Alice Braga's Real Name: Alice Braga

Quick answer: Alice Braga is the name she was raised with and works under. A Library of Congress record gives her birth date as April 15, 1983, and her birthplace as São Paulo, Brazil, and L'Officiel also says she was born in São Paulo. Her mother, Ana, and her aunt, Sônia, are both Brazilian actors, which is why Braga is a famous screen surname in Brazil. Longer forms of her name circulate online, but no qualifying source supports them.

Real name and early life

L'Officiel says she "grew up on a movie set," following her mother and aunt into acting. She told the magazine that the arts were what she loved most and that her passion for acting came from that. Interview magazine says she was raised in São Paulo. Many members of her family work in film and television, including her sister, a producer.

In a 2016 conversation with actor Wagner Moura for Interview, Braga said she filmed City of God at 18, during her July school vacation. Afterward she went back to São Paulo, finished school, and started university studies in performing arts. She was 20 when she met Moura on the set of Lower City in 2003, which fits the 1983 birth year.

Career highlights

Her breakout role was Angélica in Fernando Meirelles's Oscar-nominated City of God, L'Officiel says. She told Interview that Lower City was a very important film for her.

She moved into Hollywood productions such as I Am Legend, Predators, and Elysium. She also appeared in Blindness, adapted from José Saramago's novel, a book she said she loved before she was cast.

In 2016 she began starring on USA's Queen of the South as Teresa Mendoza, a young woman who becomes a powerful drug trafficker. Interview says the series was based on Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel, and that Braga had read and loved the book eight years before she was offered the role. Interview notes that although the show is mostly in English, she is also fluent in Spanish.

L'Officiel says she later appeared in The New Mutants and played the revolutionary Sol Soria in The Suicide Squad. In Luca Guadagnino's HBO limited series We Are Who We Are, she played Maggie Teixeira, a military physician, opposite Chloë Sevigny. Interview says she owns a São Paulo production company, Los Bragas.

Name notes for searchers

Searches often pair Alice Braga with her aunt, Sônia Braga. The two are separate actors from the same family. Some online databases list a longer name, Alice Braga Moraes, but we did not find it in a qualifying source. The Library of Congress also describes her as a producer and director.