Inside Melissa Barrera’s Life Before Hollywood Success

Before she was known as an actor, Melissa Barrera confessed her early dreams were more in line with Britney Spears. “I wanted to be a pop star,” she told A.Frame about her childhood ambitions. “I would see kids that would go on these reality competition shows that would then get cast in child telenovelas, and then they would do musical telenovelas.” In school, she fell in love with the theater department and added acting to her ambitions.

At age 18, she moved to New York to attend the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. While the goal was to do musicals on Broadway, her student visa wouldn’t allow her to be cast in anything, so she went back to Mexico, hoping to build up her career and return to New York on an artist visa. Once home, she called on that pop star dream and in 2011 was selected for the popular Mexican reality TV show “La Academia,” a singing competition much like “American Idol.” It was her first on-screen project.

While she didn’t win, she did make it to round 13 out of 18, and her time on the program earned her two things. First, Barrera met her future husband, musician Paco Zazueta, who was also a contestant on “La Academia.” Second, her exposure on the series helped her to segue into acting jobs on television.