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Lana María Parrilla (born July 15, 1977) is an American actress, known for her roles on Spin City, 24, Windfall, Swingtown and Miami Medical. From 2002-2003, she starred in the critically acclaimed but short lived crime drama Boomtown. She currently stars as The Evil Queen/Regina Mills in the ABC series Once Upon a Time.

Parrilla was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of a Sicilian mother and a Puerto Rican father Sam Parrilla, a baseball player who played professionally for 11 seasons (1963-1973) including one season with the Major League Philadelphia Phillies in 1970 as an outfielder.   Lana speaks Spanish because she went to Granada (Spain) to learn the language in 2007.

Career

Parrilla has had roles in several movies, including Very Mean Men (2000), Spiders (2000), Replicant (2001) and Frozen Stars (2003). She was first noticed in the mainstream when she joined the cast of Spin City in 2000, playing Angie Ordonez for one season.   Parrilla at the 2012 Comic-Con in San Diego.

After that she joined Donnie Wahlberg and Neal McDonough in the 2002 series Boomtown, for which she received the Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actress, in which she played Teresa, a paramedic. Initially a success, Boomtown began to struggle, and Lana’s character became a police academy rookie, so as to tie her more closely to the rest of the show. That program was cancelled just two episodes into its second season.

Parrilla guest-starred in shows such as JAG, NYPD Blue and Six Feet Under. In 2005, Parrilla took a recurring guest role on the fourth season of 24 as Sarah Gavin, a Counter Terrorist Unit agent. After just six episodes, Lana was promoted to a main cast member, but in the thirteenth episode, she was written out after her character tried to blackmail a promotion from temporary CTU head Michelle Dessler (Reiko Aylesworth).

In 2006, Parrilla starred in the NBC summer series Windfall alongside Luke Perry, fellow former 24 cast member Sarah Wynter, and Parilla’s former Boomtown castmate Jason Gedrick.   In 2007, Parrilla guest starred as a character called Greta in the third season episodes of ABC’s Lost, “Greatest Hits” and “Through the Looking Glass”   In 2008, she starred on the Lifetime movie The Double Life of Eleanor Kendall, in which she played Nellie, a divorcee whose identity has been stolen.

In June 2008, she starred in the CBS summer series Swingtown as Trina Decker, a woman who is part of a swinging couple.

In 2010, Parrilla starred in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Miami Medical on CBS, which had a short run towards the end of the 2009–10 television season before being canceled in July 2010. From 2010 to 2011 she made many guest appearances of TV shows, such as Covert Affairs, Medium, The Defenders and Chase.

Parrilla stars as The Evil Queen/Regina Mills in the ABC adventure fantasy television series, Once Upon a Time, which debuted in October 2011. Her performance received positive reviews.

Personal Life

Parrilla became engaged to boyfriend Fred Di Blasio on April 28, 2013 while in Israel.