Evincing a charismatic screen presence that recalled a female version of Marlon Brando, Michelle Rodriguez became an overnight star as Diana Guzman, a troubled high school senior who builds self-esteem and discovers her calling as a boxer in the affecting Sundance entry "Girlfight" (2000). After a somewhat peripatetic childhood that saw her family move from Texas to her mother's native Dominican Republic to her father's home of Puerto Rico, she and her family finally settled in Jersey City, New Jersey. Rodriguez dropped out of high school (eventually earning her GED) and passed her time landing extra work in movies filmed in NYC (like "Cradle Will Rock" and "Summer of Sam", both 1999). Answering an advertisement for an open casting to play a woman boxer, she almost didn't land her breakthrough role. Having Rollerbladed to the audition with a self-confessed "pessimistic attitude", Rodriguez failed to impress director Karyn Kusama with her audition. In fact, the filmmaker was dead set against hiring the aspiring actress whom she felt projected a lousy attitude. Kusama's producer and a casting agent intervened on Rodriguez's behalf and persuaded the director to reconsider and eventually Kusama relented. For her part, Rodriguez more than proved her mettle, delivering a star-making turn as the feisty, sexy Diana.

Having become the "It Girl" of the indie world when "Girlfight" debuted at Sundance in 2000, Rodriguez watched her stock rise. No longer relegated to extra work, she was courted for major roles. Rodriguez followed up playing a tough cabby in the 2001 Sundance entry "3 A.M." (which aired on Showtime) and then co-starred as a driver in "The Fast and the Furious" (2001), about a rookie cop who infiltrates a race team suspected of participating in a jewel heist. The rising star then landed two lead roles in 2002. She was seen in in the action thriller "Resident Evil" a feature based on the popular video game and in "Blue Crush", the first surfing movie of the new millennium.