Let’s hear it for Kiele Sanchez. A Chicago native of Puerto Rican and French descent, she’s been pounding away at the Hollywood machine since she got here ten years ago–before that, in fact, when she competed in MTV’s the “Wanna Be a VH1?” in New York, back in 2000.
She made it to the top five finalists, but she didn’t win–and, of course, that didn’t stop her. Not much seems to stop Ms. Sanchez, in fact. The exposure on MTV got her and agent and a ticket to L.A., and it wasn’t long before she started landing roles in individual episodes and (sadly, at first, short-lived) series.
There was a time-travel drama called That Was Then on ABC and a sitcom called Married to the Kellys with Breckin Meyer, now of Franklin and Bash, and few remember either one. But she kept going. Then the big break: a role in Season 3 of Lost, the cult show of cult shows…only to be written out six weeks later.
Does Kiele back off? Not at all. Get knocked down, get up again. Kiele played the sweet and slightly clueless “other girl” in Christina Applegate’s ABC series Samantha Who? until it faded after a couple of seasons. She did the obligatory horror films (Insanitarim) and played a frightening convincing bad girl opposite an equally scary Timothy Olyphant in A Perfect Getaway, then the sequel to the Alaskan vampire story, 30 Days of Night. There were TV movies, and failed pilots, and another series or two, and with each job, the Kiele we’ve come to recognize emerged: a tough, smart, plainspoken woman whose characters seem flawlessly authentic, as if no one ever actually wrote a line for her; she just made ’em up as she went along.
Finally the role that was made for her came along: Callie Cargill in The Glades, a culmination of all the solid smart-as-hell women she’d been playing (good and bad) over the years. And somewhere in there she worked with Mario Van Peebles on his story about New Orleans and saving yourself, Redemption Road (also known as Black, White, and Blues). Now, after plenty of sliding around, the film is getting a limited theatrical released this Friday, August 26. You can catch the trailer and learn more at www.redemptionroadmovie.com, and past episodes of The Glades on http://www.aetv.com/the-glades/video/. And there are still a handful of episodes to come this season, with a new one every Sunday at 10P on A&E through early September.
