Actor / Director Profile

Vanesa Maria Tomasino Rodriguez was born and raised in El Salvador, Central America. Vanesa's mother is a renowned Surgeon and the first female Salvadoran member of the American College of Surgeons and her father is an engineer with focus on environmentally friendly machinery and organic plant fertilizers. Vanesa lived a year in Paris, France as a teenager with her mom and returned to El Salvador in 1995 and started acting in musicals such as "Oliver Twist", "Fiddler on the roof" and "The sound of music".Aside from acting, Vanesa was also a professional volleyball player in El Salvador. She played in several international tournaments and national leagues, and won her first MVP award at the age of 16.In 2000, she graduated from high school with honors, the International Baccalaureate and the award for student of the year. At the age of 18 she moved to Vancouver, Canada to study acting and broadcasting.In 2001 she co-hosted a radio show on 96.1 FM and by 2002 she had her own on-air show on 'The Beat 94.5 FM' in Vancouver. She left the station at the end of 2004 to focus completely on acting and TV hosting. Vanesa became the host of the Leo award nominated TV show "World Beats" in 2005.Her work includes: A recurring role in the animated series "Martha Speaks" as Carolina, a lead role in "A girl like me: The Gwen Araujo Story" (Directed by Agnieszka Holland) , "The most wonderful time of the year", "White Noise 2", "L Word", the animated Series 'Sabrina's Secret Life', "Vice", "Fallen", "A little thing called murder", "Smallville" and "Civic duty" among others.Vanesa is also committed to constantly furthering her education and studies Political Science in University and on her spare time studies Mandarin to pick up a 4th language.