**EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW**
Dania Ramirez, since entering the acting world in Spike Lee’s 1997 short film Subway Stories, has been demanding recognition, not only for her flawless figure and great smile but for just being talented.
It sounds cliché, but Dania is the best of all worlds. She was a hardcore volleyball player in her past life, and is now the beautiful and sexy covergirl for the August issue of Maxim with a love of books and cooking.
She’s getting to combine all of her qualities in her latest role as a bike messenger and college student in the new action thriller Premium Rush.
For once, all of the celebrity go-to interview answers apply: she really is the sexy tomboy with a heart of gold. We loved her before, but the fact that she has a personality to match her pretty face is refreshing.
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Global Grind: When did you know you wanted to be an actress? From a very young age?
Dania: When I think back on my life, I was an artist. I grew up in the Dominican Republic, and nobody in my family does this for a living. I didn’t even have TV growing up, but I always had a big imagination. I always felt like I was meant to be a star. I didn’t’ even know what that meant, though, to be honest. When I was 15, I was living in New Jersey, and someone came in and asked me if I wanted to model. That was my introduction to the entertainment business. I quickly took an acting class. My acting teacher said that I had raw talent, and that I should do it for a living, and I just started taking acting classes then and I haven’t stopped since.
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GG: What was that first audition like? Were you nervous?
Dania: I think everybody is. I think the minute you stop being nervous, you stop being good. I don’t think the nerves ever go away. I think I’m nervous today. As a matter of fact, I was at rehearsal right now, doing some of the scenes, and I was talking to the other actress, and we were saying the same things. I was like, that anxiety of wanting to be great at what we do, doesn’t ever really go away. The nerves are always right. It’s just about how you handle the nerves, and how you make them work for you.
GG: How would you describe your role in Premium Rush?
Dania: She’s a bike messenger named Vanessa, and in a nutshell, it’s an action thriller. We’re basically all after this one package, running through the streets of New York. There’s a real sense of realism that she has in an action thriller movie because she is someone who has worked really hard to get to where she’s at. – fighting is something she does to get to a better place. She’s actually going to school. She’s just a hard worker. She’s no a bullsh*t, Dominican, New Yorker that’s just really passionate about everything and everyone that she really cares about in her li
