Catalina Hernandez

Catalina Hernandez
Catalina Sofia Hernandez
Born	Catalina Sofia Hernandez (1989-05-11) May 11, 1989 New York, United States
Citizenship	American British
Alma mater	Princeton University (B.Des.)
Occupation	Model Actress
Years active	2012 - Present
Parent(s)	Julian Hernandez (Father) Catherine, Princess Royal (Mother)
Modeling information
Height	5 ft 7 in (170 cm)
Hair color	Brown
Eye color	Dark brown
Agency	IMG Models

Catalina Hernandez (Catalina Sofia Hernandez; born 11 May 1989) is a British-American model and actress, and a member of the British royal family.

The eldest but illegitimate child of Catherine, Princess Royal, Hernandez largely grew up at her mother's family residence of Wales House in Albany, New York. She later began her career in modelling at the age of twenty-one. Initially, she took to posing for a number of fashion magazines, including Vogue, InStyle, and Harper's Bazaar, while concurrently modelling for designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace, and Anna Sui. However, beginning in 2012, Hernandez began achieving international fame as a Victoria's Secret model, thereby following in the footsteps of her supermodel mother. Exactly two years later, she was officially made a Victoria's Secret Angel, which further propelled her to international stardom. On May 2018, she formally departed Victoria's Secret, and has since been mostly modelling for her own mother's clothing line, Bold Royal Designs, for which she is a leading model.

Meanwhile, Hernandez has also built a relatively successful acting career, beginning with her debut role, albeit a minor one as Erica Albright in the 2010 film, The Social Network. The following year, she would earn her first major role as the titular character in the 2011 film, Hanna, in which she played a trained female assassin, a role which won her a Best Young Performer award for her performance in the film. In 2013, she voiced the 17 year old teenager, Mary Katherine "M.K." Bomba in Epic, and the anti-heroine, Catwoman in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Most recently, she played the role of Catherine of Valois the 2019 epic war film, The King, which despite being an overall success, was met with considerable controversy due to Hernandez's portrayal of the historically white French queen consort as a Latina woman herself.

Early Life

Hernandez was born on 11 May 1989 at the royal family residence of Wales House in New York, United States. The daughter of an American taxi driver, Julian Hernandez, and Catherine, Princess Royal, a member of the British royal family, she was the eldest-born child of the Princess Royal and the third overall child on her father's side. Named Catalina Sofia Hernandez upon her birth, her given name is a Spanish variation of her mother's name, Catherine, while her middle name otherwise belonged to that of her father's wife, Ana Sofia Cavarron. Meanwhile, since her mother lacked a proper surname of her own, she was instead given her father's own surname, Hernandez.

Despite being the daughter of a member of the British royal family, Hernandez was never included in the British line of succession (although she was later welcomed into the family herself), with the primary reason being the fact that she had been born out of wedlock, as a result of a longstanding affair between the Princess Royal and Hernandez's father. Then, coupled with the fact that her own father has consistently been of the Catholic faith, Hernandez's rights to succeed to the throne were thus deemed invalid as per the Royal Marriages Act 1772. However, even with a subsequent amendment of the aforementioned Act, which granted the rights of succession to the throne to those born to a Catholic partner, Hernandez's lifelong status as an illegitimate child would ultimately prevent her from ever succeeding to the throne under any possible circumstances.

Nonetheless, for the next seven years of her life, Hernandez would live largely with both of her parents in New York, during which time, she was often carefully shielded away from the media as a result of her mother's considerable popularity. Then, at the age of seven, when her mother, whom upon her marriage to husband, Alex Atkinson, opted to move back to the United Kingdom, there was some initial debate over whether the young Hernandez would also follow suit to live with her mother or otherwise continue to grow up in the United States under the sole care of her father. Ultimately, the latter option was picked, with Catherine, in response to the decision, promising to come back to New York to visit her daughter on a fixed schedule agreed upon by both the princess and her lover.

For her education, Hernandez was first enrolled at a primary school in none other than New York itself, before being subsequently enrolled in a secondary school, which was also located in the US state. Described by most of her teachers as "somewhat remarkably intelligent despite initial assumptions that she would be a 'all look, no brains' just like her mother", Hernandez was said to have been a straight-A student at both her primary and secondary schools, which ultimately allowed her to enroll at the prestigious Princeton University, for which the financial costs were largely handled by her own mother. Then, she would go on to graduate from the university with a bachelor's degree in design.