Gina Torres was born April 25, 1969 in New York City, New York and is the youngest of three children in a Cuban-American family. Aside from being an actress known for playing most science fiction and fantasy roles, Torres is a mezzo-soprano opera and jazz vocalist whose career began onstage, in plays and musicals. Her family lived briefly in Washington Heights before moving to the Bronx. She was born at the Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in Manhattan. The daughter of an Afro-Cuban typesetter for the New York Daily News, she started singing at an early age, which she continued doing when she attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts in the Big Apple. After high school, she decided college wasn’t really the thing for her, and she couldn’t really afford those who accepted her any way. She then pursued performing professionally in lieu of a tertiary education.
Torres came to prominence upon landing the lead role in the TV movie, M.A.N.T.I.S., which formed her fruitful partnership with Renaissance Pictures, leading to two of her most notable roles, as Nebula on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Hel on Cleopatra 2525. In 2001, she won the ALMA Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Syndicated Drama for her work on Cleopatra 2525. She has also starred in Joss Whedon's Firefly and the series, Standoff, as well as appearing in the recurring role as the villainous Anna Espinosa, on the spy drama, Alias. Torres is married to Lawrence Fishburne, with whom she co-starred in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Her other screen credits include Mad TV, Angel, South of Pico, and The Shield.
Torres was engaged with The Matrix star Laurence Fishburne in 2001, and they married the following year. The couple met while filming The Matrix. They had their first daughter Delilah in June of 2007.