Melissa Fumero (née Gallo; born August 19, 1982) is an American actress and television director. She made her professional debut in 2004 in the recurring role of Adriana Cramer in the television soap opera One Life to Live. Following several minor roles, she had her first main role as Amy Santiago in the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which she played from 2013 to 2021. Since then, she has starred as Melissa Tarleton in the animated series M.O.D.O.K. (2021), Eliza Walker in the Netflix comedy Blockbuster (2022), and Bella Torres in the animated series Digman! (2023–present). She is married to actor and former model David Fumero, with whom she has 2 sons.
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Early life
Melissa Gallo was born in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, on August 19, 1982. Her Cuban parents immigrated to the United States as teenagers. Her mother was a homemaker and hairdresser, and her father taught mathematics and worked at a jewelry store. She grew up in Guttenberg and moved back to Lyndhurst at age six. She and her family spoke Spanish at home, but her parents stopped requiring her and her brother to do so when he encountered issues at school. She attended Lyndhurst High School.
As a child, Fumero enjoyed creating and performing plays, and began taking dance lessons. She expressed interest in acting after seeing Broadway's The Secret Garden at age ten. Her parents subsequently sent her to acting classes. She has said she enjoyed theater lessons because she and her classmates focused on performing rather than their physical appearances. She remained enrolled in dance and acting classes until her graduation. When she was accepted to New York University (NYU), which she called her "dream school", she thought she would be unable to attend due to the cost. To ensure she could attend, her parents spent much of their savings and took out many loans, and she moved back in with them until she moved to New York City at age 19. In 2003, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama.
Career
2004–2012: One Life to Live and other roles
Fumero felt ostracized when she began working in the entertainment business. She was only able to audition for certain roles. Hours after her final exam at NYU, she was offered the role of Adriana Cramer on the soap opera One Life to Live (OLTL), which she described as "the biggest redeeming moment". She joined the series on January 20, 2004, and reprised the role in two 2005 episodes of All My Children. She was set to leave the show shortly after her contract with OLTL expired in January 2008, but stayed until June 11; her final scenes were filmed in May. She returned to One Life to Live on several occasions between September 2008 and January 2011.
In 2008, she starred in Tiny Dancer as Ati, a 17-year-old who is persuaded to dance. For the role, she learned the character's Spanish Harlem accent—a task she found difficult—and extensively trained in stretching and yoga to perform the modern and contemporary dance. After One Life to Live, she expressed interest in performing comedy, and booked a role in Important Things with Demetri Martin for Comedy Central in 2009. The following years, she appeared in Gossip Girl, Royal Pains, The Mentalist, and CSI: NY.
2013–2020: breakthrough with Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Fumero's first starring role and breakthrough came in 2013, when she was cast in Fox's untitled comedy pilot as the female lead opposite Andy Samberg. The show's title was announced in April 2013 as Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It follows a group of New York Police Department detectives in Brooklyn's fictional 99th precinct. Fumero portrays the rule-following, competitive character Amy Santiago. To prepare, she and Brooklyn's cast received police and firearm training. Fumero is one of the show's two regular Latina cast members, the other being Stephanie Beatriz, who portrays Rosa Diaz. Fumero described this casting as groundbreaking, though the two feared one of them would be fired. Before the pilot was filmed, they decided to emphasise the differences in their appearances; Fumero straightened her hair while Beatriz made hers wavy. On September 17, 2013, Brooklyn Nine-Nine's pilot aired, garnering over six million viewers and positive reviews. The A.V. Club praised the contrasts between Samberg's and Fumero's acting styles, calling her "a real find". Reviews of the first season were also positive, and it received 5.2 million total viewers.
