Stephanie Beatriz

Stephanie Beatriz spent her early screen years in small parts: Salma on Jessie, voices on Bob's Burgers. Born in Neuquen, Argentina in 1981, she got her opening in 2013, when two things landed at once: Jessica in the independent drama Short Term 12 and Detective Rosa Diaz on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Rosa ran for eight seasons and is an exercise in playing less. The character is built almost entirely on refusal: flat delivery, minimal expression, information withheld on principle. The comedy comes from the gap between what the squad wants from her and the exactly nothing she gives them, and holding that line for eight years without the joke going stale takes far more control than it looks like it does.

Then she spent the next phase doing the opposite. Mirabel Madrigal in Encanto is all open feeling and singing, a lead role that requires the audience to read every emotion on the first pass. Carla in In the Heights is warmth and noise. Put those next to Rosa and you have an actor deliberately dismantling her own typecasting.

Animation is now the main line of work and she is very good at it, which is not the same skill as being good on camera. Vaggie in Hazbin Hotel, Lady Kima in The Legend of Vox Machina, General Mayhem in The Lego Movie 2, Gina Cazador on BoJack Horseman, Gertie in Ice Age: Collision Course, Bloats in Zootopia 2. She also plays Quiet in the Peacock adaptation of Twisted Metal, which is the closest thing to a live-action lead she has had since the sitcom ended.