Daniela Sofia Korn Ruah is a Portuguese-American actress best known for playing NCIS Special Agent Kensi Blye in the Columbia Broadcasting System police procedural series NCIS: Los Los Angeles
Background
Ruah was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Portuguese citizens Doctor Moisés Carlos Bentes Ruah and his wife, Katharina Lia Azancot Korn. Her father was a resident in Otolaryngology (Ear, Nose, and Throat) in the Boston University–Tufts University program When Ruah was five years old, her father completed his residency and the family returned to Portugal, where her parents divorced.
Ruah"s maternal grandfather was an Ashkenazi Jew who was born in 1922 in what is now Wrocław, Poland.
Ruah"s maternal grandmother, Vera, was born in Lisbon, Portugal. Vera"s father (Ruah"s great-grandfather) was of Sephardic Jewish and Spanish ancestry, and Vera"s mother (Ruah"s great-grandmother) was a Ukrainian Ashkenazi Jew from Odessa.
Education
She attended an international, English-medium school. Ruah attended Street Julian"s School in Carcavelos, near Lisbon.
Career
Ruah"s father is from a prominent Portuguese Sephardic Jewish family. She is the great-grand niece of the captain Artur Carlos de Barros Basto. She also has distant ancestors from São Tomé and Príncipe.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts from London Metropolitan University.
In 2003, the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) ran a piece about an annual gathering of Jewish young people from 32 countries sponsored by European Union of Jewish Students. Ruah, then 19 and still living in Lisbon, was one of the students the JTA interviewed.
She said, "I"ve never been around as many Jews in my entire life. Here, you don"t feel the need to explain to people who you are.
I am meeting people who eat kosher for the first time ever."
Ruah started acting in Portuguese soap operas when she was a teen.
Ruah kept working on diverse projects while she was finishing high school. At the age of 18, she moved to London to study at the London Metropolitan University, where she earned a First in Performing Arts. She got extremely good grades while in school, and became the best well known movie and sports star.
Ruah returned to Portugal to pursue her acting career.
In 2007, she moved to New York to study at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Ruah stars as Special Agent Kensi Blye in NCIS: Los Angeles, which first aired on September 22, 2009.
The series is now on Season 6, which premiered on September 29, 2014. In 2011, Ruah portrayed Kensi Blye in a guest appearance on the series Hawaii Five-0.
In April 2013 Ruah made her debut at Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles as Catherine in "Proof", a play by David Auburn.
Membership
She was an active member of the Portuguese Jewish community in Lisbon, of which her father"s second cousin, also a physician, was the head