Ana Claudia Talancón

If evidence was ever needed of how seriously fans take their soaps, Ana Claudia Talancón was once confronted on the street by a woman enraged by the way she treated her mother in the 2002 Brazilian telenovela "Vale todo." Having started acting as a girl in Cancún and trained at the Acting Workshop in Mexico City, Talancón won awards for her 1997 TV debut, "Al norte del corazón." She went on to appear in series in Argentina ("Amor Latino") and Colombia ("Tiempo Final") before returning home to headline "Terminales" and "Soy tu fan." By this time, however, she had established herself as a cinema actress, having won plaudits for Marisa Sistach and José Buil's 1999 period drama "El cometa," as the daughter of a revolutionary who falls for film-mad circus performer Diego Luna, and Carlos Carrera's contentious 2002 saga "The Crime of Father Amaro," as the naive teenager impregnated by young curate Gael García Bernal. Further roles on a religious theme followed in "The Virgin of Juarez" and "El último justo." But Talancón also impressed sufficiently in Mexican romcoms ("Ladies' Night" and "Dream") and literary adaptations ("Purgatory" and "Tear This Heart Out") to be cast in such prestigious American pictures as Richard Linklater's 2006 ensemble satire "Fast Food Nation" and Mike Newell's 2007 take on Gabriel García Márquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera," as well as more generic fare, like the chillers "Alone With Her" and "One Missed Call."