Lela Loren

  Lela Loren is an American television and film actress. Known for her leading role as Angela Valdes on the Starz television series, Power, Loren notes in interview that it took time to land her first audition, and that her early roles were in The Shield, Gang Related, and shows of the CSI franchise. Further television roles followed, including in Cold Case, and Ghost Whisperer,[not verified in body] and she went on to film roles, including in The Hangover Part III and Reign Over Me. [not verified in body] In 2019, Loren joined the second season of the Netflix science fiction series, Altered Carbon as a series regular, playing the character of Danica Harlan.Loren was born Maria Loren Avellaneda Sharp on May 7, 1980, in Sacramento, California. She has one sibling,an older brother, Daniel Sharp, who is the executive chef at a small restaurant in New York City.Her mother is of Mexican descent, received her college degree in her 40s, and became a teacher; her father, an American, was working as an economist at the time he married her mother.She spent her childhood in Sacramento, California, and later, in suburban Sacramento, although spending summers in an area of her mother's heritage, in Mexico. Loren has stated that, despite her mom being from Michoacan, Mexico, she did not learn Spanish until she was 10 years old, and that doing so helped her to communicate with relatives when she would return to the village from which her mother came. From early childhood, Loren had surrounded herself with an array of pets, and had intended a career in biology. Loren went to an all-girls' high school, where she was a member of a men's rowing team.