Lee Maria Perez

Height: 5'7"
Weight: 115 lbs.

Lee Maria Perez was born June 9, 1970, in Biloxi, Mississippi. The daughter of native Mexican immigrants, Perez was bilingual from an early age and volunteered as a translator for the local Red Cross in her teens. She began acting when she was twelve, and appeared in several roles with the Biloxi Children's Theatre.

Perez worked on the Red Cross staff for two years after high school before moving to Oxford in 1990 and matriculating at Ole Miss. During her undergraduate career, Perez majored in political science with a minor in economics. She continued her interest in theater, participating in several undergraduate productions, and spent a year abroad on scholarship exchange in Japan studying noh and kabuki traditions there. Upon graduating in 1995, Perez considered a career in the foreign service but eventually opted to pursue acting, enrolling in the graduate theatre studies department in the fall of 1996.

Perez' parents, Rosaria and Jose, moved to Biloxi from Mexico in 1963. Jose is an engineer at the U.S. Naval Base there, and Rosaria is part owner of a local bakery. Perez has a brother, Antonio, 30, an environmental consultant. He lives in Seattle.