Daniela Ruah is a Portuguese-Sephardic-Jewish American-born actress. She was raised in Portugal. She recently played Kensi Blye in the two part NCIS episode "Legend", which was the pilot for a new series, NCIS: Los Angeles, which premiered in September 2009.
She has a birthmark in her eye giving her one hazel eye and one black. She speaks both Portuguese and English and Ladino(Spanish-Yiddish) fluently.
Daniela,a Portuguese actress, was born in Boston, Massachusetts and lived in the United States until she was 5. She attended St. Julian's School in Portugal, where she grew up.
She started her career in Portugal. Her first acting role came at the age of 16, when she auditioned for a television series Jardins Proibidos, and cast for the role of Sara. She kept working on diverse projects, as well as finishing high school. At the age of 18 moved to London, England to do a B.A. in Performing Arts at the London Metropolitan University. Having finished with a first class Honors, Daniela returned to Portugal to pursue more work. She was given principal roles in television series, short films, theatre and in 2007 moved to New York to study at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and pursue her career.
NCIS: Los Angeles, a spin-off of NCIS, sees a team of highly trained agents working in undercover surveillance at the Office of Special Projects (OSP), a division of NCIS. The show was introduced during a two-part episode of NCIS, named Legend (Part 1) and Legend (Part 2). Daniela starred as Kensi Blye, a Special Agent in the Office of Special Projects. This role will be reprised when NCIS: Los Angeles premieres on September 22, at 9:00pm, on CBS, following NCIS at 8:00pm.
Ruah will star alongside LL Cool J, Chris O'Donnell, Peter Cambor, Linda Hunt and Adam Jamal Craig. Rocky Carroll, who plays Director Leon Vance of NCIS will appear in at least 6 of the first 13 episodes. Pauley Perrette, who stars as Abby Sciuto in the original NCIS series, will appear in 2 episodes.
