Who is Talisa Garcia? Transgender Baptiste actress who plays Kim Vogel
TALISA Garcia has made headlines across the nation after she got candid about her experience as a transgender woman.
Here's everything you need to know about her background, gender reassignment journey and more in our exclusive The Sun interview.
Who is Talisa Garcia?
Talisa, 45, is a Chilean-born British actress who grew up in Wales.
She was found in the streets of Chile as a baby and was adopted by a university lecturer and her engineer husband.
The family fled Chile in 1977 and eventually settled in Swansea.
She moved to London when she was 13 and tried to commit suicide as she couldn't bare being male.
She was sectioned and put on a psychiatric ward and says "it was the best thing that ever happened to me".
Later, she began her training at the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School.
In 1992, with the support of her parents, Talisa was able to have a full sex-change operation
In 2003, she completed her masters in acting at the Arts Educational School London.
It is since then that we have started seeing the star on our screens.
Is Talisa transgender?
Yes, on February 17, The Sun Online exclusively revealed that Talisa used to be a man named Joseph.
She had gender-reassignment surgery almost 28 years ago.
She took her new name after being inspired by Puerto Rican model and actress Talisa Soto, who was a Bond girl in 1989’s Licence To Kill.
Talisa said: “When I was a kid, everybody used to call me ‘boy girl’ and ‘sissy’. I used to wear lip gloss and I was the only boy in the school doing ballet. But no one ever picked on me. All the tough kids in school were my best friends.
“My parents said to me, ‘When you were three or four, we knew you were different.’ But they thought I was going to be a gay boy.
“When I was six or seven, I was playing with dolls. I didn’t want to cut my hair and I kept asking why the girls wore dresses but I had to wear shorts.”
As for her romantic life, she shared: "I always have men hitting on me. But I don’t say anything to them about myself.
“They’re going to start thinking of a million and one scenarios of what’s going on ‘down there’.
“They don’t know how good the operation is. When I’ve slept with men and after it’s gone a couple of months, I’ve told them. They’ve said, ‘It’s impossible, I’d know. No operation can do that.’ ”
What has she been in?
Talisa started her career in 2004 with some small nameless roles.
Her first big role was in Silent Witness when she played a guest character names Suzi Bradley.
She also played two characters in Doctors; one named Gabriela Da Silva in 2006 and another called Maria Perez in 2016.
Talisa's big breakout role was in BBC series Baptiste in which she plays the character Kim Vogel.
MOST READ IN TV & SHOWBIZ
What is her character Kim Vogel like and what is the show about?
Kim is a sophisticated woman who lives with a man besotted with her — but unaware she is trans.
The character holds the key to the disappearance of a girl in the underworld of Amsterdam.
The star admits that she got the role in BBC drama Baptiste partly because there is no hint that she used to be a male.
She said: "With a lot of the auditions for roles I’ve had in the past, they’ve always said to me I ‘wasn’t transgender enough’.
“But in Baptiste, you’re not meant to know that she is. She’s not the obvious transgender person.
“With transgender characters, it has always been the same — the 6ft tall builder with a wig tilted to the side. Thankfully we’ve moved on.”
She added: "Now, with getting Baptiste, I'm actually quite relieved that everyone knows. It's a big weight off my shoulders."