Who is Sara Ramírez?

Who is Sara Ramírez?  The entertainment and acting world knows her as a Mexican-American actress and singer. She is known for her role as Callie Torres in Grey's Anatomy(2006–present) and as the original Lady of the Lake in the 2005 Broadway musical Spamalot, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Early life

Ramírez was born August 31, 1975 in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, a beach resort on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Her father was Mexican and her mother was half Mexican and half Irish-American.[citation needed]Ramírez moved with her mother at age eight to Tierrasanta, in San Diego, California. After graduating from the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts in San Diego, California, she graduated from the Juilliard School in New York City, where she refined her skills as an actress.[1] Ramírez speaks both Spanish and English fluently.


  Career  
She debuted on Broadway playing Wahzinak in Paul Simon's The Capeman (1998). In 1999, she appeared in The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm (1999) and received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for her role. She has also appeared in A Class Act (2001) andDreamgirls (2001), and she performed in The Vagina Monologues with Tovah Feldshuh and Suzanne Bertish.

  In 1998, she played the voice of Lammy in the video game UmJammer Lammy, a spin-off of PaRappa the Rapper, both on Sony's PlayStationconsole. She later reprised her role as Lammy in the PlayStation 2 video game sequel PaRappa the Rapper 2, and has a smaller role, unlike the game that preceded it.

  
In 2004, Ramírez was cast as the Lady of the Lake in the Eric Idle/John Du Prez musical Spamalot, based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The musical opened on Broadway in 2005 to widespread acclaim, and Ramírez in particular was singled out for her performance, winning several awards including the 2005 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.


Following her success on Broadway, Ramírez joined the cast of Grey's Anatomy in a recurring role as Dr. Calliope 'Callie' Torres in the show's second season. For the third season she became a series regular. On a special Grey's Anatomy-themed episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, she revealed that top executives from ABC loved her performance in Spamalot so much that they offered her a role in any ABC show she wanted. She picked Grey's, of which she was a fan.[2] While Ramírez has never performed a musical number on the show, she did provide a cappella vocals in the song "Silent Night" for the soundtrack of the show's sixth season episode "Holidaze," airing November 19, 2009. On December 21, 2009, this version of the song was released as a single on iTunes. Her first solo release is an extended playscheduled for a March 27, 2011 release through the iTunes Store. It will reportedly include three original songs, as well as a recording of a song scheduled to be performed on Grey's Anatomy.[3]

  Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	You've Got Mail	Rose
1999	UmJammer Lammy	Lammy	voice
2000	Spin City	Carol	1 episode
	Third Watch	Gwen Girard	1 episode
	Welcome to New York	Linda	1 episode
	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Mrs. Barrera	1 episode
2001	PaRappa the Rapper 2	Lammy	voice
2002	Spider-Man	Police officer at carjacking
	Washington Heights	Belkis
	Baseball Wives	Gabriella Martinez
	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit	Lisa Perez	1 episode
	Chicago	Female ensemble
2003	As the World Turns	Hannah	1 episode
	When Ocean Meets Sky	Peggy Fears	voice
2004	NYPD Blue	Irma Pacheco	1 episode
2006–present	Grey's Anatomy	Dr. Callie Torres	88 episodes

Stage productions

Year	Title	Role	Theatre
1998	The Capeman	Wahzinak	Marquis Theatre
1999	The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm		Longacre Theatre
	The Vagina Monologues		Westside Theatre
2001	A Class Act	Felicia	Ambassador Theatre
	Dreamgirls		Ford Center for the Performing Arts
2005	Spamalot	The Lady of the Lake	Shubert Theatre

Discography

• 2009 Silent Night^[4]
• 2011 Sara Ramirez EP^[5]

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Film or series	Result
2005	Tony Award	Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical	Monty Python's Spamalot	Won
2005	Outer Critics Circle Award	Outstanding featured Actress in a Musical	Monty Python's Spamalot	Won
2007	Imagen Foundation Awards	Best Supporting Actress - Television	Grey's Anatomy	Nominated
2007	Screen Actors Guild Award	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series	Grey's Anatomy	Won
2007	ALMA Awards	Outstanding Actress in a Drama Television Series	Grey's Anatomy	Nominated
2008	ALMA Awards	Outstanding Actress in a Drama Television Series	Grey's Anatomy	Nominated
2008	Screen Actors Guild Award	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series	Grey's Anatomy	Nominated
2011	Image Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series	Grey's Anatomy	Nominated

 

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