Carolina Miranda Mario Alzate/@marioalzatee The snow-capped peaks of the Swiss Alps glow in the afternoon light. Carolina Miranda is on a break between productions, hiking through the valleys, already thinking about what comes next: at least four projects waiting for her back in Mexico before the year is out.
It’s a long way from Irapuato, the small city in Guanajuato where she grew up, and even further from the TV Azteca hallway where, two months into acting school, she stumbled into an audition that would change her life.
“At first, I told them I didn’t know how to act, that I had only been studying for two months; but then I thought, ‘Let’s do it,'” she recalls.
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That instinct has defined her career. In 2025, Miranda returned as Camila Román in the second season of Perfil Falso, one of Netflix‘s most acclaimed series, followed by El hilo rojo and Velvet: El nuevo imperio. She has an International Emmy nomination to her name, a Gracie Award on her shelf and a body of work that spans telenovelas, prestige streaming drama and theater. She has also, by her own account, tried to quit acting at least three times.
Miranda didn’t grow up dreaming of the screen. Her mother saw something in her — “You have the talent of an actress; you have to perform at festivals,” she would repeat — but it wasn’t until after high school that Miranda left Irapuato for Mexico City to enroll at CEFAT, TV Azteca’s acting school.
“[I] stayed there for nearly four years. I began working on projects while continuing my studies, and honestly, living on my own, getting to know the city and starting from scratch was very challenging, though also deeply rewarding. I never imagined this would become my way of life. It wasn’t until I worked on Los Rey, my first project, that I realized I didn’t want to step away from this career,” she says.
It nearly ended before it began. Homesick and stretched thin financially, she was on her way to thank the school directors and tell them she was leaving when they stopped her with news: She had landed a role in Los Rey, her first telenovela, opposite Ofelia Medina and Fernando Luján.
She decided to stay — though the project tested her immediately. A month before filming began, she dislocated her kneecap in an accident. She rushed through rehab to make the start date.
“I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I started rehab and, so to speak, I broke my knee just to start the telenovela as soon as possible. Since then, I’ve been trying to escape acting, and it just won’t let me go,” she says with a laugh.
After Los Rey, Miranda auditioned for another TV Azteca project. Two days before filming was set to begin, she was replaced. She moved to Veracruz, convinced acting wasn’t for her.
Then came Señora Acero.
“Many times we get frustrated, but when we learn to believe in destiny and that everything happens for a reason, life becomes lighter and we make better decisions in our careers. Now I have 15 years of experience. Señora Acero changed my life; when I was in Colombia, I wanted to return to Mexico because I had already spent so much time away. … I’m always trying to run away and yet, somehow, destiny is so clearly drawn that it brings me back to where I belong, and I’m infinitely grateful.”
Carolina Miranda (right) in Señora Acero. Courtesy of Telemundo The Telemundo series, which premiered in September 2014, began as the story of a housewife who becomes a drug trafficker to protect her family. When Miranda joined in the third season, she took over the title role, playing Vicenta Acero — known as “La Coyota” — a young woman who helps migrants cross the U.S.-Mexico border. She would go on to star in more than 245 episodes.
“I wouldn’t say it’s the most important role of my career, because I’ve had many, and I also wouldn’t want to think that I’ve already done it; I want more,” she says. “Señora Acero propelled my career internationally; the series aired for three seasons in the United States and throughout Latin America. It gave me the opportunity to take on my first leading role. The writer, Roberto Stopello, was fully committed, fighting to make me his Señora Acero; the production wanted someone with more recognition and greater exposure. I had nothing, and he bet on me until the very end.”
From that point on, Miranda threw herself into her work with what she calls “tears of blood.” More productions followed, including ¿Quién mató a Sara? — the Netflix thriller that hit number one worldwide — in which she played Elisa Lazcano across three seasons.
“That project boosted my career — it was crazy,” she notes.
