Vanessa Giselle

Vanessa Giselle was born in Iowa City, Iowa to her mother Valerie and her father Francisco Orlando. She has one sibling, her brother Tito. Her mother is from a small town in Iowa and is one of ten siblings, while her father was from Managua, Nicaragua. He was also one of ten siblings. Her father passed away in August of 2015. Vanessa started her career by replacing an actress who dropped out of a play that was being put on by the University she attended at the time. The director of the school's Theatre program encouraged Vanessa to audition, and she got the part. Just around this time, big-budget films were coming through Iowa because of the film tax break that occurred during the summer of 2011, so Vanessa began to audition for very small parts in these features. She fell in love with acting immediately. Shortly thereafter, the films stopped coming through Iowa due to a tax scandal, and a series of other unfortunate events took place in her life (including the loss of her job, her band breaking up, her boyfriend of six years and her separating, her Grandfather passing, struggles with health issues, etc.). These significant changes in her life were the catalyst that made her decide to make the move to Los Angeles in order to pursue acting full-time. She and her mother sold the majority of their things, purchased a 1980's RV off of Craigslist, and packed it up with their clothes and their five dogs. The journey to LA in itself presented many challenges. The RV broke down several times on the way to the Golden State, leaving Vanessa and her mother stranded in several places including the desert, mountains, etc. Upon arriving to LA, they parked the RV in Inglewood and lived in it with no water, lights, heat, air-conditioning; no electricity whatsoever. They had spent all of the money they had saved up on fixing the RV, so during this time they could not even afford coffee on most days. Vanessa's mother took on the job of her manager at the time, and signed her up to LA Casting with the little money they did have. Vanessa started auditioning for jobs and sparingly would book something to keep them going financially. Eventually, they were able to ditch the camper. Vanessa now lives in an apartment in Los Angeles and is dedicated and more determined than ever to consistently work as an actress in Film and TV. She is currently (2019) taking acting classes and working on an immersive theatrical project with Shia LaBeouf. She is mostly known for playing "Lucky" on the popular Starz series VIDA (2019), and has made appearances on shows such as FX's Sons of Anarchy (2008) and Showtime's Shameless (2004). - IMDb Mini Biography By: Joyce Clark