Daniela Vega
The star of “A Fantastic Woman” was the first trans person to present at the Oscars – and helped Chile pass its gender identity law.
Daniela Vega grew up in Santiago and began studying opera singing with her grandmother at the age of eight. At an all-boys school she was bullied. As a teenager she realised she was a girl, and at around 15 came out to her family as trans; her parents and brother supported her. She worked as a hairdresser and made her way into Santiago’s theatre scene; from 2011 she starred in the play “La mujer Mariposa” (The Butterfly Woman), which drew on her own story.
Her international breakthrough came with Sebastián Lelio’s film “Una mujer fantástica” (A Fantastic Woman, 2017). Vega had originally been hired as an adviser; then she was given the lead role of Marina, a trans woman who after her partner’s death has to fight for her dignity against his family and the authorities. The film won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018, and Vega became the first openly trans person to present at the Academy Awards. “Time” magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Vega used the attention to point out that she was representing her country with a man’s name in her passport. Chile’s gender identity law had been blocked in parliament for five years; after the Oscar it was passed in September 2018. In 2019 Vega officially changed her name.
She has since appeared in international series and films, including “Tales of the City”, and published a volume of poetry.