Among all her roles, one stands apart. In Mujeres asesinas, the Mexican adaptation of an Argentine series about women driven to commit murder by circumstance and social pressure, Miranda played Esmeralda: a law student seduced into addiction and eventually drawn into a criminal organization.
The preparation was intense. Each day before filming, Miranda sat for between three and five hours while makeup artists applied full-body tattoos, bruises and scars. Determined to achieve a physical transformation comparable to Charlize Theron’s in Monster, she listened exclusively to metal music between home and set and kept conversation on set to a minimum.
“I completely deconstructed myself and made people stop seeing me as a pretty girl. Instead, I became a woman with many problems, with deep inner pain, and completely broken. There are many tools you can use to transform yourself — we are beings who come equipped that way from the start, but in the end, actors are made for change, and in Latin America we need to believe in that more. We can create new characters, not just fall into the clichés or stereotypes we carry as individuals. I wouldn’t say it’s easy to portray, but it is more comfortable. Mujeres Asesinas was a challenge but also a gift,” she says.
It took 20 days after filming wrapped — along with meditation and therapy — before she felt fully herself again.
“I had to undergo several meditation sessions and psychological therapy to find peace and, at the same time, regain my physical presence, because I had adopted nervous and guttural tics,” she says. “That’s how I came to understand that everything was fine and that the fiction did not belong to me.”
The performance earned her a Gracie award for best non-English language performance in mid-2025 and, five months later, an International Emmy nomination for best actress.
For all her ease on camera, Miranda says she still suffers from stage fright — a confession that surprises people who know her.
“No one believes me,” she says, amused. “They think it’s not true because I’ve worked as a voiceover artist and a host. When I’m in the theater, I suffer a lot, but I know it gives you the best sensations when you see the audience so close — applauding, crying, laughing and reacting with surprise to your work. It’s the most genuine and rewarding connection there is. To this day, whenever I attend a play, I feel an overwhelming urge to cry when the entire audience stands up and applauds. It doesn’t compare to a thousand comments on social media.”
Her audience, she notes, is largely women — something she takes seriously.
“In general, my audience is made up of women, something that fills me with pride, love and a great sense of responsibility,” she says. “You have to be very conscious, especially on social media, of what you say, do and communicate [and] of the messages you convey and how much negativity you might foster.
In the end, your followers are watching you all the time, and you become a role model. I love that my audience is made up of women because I’ve always fought for them, long before becoming an actor. It’s a huge responsibility to be aware of what we are teaching society through our actions, the way we respond and how we handle our problems.”
This year, Miranda is waiting on the premiere of the third season of Perfil Falso, which she describes as one of the most challenging yet. She’ll also appear in Memorias de un sinvergüenza, a dramedy filmed in Colombia with ¿Quién mató a Sara? co-star Manolo Cardona, and begins a new, undisclosed project in April.
Miranda says her role in Perfil Falso is one of the most challenging yet. Courtesy of Netflix Before all of that, audiences will see her play a younger version of the late Mexican screen legend Silvia Pinal in the documentary film El escandaloso encanto de los egos rotos.
“It was beautiful to film this project and have the opportunity to portray Silvia in her youth. I was fortunate enough to speak with her; it was surreal to take on the role of a woman like that, drawing from who she was and her own life story. It was a brief appearance but a very meaningful one. A month after I finished filming, Silvia passed away,” she shares.
After 15 years, Miranda has stopped trying to map out where her career is headed. She chooses projects by instinct — a first read that gives her goosebumps, a character she can already hear speaking before she’s said yes.
“I can’t forget that before I wasn’t dedicated to this, and that in the future I might not be either. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop being someone. That’s something artists must always keep in mind, because it’s very difficult when projects are no longer consistent. You can’t lose yourself and feel that you no longer have value just because you’re not working in this. It can’t represent everything in your life.”
For now, though, the work keeps coming. And Carolina Miranda, as usual, keeps showing up.
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