Raini Rodriguez
Raini Rodriguez is an actor, born 1993.
Raini Rodriguez was still a teenager when she landed the two jobs that define her: Maya, the daughter in Paul Blart: Mall Cop in 2009, and Trish De la Rosa in the Disney Channel series Austin & Ally from 2011. The Disney track is a strange apprenticeship, years of broad comedy performed at speed in front of a studio audience, and it tends to produce actors with immaculate timing and nowhere obvious to put it afterwards.
Rodriguez's answer was voice work, and it has become the most consistent part of her career. She has played Sammy Gutierrez right across the Jurassic World animated line: Camp Cretaceous, the Hidden Adventure special, and Chaos Theory. Carrying a single character through an entire animated franchise is rarer than it sounds, and it has made her one of the more familiar voices in the Jurassic series without most viewers ever seeing her face.
The rest is scattered but consistent in tone. Tess Torres in Prom and Tavita in Girl in Progress are teen-film supporting parts written with more warmth than the genre usually allows, and she returned as Maya Blart for the 2015 sequel. She won Best Young Television Actress at the 2013 Imagen Awards. Recent voice roles include Gabi in the Rugrats revival and Gretel in A Tale Dark & Grimm.
Movies (5)
TV (6)
Where to start with Raini Rodriguez
Austin & Ally is the correct starting point if you want to understand why a generation recognises her voice before her face, though it is a lot of episodes. For the short version, Paul Blart: Mall Cop gives you her whole comic register in one sitting, and she is the only person in it playing a recognisable human being.
The better recommendation for adults is the animation. Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous is genuinely well made, more frightening than a children's series needs to be, and Sammy is the warmest thing in it. Jurassic World: Chaos Theory continues the story with the same cast grown up. After that, Prom and Girl in Progress are the live-action ones worth your time, and A Tale Dark & Grimm is the strangest item on her list.