The 38-year-old actress and her older sister Chimene grew up in Long Beach, California, with their Cuban oil worker father Emillio and their mother Billie. However, she said that her dad, who passed away in 2008, had always hoped to have a boy in the family.
She told The Mirror that he made up for it by doing boy-stuff with his daughters instead.
'My father wanted boys, so from a young age sports were always a big part of our lives,' she said.
She also credited her parents with having the confidence to go out and achieve her dreams.
'My parents were big on common sense and they always told my sister and I that we were capable of anything and there was nothing that we couldn't do if we really wanted to,' she said. 'I always felt confident that I could tackle the world.'