In May 2014, Fox renewed Brooklyn Nine-Nine for a second season that would air during the 2014–2015 television season. Its premiere, "Undercover", was well received by critics. Reception of Fumero's performance was positive; Collider lauded her comedic timing, drive, and vulnerability, while Entertainment Weekly found her acting convincing in a scene in which Amy tells Jake (Samberg) "[n]othing's going to happen" between them romantically. Journalists lauded the rest of the season and deemed the cast "winning". In 2015, the show's cast were nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Fumero's performance garnered her an Imagen Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress; she later received three more nominations for her work on the same show, including a win in 2022.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine's third season premiered in September 2015. Fumero said she found comic acting much easier, having become more familiar with Amy's character, and added she had "fallen into a real groove and rhythm" with her approach to scenes. Fumero was pregnant during the season's production, which led to a storyline in which Amy goes undercover as a pregnant woman. The directors and camera operators used methods such as positioning her behind objects to hide her pregnancy. Of the experience, she said, "I don't recommend it", citing difficulties memorizing her lines and focusing on scenes. Brooklyn's fourth and fifth seasons aired from September 2016 to May 2018; both seasons were acclaimed by critics, who continued to praise the ensemble.
2021–present: M.O.D.O.K and Blockbuster
In the animated series M.O.D.O.K., Fumero voiced Melissa Tarleton, the titular character's 17-year-old daughter who wants to gain his approval as a supervillain. When she auditioned, Fumero was not given any information about the show; she accepted the role when she learned Patton Oswalt would help develop and write the show, knowing it was "going to be hilarious". Of the show's premise, Fumero said: "I just thought that take was super fun and fresh to do a show from the point of view of a supervillain, to dive into what his family life could potentially be in this world of villains and supervillains." The show was released on May 21, 2021, to critical acclaim and particular praise for its cast. Commenting on Fumero's voice acting, Comic Book Resources said she "[brings Melissa] to life with just the right amount of teenaged moodiness".
Brooklyn Nine-Nine's eighth and final season began its broadcast on August 12, 2021, with the episodes "The Good Ones" and "The Lake House". Both episodes garnered positive reviews, with The A.V. Club praising Fumero as one of the "comedic centerpieces" of the former. Reviews of the season were mostly positive. Fumero compared the experience of leaving Brooklyn to high-school graduation:
[Y]ou're so proud that you did the thing and you reached this moment, but you're also so sad because deep down, you know all your friends are going to different colleges and you're never going to see them again. It's that mix of really proud and grateful.
After finishing Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Fumero was unsure whether she wanted to act in another workplace comedy. However, she was excited when she was given the script for Netflix's comedy Blockbuster, whose writer, Vanessa Ramos, Fumero had met on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and described as "one of the funniest people [she has] ever met". Fumero thought the script was "amazing" and accepted the role, partially because she wanted to work with Ramos and lead actor Randall Park. Fumero "immediately connected" to her character Eliza, a devoted mother who is experiencing difficulties with her marriage to her teenage boyfriend. Eliza, unlike Amy, felt lost. At first, Fumero felt nervous about portraying Eliza, who she wanted to ensure was a distinctive character. Blockbuster premiered on November 3, 2022. IGN described Fumero's performance as "engaging and sometimes passionate"; and Vanity Fair said the show's characters caused the actors to perform at "half speed".
Public image
Fumero appeared in The Hollywood Reporter's "Young Hispanic Hollywood Class of 2013". In 2016, Variety listed her as one of its "10 Latinos to Watch". Women's Health included her in a list of "50 Latina and Hispanic Actresses Who Are Changing Hollywood for the Better" in 2021.
Personal life
Fumero met actor and former model David Fumero, a fellow Cuban-American, on the set of One Life to Live. They became engaged in late 2006 and married in New Jersey on December 9, 2007. They have two sons, born March 24, 2016 and February 14, 2020.
On July 18, 2021, Fumero made an instagram post using the hashtag #SOSCuba which read "Cuban's [sic] are not protesting because of a lack of vaccines or the embargo as some sources are reporting. They're protesting to obtain freedom from a government that has starved, killed, and censored them for six decades."
