A Miami native, Alexa PenaVega is an actress and a singer. Her career began as a young girl in 1996, when she starred as Jo Harding in the hit film Twister. After that, she guest-starred in various television shows and films such as “The Bernie Mac Show,” “ER” and “Ghost Whisperer.” The movie that catapulted her to worldwide fame was the 2001 film Spy Kids, in which she starred as Carmen Cortez. After the enormous success of that movie there were two sequels: Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3D: Game Over, as well as the 2011 reprisal, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World. PenaVega went on to appear in many other films such as Sleepover, State’s Evidence, Odd Girl Out, Walkout, Remember the Daze, Repo! The Genetic Opera, and The Pregnancy Project.
While PenaVega has an impressive movie filmography, she has also had massive success in other areas of the entertainment industry. She played Penny in Hairspray on Broadway, had TV roles in shows such as “Ruby & the Rockits” and “Big Time Rush,” appeared in the video for Aerosmith’s “Legendary Child” and was a contestant on Season 21 of “Dancing with the Stars.” PenaVega is also a singer – over the course of her Spy Kids career she contributed three songs to the various movie soundtracks (“Isle of Dreams,” “Game Over” and “Heart Drive”). She also sang “Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You” for Walt Disney Records’ compilation album Songs to Celebrate the 25 Days of Christmas in 2009. She is the voice of Carlota Casagrande in the animated series “The Loud House,” and its spinoff “The Casagrandes.”
PenaVega has starred with her real-life husband, Carlos PenaVega, in three installments of “Picture Perfect Mysteries.” She has also starred in the Hallmark Channel Original movies “Destination Wedding,” “Enchanted Christmas” and “Christmas Made to Order.” Over the past few years, she has been seen in movies such as 23 Blast, Machete Kills, Bounty Killer, Wicked Blood, The Remaining and The Hunter.
PenaVega has been happily married to Carlos PenaVega since 2014. The PenaVegas have two sons, Ocean and Kingston. In her spare time, she enjoys gymnastics and freshwater fishing.
