Melissa Fumero

Many actors find the transition from drama to comedy difficult, but it was a challenge Melissa Fumero accepted with relish when she went from a featured role on "One Life to Live" (ABC, 1968-2012) to being Andy Samberg's comedic foil on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" (Fox, 2013-18; NBC 2018-2021). As it turned out, it was just one of a number of remarkable steps in Fumero's career, which almost literally began the day she finished college. Fumero was born Melissa Gallo on August 19, 1982 in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Her parents were high school sweethearts who fled from Cuba to the U.S. when they were teens. One of Fumero's interests was dance, and she had been dancing since she was a child, but she discovered her passion for acting when her parents took her to see "The Secret Garden" on Broadway when she was ten. New York University's prestigious drama department was her dream school, and her family was very supportive in her decision. Fumero graduated from NYU with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama in 2003. Amazingly, five hours after taking her last test, she received a call from her agent about appearing on the long-running soap opera "One Life to Live" (1968-2012). Fumero got the job, and appeared on the show as Adriana Cramer, the long-lost daughter of Dorian Cramer Lord, one of the soap opera's longest running characters. Fumero appeared on the show for four years, an impressive feat for her first professional job as an actress. "One Life To Live" was also very successful on the personal front for Fumero; she met her future husband, David Fumero, while they were acting together on the show. In addition to her years television," Fumero also starred in the movie "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" (2009), and made appearances on "The Mentalist" (CBS, 2008-15), "Gossip Girl" (CW, 2007-2012), and "CSI: New York" (CBS, 2004-2013). In 2013, Fumero moved to her first starring role in primetime as the female lead in the police squad room comedy "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," playing the uptight and ambitious detective Amy Santiago. A workplace comedy similar in tone to its creators' previous series "The Office" (NBC, 2005-2013) and "Parks and Recreation" (NBC, 2009-15), the series had a degree of realism usually unseen in a comedy; the cast went through police and firearm training prior to filming. Since then, Fumero played the voice of Sophie in the animated series "Velma" (Max, 2023- ), the voice of Bella in "Digman!" (Comedy, 2023- ) and she made an appearance on "Night Court" (NBC, 2023- ), a reboot of the sitcom with the same name that began airing in 1984.