Michelle Rodriguez

A botched audition launched the whole thing. Karyn Kusama watched her stumble through the Girlfight casting call and hired her anyway: "I could not find anyone who could come close to her in physical power." She beat 350 applicants, trained at Gleason's Gym for four months, and shared the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Critics compared her to Brando. They weren't wrong about the talent, but they were wrong about the range.

The Fast and the Furious came next, and she nearly walked off set. The original script put Letty in a love triangle. She cried, threatened to quit, told the producers not to sue her. Vin Diesel backed her up, the writers rewrote the part, and Letty became the hyper-loyal fighter audiences actually wanted. That rewrite defined her entire career.

Her characters keep dying and coming back. She's been killed off in Resident Evil, Lost, Fast & Furious, and Avatar, and resurrected in two of the four. When James Cameron offered to bring back Trudy Chacon for the sequels, she turned him down: "We can't do a fourth, that would be overkill."

Eight Fast & Furious films across a $7.5 billion franchise, and she's never been the one getting paid like it. She told interviewers in 2003, "I haven't even begun to play. They don't let me." Steve McQueen cast her in Widows despite people warning him she was "difficult," and she delivered the most vulnerable performance of her career. Nobody talks about it.

Growing up meant moving constantly. Dominican Republic at 8, Puerto Rico at 11, Jersey City by 17, raised by a grandmother who was a devout Jehovah's Witness. Five school expulsions, a GED, and a brief stint at business school before quitting. The original goal was screenwriting and directing, not acting.

She came out as bisexual in 2013 with characteristic bluntness: "I've gone both ways. I do as I please." Off set, she trains with Sea Shepherd for marine conservation and delivered supplies to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. The tough girl thing isn't entirely a character.