Why Sloane From The Umbrella Academy Season 3 Looks So Familiar

In late 2020, Netflix announced that its superhero comic book adaptation "The Umbrella Academy" would be returning for Season 3. Where the story of "The Umbrella Academy" Season 2 left off, the members of the titular Umbrella Academy had just come in contact with an alternate reality version of their group called the Sparrow Academy.

A few months after Season 3's confirmation, the roster of actors who would be joining the show to portray the members of the Sparrow Academy was revealed. Since the Sparrow Academy is an alternate reality version of the Umbrella Academy, each member of the main series cast now essentially has a counterpart in the lineup of new cast members. The Umbrella Academy's Number Five is portrayed by Aidan Gallagher. His superpower is time travel. The Sparrow Academy's Number Five is named Sloane, who has the power to control gravity at a local level. She can manipulate the gravity around herself and others, which gives her the ability to fly.

The filmography of actor Genesis Rodriguez, who portrays Sloane, includes a number of starring or otherwise prominent roles. If Sloane looks familiar in her "The Umbrella Academy" Season 3 appearances, it's likely because of one of the following performances.

Before Genesis Rodriguez was a Hollywood performer, she appeared in episodes of a few different telenovelas numbering in the hundreds.

Rodriguez's proper debut as an actor (following just one prior unnamed role as a dancer) was in "Prisionera." The first incarnation of "Prisionera" aired in 1962 in black and white. Rodriguez starred in a 2004 series of the same name. She appeared in a total of 176 of its 180 episodes as the daughter of a woman wrongfully accused of murder. Her next major role was in "Dame Chocolate" as the heir to a chocolate fortune. She and co-lead Carlos Ponce were the only two actors to appear in all 150 episodes of the series.

Finally, before her transition to Hollywood, Rodriguez appeared regularly in a 2008 telenovela adaptation of "Doña Bárbara" as a member of its main supporting cast. The "Doña Bárbara" story originated in a novel first published in Venezuela in 1929. Its earliest adaptation was in a 1943 film. Multiple TV series followed, though the 2008 series, in which Rodriguez appeared for a grand total of 190 episodes, is the most recent.

While the crossover between die-hard fans of telenovelas and "The Umbrella Academy" is likely meager, it would theoretically only take seeing one of the 516 telenovela episodes in which she appeared to recognize her in the Netflix series.

A decade before she was Sloane in "The Umbrella Academy," Genesis Rodriguez was busy bagging supporting roles in films like "Man on a Ledge" and "What to Expect When You're Expecting." Both films happen to star Elizabeth Banks, but they couldn't be more different. The former is an action-packed crime thriller, while the latter is a light-hearted ensemble romantic comedy. "What to Expect When You're Expecting" features a stacked cast that includes Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Anna Kendrick, Ben Falcone, Matthew Morrison, Rodrigo Santoro, Chris Rock, Thomas Lennon, Rebel Wilson, Dennis Quaid, and Brooklyn Decker alongside Banks and Rodriguez.

The 2012 ensemble film follows several different couples through their pregnancy journey, particularly focusing on Banks, Lopez, Diaz, and Kendrick's characters. Genesis Rodriguez is part of Anna Kendrick's arc. Kendrick plays Rosie, while Rodriguez plays one of her best friends and roommates, Courtney. Unlike their other roommate Molly (Mimi Gianopulos), Courtney isn't super supportive of Rosie's pregnancy with Marco (Chace Crawford), but she does try to comfort Rosie after she has her miscarriage.

Rodriguez's character is a fun addition to this entertaining rom-com, so any "The Umbrella Academy" viewers who've seen it will certainly remember her from "What to Expect When You're Expecting."

"Hours" was the first film starring Paul Walker to be released posthumously following his death in November 2013. In "Hours," Walker played a father named Nolan Hayes trying to keep his newborn baby alive as Hurricane Katrina actively wrecks the hospital in which she was born.

The majority of the film's runtime is devoted to Hayes' attempts to save his child's life despite the disaster conditions around him. Rodriguez played the role of Hayes' wife and the mother of the child. Early on in the film, she dies during childbirth, so her presence in the film is therefore diminished. Nevertheless, she's billed second in the film's credits.

Though "Hours" was primarily a vehicle for Paul Walker as a performer, the film's survival-based set pieces pitted a man against a disaster rather than his fellow humans. Thus, Rodriguez, despite limited screen time, appeared as one of the more prominent human figures in the film's runtime. Fans of "Hours" will therefore likely remember her small but integral role.

The comedy blockbuster "Identity Thief" kicks off when Melissa McCarthy's character Diana steals the identity of the honest father-to-be Sandy Patterson, played by Jason Bateman. The film follows Sandy as he tracks down Diana, hoping to bring her back to Denver so she can clear his name or all the criminal activity she's committed in his name. Of course, Diana won't come quietly and only agrees to his plan after he helps her evade Marisol and Julian, criminals who are after Diana for her past dodgy dealings.

Genesis Rodriguez played Marisol in the 2013 film which was, at the time, her biggest movie role to date. Marisol and Julian (Tip "T.I." Harris) chase Diana and Sandy as they attempt to make it to Denver, but the assassins are always one step off the mark — even after Marisol shoots the skiptracer who's also after Diana.

