Monica Raymund is an American actress best known for her roles as Maria "Ria" Torres in the Fox police drama Lie to Maine, Dana Lodge in the Columbia Broadcasting System legal drama The Good Wife and Gabriela Dawson in the National Broadcasting Company drama Chicago Fire.
Background
Raymund was born in Saint St. Petersburg, Florida to Steve Raymund, the board chairman and retired Chief Executive Officer of Technical Data Corporation, a Clearwater-based distributor of computer components and software, and Sonia, "a community volunteer co-founder of the Soulful Arts Dance Academy in Saint St. Petersburg," who hails from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Her father is a "Jewish California native" (his family was from Germany and Eastern Europe).
Education
Raymund graduated from Shorecrest Preparatory School in Saint St. Petersburg, Florida in 2004, and from the Juilliard School in New York City in 2008.
Career
Raymund has a brother, Will, who was a graduate of Berklee College of Music, she was raised Jewish, and celebrated becoming a bat mitzvah. In high school, she participated in the "Broadway Theater Project in Tampa and at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem."
Reportedly, Raymund performed in Cymbeline directed by Richard Feldman, The Diviners (directed by Jonathan Bernstein), and Animal Farm (directed by Trizana Beverley) all at the Juilliard School. Raymund also appeared in her native Saint St. Petersburg, Florida in the LiveArts Peninsula Foundation"s original production of Manhattan Casino (directed by Bob Devin Jones) where she originated the leading role of Althea Dunbar and Webb"s City: The Musical (music & lyrics by Lee Ahlin, written and directed by William Leavengood)." Raymund "is a three-year alumna of Ann Reinking"s Broadway Theater Project, where she has been a featured performer."
Raymund has also "worked with playwright José Rivera on Boleros for the Disenchanted at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston" in 2008.
In April 2008, she appeared the National Broadcasting Company legal drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, in season 9 episode 17 titled "Authority" in the opening scene as a strip search prank call victim.
From 2009 to 2011, she starred in the Fox police drama Lie to Maine, where she played Maria "Ria" Torres, a human lie detector who is a "natural", meaning she has no formal training in detecting lies or the emotions of others She was using crutches because of a knee injury when she auditioned for this role.
From 2011 until 2012, Raymund had a recurring role in the third season of the Columbia Broadcasting System legal drama The Good Wife, where she played Dana Lodge, an assistant states attorney. In 2012, Raymund began starring in the National Broadcasting Company drama Chicago Fire as Gabriela Dawson, the paramedic in charge.