Paloma Garcia-Lee

Paloma Garcia-Lee is an American actress and dancer born on April 26, 1991, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was raised in Newtown, Pennsylvania, where she attended St. Andrew's Catholic School through the fifth grade before transitioning to homeschooling following the September 11 attacks. Her mother, Terri Garcia, a former Broadway dancer who performed as Francisca in a touring production of West Side Story, trained Garcia-Lee in ballet from an early age. At 14, Garcia-Lee enrolled at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts to study ballet, later shifting her focus to drama and graduating from the School of Drama in 2008. While at UNCSA, she performed in a production of West Side Story in the role of Graziella. During her summers, she trained with dance companies including the American Ballet Theatre and Complexions Contemporary Ballet.

Garcia-Lee made her Broadway debut at 17 in The Phantom of the Opera in 2008, launching a stage career that would span more than a decade. Her subsequent Broadway credits include Nice Work If You Can Get It, On the Town, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Moulin Rouge!. Her Broadway work extended through 2022.

Beyond the stage, Garcia-Lee appeared in the 2019 FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon. She was cast as Graziella in Steven Spielberg's theatrical film adaptation of West Side Story, a role she actively pursued given both her own and her mother's histories with the musical. She auditioned for the part in the fall of 2018 and secured it in November of that year. Garcia-Lee had previously been considered for the role of Graziella when the musical was revived on Broadway in 2009, and she had declined offers to play Mugsy and Anybodys in other productions in order to remain available for the Graziella role. In 2022, she was announced as part of the cast of the science fiction romantic comedy Molli and Max in the Future, which premiered at the 2023 South by Southwest festival. Her television work in 2024 included appearances in Elsbeth, Doctor Odyssey, and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. That same year, she performed in a production of Nine at the Kennedy Center in August.

Garcia-Lee is married to actor Paul A. Schaefer, with whom she practiced an open marriage.