Laysla de Oliveira's passions have always spilled over into her personal life. And now, as the star in the newest Paramount+ series, Special Ops: Lioness, Cruz Manuelos, her character blurs those lines as well.
Creator Taylor Sheridan, the genius behind theYellowstone franchise, is delving into the secretive world of undercover operations. The first two episodes premiered July 23rd, with the next episodes following weekly.
Based on an actual U.S. military program, Special Ops: Lioness follows CIA agent Joe (Zoe Saldaña) as she works to recruit a former Marine into a critical undercover mission. Cruz must work behind the scenes and without detection to befriend the daughter of a suspected terrorist in order to prevent the next September 11th attack.
The CIA and the White House are staffed with a star-studded, award-winning cast, including Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Kelly. But the show is anchored by the relationship between Joe and Cruz - the two women who must fight their way out of dangerous situations without the help of their government.
But who is the relative Hollywood newcomer, Laysla de Oliveira, the woman behind the intense and hot-headed former Marine?
Here's everything we know about the Brazilian-Canadian actress:
Still Dreaming
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Though she didn't know it at the time, De Oliveira's entire life was preparing her for the silver screen.
As a child, she charged people to watch her lip-synch Britney Spears songs - costume changes included.
"My mom would have these dinner parties and I would charge her guests, wouldn't let them in the house unless they paid one or two dollars because it was dinner and a show," De Oliveira told the Toronto Star.
She was the only member of her family born in Canada, after her parents immigrated from Brazil to the Great White North. But on her visits to Brazil, her grandmother would tell her she'd be an actress while they watched telenovelas.
In school, De Oliveira says she had to try to balance between her two identities. She was viewed as too Canadian in Brazil and too Brazilian in Canada, so she often felt like she was performing.
The future actress began actually performing when she was discovered by a model talent agency on the street when she was 14 years old. But she couldn't get acting out of her head. As a teenager, De Oliveira studied dance and drama at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts. Her drama teacher pulled her aside once and asked if she'd ever considered acting as a career, which sealed her path.
High school turned to college, where she became a theater major at the former Ryerson University (now the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Performance). But she never made it to graduation.
Before her third year, De Oliveira was offered a small acting job that would've begun the first week of classes. She elected to ditch her education for the real thing and dropped out of school. Unfortunately, right before shooting started, her role was cut.
But all hope wasn't lost. She managed to secure a guest spot as Johanna Peeters in one episode of the spy series Covert Affairs.
De Oliveira's first role kick-started a wave of small roles, one-liners and guest spots on a number of Canadian and American television shows, including the CW thriller Nikita and the CW sci-fi series iZombie.
But these were infrequent and didn't always amount to a full-time job. She started bartending in Toronto to save money so she could move to Los Angeles, with the hopes of proving herself in Hollywood.
"Acting is so challenging because it takes a really long time to be fulfilled that way and be paid to do so," she told Women's Wear Daily in 2020.
To De Oliveira, her career in acting became more cemented when she booked the lead role as Becky DeMuth in the Netflix Stephen King adaptation In the Tall Grass (2019).
"I started off with small parts and although they were really fun, they weren't really artistically fulfilling because they were smaller. And so it was hard to really sink my teeth into them," she said to Women's Wear Daily. "It wasn't until I booked In the Tall Grass for Netflix actually that I started to be like, 'Wow, this is exactly where I want to be and what I want to be doing.'"
De Oliveira also got to challenge her acting chops when she earned the role of an incarcerated high school teacher, Veronica, who fights against her father's efforts to free her in Guest of Honour (2019).
However, it wasn't until she nailed the role of the villainous Echo/Dodge in the hit Netflix comic-book-adaptation series Locke & Key that her Hollywood stardom reached entirely new heights. The actress considers that her first "big girl part."
"When people see me they think I'm very nice," she told Women's Wear Daily. "So, I just wanted to go outside my comfort zone and see what being bad looks like on me. It's nice not to be the Goody-Two shoes."
But Special Ops: Lioness has still been De Oliveira's biggest undertaking yet.
Every Actor's Dream
Greg Lewis/Paramount+Manuelos
De Oliveira says she cried "like a little baby" when Sheridan told her she earned the part of the tough ex-Marine on his latest project, Special Ops: Lioness.
She had flown to Montana to audition for Sheridan in person on the set of Yellowstone between scenes but had no idea if she was right for the part.
The Canadian actress says she was intimidated by the extreme physical demands of the role since she considered herself a "yoga girl" and had never held a gun before.
But ever committed to her work, De Oliveira immediately started an intense regimen of training and weight-lifting. She learned hand-to-hand combat at an LA gym called Unbreakable and worked with an ex-Navy SEAL to monitor her diet and undergo weapons training and stunt training.
"He was basically responsible for turning me into a badass," she said to Toronto Life.
But to her, all the work was worth it when she walked onto set the first day to meet some of her A-list idols...who were also now her co-workers. De Oliveira told Toronto Life that before her first scene opposite Kidman, the Oscar winner complimented her work, "at which point my soul left my body. Now I call her Nicole, which is just unbelievable."
Saldaña plays De Oliveira's boss, and Kidman plays Saldaña's boss - forming a rare combination of three women in high-ranking military and government positions.
"I love that we have three generations of alpha powerhouse females, and their relationship with each other is so great to watch," she said to TV Insider.
De Oliveira says that not only did she love the script, but she also got to learn first-hand from all the talent on set.
"I call this job the gift that keeps on giving," she said to ET Canada. "Not only did I get to explore such a beautifully dynamic, written character by Taylor Sheridan, that is every actor's dream, I got to do it with my idols, and I feel like I got paid to take a master class and they were all so lovely, so encouraging and really cheered me on. I just feel so incredibly lucky to be here."
On top of her franchise-fronting co-stars, De Oliveira told the Toronto Star that Special Ops: Lioness was one of the most artistically fulfilling experiences she's had thus far.
"There aren't many roles that are written for women that are this gritty," she said. "And I love Cruz so much because she is badass onscreen, and she's so vulnerable, and playing the range of the two is something that really excited me."
Part of the challenge of the role is that Cruz's character comes from a dark and troubled past, which she's both trying to reconcile and move past.
"Cruz is somebody that's very tough on the exterior and very vulnerable as well," De Oliveira said to TV Insider. "She's very sensitive, and, as the show progresses, she really starts to discover that about herself and she is trying to figure out who she is in that space."
If the success of Sheridan's past shows are any indication, Special Op: Lioness could launch De Oliveira into becoming a household name. But she's not that worried about fame. De Oliveira says she just wants to stay focused on her true passion.
"I love acting so much. I love pouring my heart out there," she said to the Toronto Star. "I love creating thought and emotion for people. I love helping people escape or helping people relate. But that requires work and I love doing that work. It's very satisfying to me."
