Melissa Fumero On Her Road To Stardom and B99

Melissa Fumero is an American actress and director. She is mostly known for her role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine as Amy Santiago and as Adriana Cramer on One Life To Live.

Melissa sat down with ET Style for an ‘Unfiltered’ conversation about her road to stardom, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and other details of her life as she took off her makeup. Hence, Unfiltered.

Melissa Fumero’s Early Life

She revealed she’s originally from New Jersey. Her parents are Cuban but she was born in America. The town she grew up in since she was six mostly had immigrant parents. This is why she didn’t feel weird about her parents having rich accents because so many other parents did too. When Melissa found a dancing theater in her town, she was overjoyed. She spent all her years growing up there and felt like she had found a haven where she could unapologetically be herself.

Her Road To Success

Melissa Fumero described immigrant parents as two kinds. One who wants the stereotypical success for their kids, to be doctors and engineers and lawyers. And two, who just want their kids to be free and happy and have the courage to be whatever and whoever they want to be since they didn’t have that freedom themselves. Melissa Fumero has the second kind of parents which is why she was able to take acting and dancing classes growing up.

It was when she got her acceptance letter to NYU that it actually dawned on her parents that she’s serious about this and is even good enough to get in.

So they did whatever they could to send her there. And that’s when her career took off. She shot One Life To Live about 4 hours after her last exam of college. She paid off her student loans and met her future husband soon after.

And then Brooklyn Nine-Nine happened.

How Timing Worked Out For Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Melissa Fumero and her husband were having the ‘baby discussion’ on and off but kept putting it off. The universe decided they would never make a decision themselves and blessed them with a surprise pregnancy. It timed out brilliantly as her due date was 2 weeks after B99 was supposed to wrap up.

She revealed working while preggers was a little difficult. By that time, she was showing quite a lot so they had to find a way to write it in the show. And that’s when Amy Santiago went undercover as a pregnant lady.

The day her son was born was also the day B99 got picked up for another season. So everything worked out perfectly for Melissa Fumero.