Costa Rican Powerhouse Actress Giannina Esquivel
Giannina Esquivel, the Costa Rican actress currently living and working in Los Angeles, is one of those rare breeds of artists who has the energy, focus, talent and drive to go where she wants to in life. She was raised in beautiful Costa Rica and became interested in acting when she was a little girl watching movies with her parents. Even though she lived among the famous coffee farms down there she always found time to make small home movies and TV shows with her camcorder. She knew by the time she was ten that she wanted to be in the movie and TV business for the rest of her life.
When she attended her first drama class at a Connecticut boarding school at 15 she realized that her fate was sealed and that no other career would satisfy her other than acting and producing movies and shows. No matter what else she focused on whether it was academic or some other interest, Giannina always came back to her first love — acting.
She trained extensively at boarding school and when she was old enough she went to Los Angeles for a summer of acting classes at the famous New York Film Academy. She graduated from Swarthmore College with a major in theatre and also enrolled in the British American Drama Academy — BADA Midsummer in Oxford program in Oxford, England. However, her most intensive training occurred when she signed up for the Stella Adler Academy of Acting in L.A. She says that she learned more about acting there than she ever could have imagined.
She has performed the classics from Shakespeare to Chkhov. She loved the role of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and one of her favorite parts was Yelena in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. She also got to act in Tennessee William’s legendary play A streetcar Named Desire. She was fortunate enough and talented enough to play both Stella Kowalski and Blanche DuBois.
Her film career has taken off and she has been in countless short films along with several features including the Cost Rican film Insomnio. It premiered in San Jose, Costa Rica this past October to high praise and great reviews. She has several short films in post-production and they are due to be released at film festivals this year. She is also working on a pilot for a TV show.
