Daniela Vega

Daniela Vega Hernández (born June 3, 1989) is a Chilean actress and mezzo-soprano singer. She is best known for her critically acclaimed performance in the Academy Award-winning film A Fantastic Woman (2017). At the 90th Academy Awards in 2018, Vega became the first transgender person in history to be a presenter at the Academy Awards ceremony. In 2018, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Born on June 3, 1989 in San Miguel, Santiago Province, as the first child of Igor Alejandro Vega Inostroza and Sandra del Carmen Hernandez de la Cuadra. Vega began studying opera with her grandmother at the age of eight. Growing up, she attended an all-boys school where she was bullied. It was while she was attending the all-boys school in her teens that she realized she was transgender and began to transition. Her parents and younger brother Nicolás were supportive of her, despite the conservative nature of Chile at that time. Vega described suffering depression for the three years of transition due to the lack of opportunities in Chile to progress her education or express herself, but Vega's parents were supportive and her father encouraged her to go to beauty school, and later theater school.