Best known to U.S. moviegoers as Coco, the illegal Mexican immigrant who crosses the border illicitly to find herself at the mercy of an exploitative capitalist system (and face to face with the "kill floor"), in Richard_Linklater's ambitious Fast_Food_Nation (2006), onscreen performer Ana Claudia Talancon actually made her first major cinematic splash several years prior. At age 18, Talancon landed the female lead in Jose Buil and Marisa_Sistach's period romantic drama El_Cometa (1999). This role made producers take note of the blossoming actress, and numerous projects followed, including the female lead in Carlos_Carrera's critically worshipped The Crime of Padre Amaro (2002) -- as a fiery Latina who leads a Mexican priest down the wayward path. Nation, of course, represented Talancon's stateside breakthrough, and though the film itself reeled in only limited returns, the actress held her own opposite such A-listers as Greg_Kinnear and Ethan_Hawke -- no small feat for a neophyte. More importantly, Talancon's work on this picture helped open the door to several additional prestigious projects, notably a supporting role in Mike_Newell's lyrical romance Love in the Time of Cholera (2007).