Carmelo began her career as a native dancer and musician, recording 3 CDs with Canyon Records. She honed her acting craft in a myriad of professional theater productions, and is a member of the LA based professional theater company Native Voices, most recently as Lisa Yellowtree in the world premiere production of Carbon Black.
Her maternal native ancestry comes from the original people of Southern California (Tongva and Kumeyaay) and her musical gifts come from her father, who is a professional Latin musician. She received her BA from UC Irvine in Environmental Anaysis and Design with a minor in Dance.
She established herself as a leading actress with her break-out performance as Thunder Heart Woman in the Emmy-winning Steven Spielberg miniseries Into the West, and made her mark as a motion-capture/voice-over artist playing the villainous Kendra Daniels in the EA Game franchise Dead Space, which sold over two million copies. She is an award-winning and multifaceted actor who is cast in Westerns, Sci-fi, and everything in between.
Highlights for Carmelo this year include three feature films: Child of Grace, Medicine Men, and Entertainment, where she plays opposite John C. Reilly. She adds to her voice-over credits by taking on the lead role of Roxanne in Ubisoft’s The Crew. Carmelo also topped the “The Hot List” of must-see native actors in the national news publication Indian Country today.
Her diverse body of work includes lead and supporting roles in over a dozen indie features films, most notably in the festival favorites Imprint, Unearthed, and Shouting Secrets. Carmelo has a background in theater and took the stage as Victoria Roubideaux in Eventide at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and as Ms. Yellowtree in Carbon Black at Native Voices at the Autry. Her prime-time television guest-starring credits include CSI, Dragnet, and Dark Blue and American Dad!.
Along the way she has garnered numerous awards and nominations including a coveted Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in Dreamworks’ Into the West; Best-Actress awards and nominations for Imprint at the Hoboken International Film Festival (nomination), American Indian Film Festival (two nominations, and one win), and many others. Maxim Magazine also named her character Kendra Daniels on a list for the Hottest Video Game Babes of the year.
In her spare time she sings lead and back up vocals with the band Trio Del Alma.
