Isabella Castillo Cuban Actress Born 1994 in Havana

Early life

Isabella Castillo Díaz was born on 23 December 1994 in Havana, Cuba. In 1997 her family left the country for Belize, and a few months later they settled in Miami, Florida. She made her first appearance as a singer at the age of five, in a concert given by her mother, and from then on she took lessons in dance, singing and acting. She studied music at Musical Procenter and won the Grand Prize of the Youth Fair at Florida International University four times.

In March 2005 she took first prize as Most Promising in the children's singing division of the USA World Showcase, and in July of that year she appeared in the musical Fantasia en Disney at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami. In 2007 she took an acting course in preparation for an audition in Madrid, where she won the leading role in the musical El diario de Ana Frank - Un canto a la vida after three rounds of auditions. The family moved to Spain for the production, which opened on 28 February 2008, and it brought her the Gran Via Award as Best Revelation in a Musical.

Career

Castillo returned to the United States in 2009 and began her screen career on Telemundo, in the telenovela El fantasma de Elena (2010), as seventeen-year-old Andrea Girón. When that series ended she was cast as the title character of Grachi, a Nickelodeon Latin America telenovela. Grachi is the earliest title in her screen credits on this site, listed under 2011, and it remains the role she is best known for. While the second of its three seasons aired, in February 2012, she took part in the stage show Grachi: El show en vivo.

The series also opened a music career. In February 2013 she signed with Warner Music Latina, and her first album, Soñar no Cuesta Nada, was released on 23 April 2013. Records link her recordings to Latin pop. In 2014 she sang a duet, "Que duermas conmigo", on the third album by Patricio Arellano. In October of that year she was cast in the telenovela Tierra de reyes, where she played two roles, Alma Gallardo and Verónica Saldívar. She also appeared on the programme ¿Quién es quién? and, from December 2015 to January 2016, in the Spanish stage play Tacones enanos.

Her later television work includes Club 57 (2019), Sed de venganza (2024) and other series, among them El Señor de los Cielos, The Inmate and Malverde: El Santo Patrón. In 2023 she was billed first in the musical film La Usurpadora: The Musical. In all, her screen credits on record number four, one film and three television series, between 2011 and 2024.

Recognition

Through Grachi, Castillo won the Favorite Actress award at the Kids' Choice Awards México, the Kids' Choice Awards Argentina and Meus Prêmios Nick between 2011 and 2012. At the 2012 Kids' Choice Awards she became the first winner of the Favorite Latin Artist award, and she won it again in 2013. In 2019 she received the Keys to the City of McAllen, Texas.

Personal life

Castillo was married to the actor Matías Novoa from 2019 to 2021.