkehr der weißen Götter	Ms. Anna	Indo-German television production
	The Border	Maria
1983	The Honorary Consul	Clara Fortnum	Hollywood debut
	Under Fire	Sandinista
1985	Christopher Columbus	Coana	Italian production, mini series
1986	Salvador	Maria
1987	Let's Get Harry	Veronica
	Predator	Anna Gonsalves
1988	Una Cita con el Destino		Mexican movie
1989	The Assassin	Elena
1990	Dangerous Passion	Angela	Made for television movie
	Predator 2	Anna Gonsalves	cameo
1991	Lightning Field	Dolores	Made for television movie
1994	La Hija del Puma	Maria	Mexican movie
1995	My Family	Isabel
	De Tripas, Corazon	Meifer	Mexican movie
1997	The Pretender	Nia	Television series
	The Brave	Rita
1998	Un Embrujo
	They Come at Night	Maria Velazquez
1999	The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista)	Tecuichpo/Isabel
2000	Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her	Carmen
	Bread and Roses	Rosa
2002	La Otra		Mexican telenovela
	Solaris
2003	Kingpin	Lupita	Mini-series
2004	A Day Without a Mexican	Cata	Mexican movie
2005	Nine Lives	Sandra
2006	Ladrones y Mentirosos	Isabel
2007	Tortilla Heaven	Hermenegilda
2008	Seven Pounds	Connie Tepos
2010	Mother and Child	Sofia

[ Source: Wikipedia ]