The film, which was directed by Seth Gordon, has a low Rotten Tomatoes score, but Rodriguez couldn't be prouder of her character and the movie. She told Carreon Cinema Club that she thinks "Identity Thief" feels "like it's a very complete comedy." She continued, saying, "It has a really good story to it, it's not just, you know, the punchline jokes where you expect it to be funny, it is naturally funny because of these actors ... it's a movie you are gonna go out and you're gonna really enjoy."

Kevin Smith is primarily known for dialogue-heavy comedies that feature his perennial creations Jay and Silent Bob, so "Tusk," released in 2014, was something of a departure from his signature style. While some scenes are indeed driven by snappy dialogue, the film as a whole revolves around a central horror conceit.

Its veritable horror movie villain is a reclusive scientist driven by the desire to transform a human being into a walrus-like monster. Justin Long played Wallace, a podcaster ultimately attempting to create content about said walrus-loving scientist. Fortunately, the character played by Genesis Rodriguez remains human throughout the film's runtime. Rodriguez played the role of Ally, Wallace's significant other. In quintessential horror movie fashion, Ally is an outsider tasked with tracking down and aiding Wallace once he's found himself in trouble on his quest for good podcasting content.

"Tusk" may not be among Kevin Smith's finest works, reflected in its Rotten Tomatoes scores of 45% from critics and 36% from fans. Nevertheless, it's an entry in a widely appreciated director's filmography, so Kevin Smith completionists will doubtlessly recognize Rodriguez in her turn in "The Umbrella Academy."

If you've seen the Liam Neeson thriller "Run All Night," which was released in 2015, you might remember that Genesis Rodriguez had a supporting part in the movie. The film follows Neeson's character Jimmy Conlon, who's estranged from his son Mike (Joel Kinnaman), Mike's wife Gabriela (Rodriguez), and their two daughters Catelyn and Lily. Mike doesn't want anything to do with his father, an ex-hitman for the mob who is better known as the Gravedigger. However, he gets dragged into it anyway, with Gabriela not too far behind.

Beyond acting alongside stars like Ed Harris, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Lois Smith (as well as Neeson and Kinnaman), this movie was full of new experiences for Rodriguez. "I've done action movies before and I'm usually the one holding the gun and it was really strange for me to be the one like running away. So, that was like a different choice for me, and the fact that I got to be a mom was another one that I hadn't done," she explained in an interview with Tribute Movies. PopEntertainment.com reports that because she was playing a pregnant character, acting with a 15-pound fake baby bump was a new challenge for her, too.

Genesis Rodriguez's filmography is extremely varied — although that's by design. "The only way that I have planned [my career] out is that no movie that I have done is alike," the actor previously explained at a panel reported on by PopEntertainment.com. She elaborated on her reasoning, explaining that she feels a duty to break barriers as a Latina woman on screen so that she can move representation forward. So, after starring in "Run All Night," Rodriguez bagged a supporting role in "Yoga Hosers," which is a completely different type of movie.

If you've seen Kevin Smith's 2016 comedy horror film, you might have spotted Rodriguez alongside other famous faces like Harley Quinn Smith, Lily-Rose Depp, Johnny Depp, Austin Butler, Haley Joel Osment, Tyler Posey, Justin Long, and Adam Brody. The film follows Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp's characters — two yoga-obsessed teenagers who are both named Colleen — while Rodriguez plays their gym teacher Ms. Wicklund. 

"Yoga Hosers" plays into over-the-top comedy, and, in one scene, Rodriguez's character confiscates the Colleens' phones, causing Smith's character to faint in shock. The movie might have been a critical flop, bringing in low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and receiving generally negative reviews from outlets like The Hollywood Reporter, but its star-studded cast might just make up for that. Stan Lee even had a cameo, too.

Any "The Umbrella Academy" fans who enjoy watching science fiction shows will definitely recognize Genesis Rodriguez from "Time After Time." Rodriguez had a main role playing Jane Walker in the 2017 series, which is part period drama, part sci-fi extravaganza. She starred opposite Freddie Stroma who played a fictionalized version of the British author H. G. Wells.

In reality, Wells has been lauded as a vital figure in the evolution of science fiction with "The Time Machine" amongst his most notable works. However, in the series, Stroma's character successfully invents a working time machine in the late 1800s, which then takes him to 2017 where he meets Rodriguez's character. Jane Walker is the assistant curator of the H. G. Wells exhibit at the New York Metropolitan Museum, which has the time machine on display. As Wells explores this new time — and starts to fall for Jane — his time machine falls into the wrong hands. His friend John Stevenson, who is in fact Jack the Ripper, uses the machine and ends up going on a murderous rampage in New York City.

The complicated premise of "Time After Time" was likely the cause of its poor ratings, and the show was canceled before the end of its first season on ABC (via TV Guide). However, starring in the sci-fi series was a good stepping stone for Rodriguez, and it undoubtedly laid the groundwork for her future role in "The Umbrella Academy," which would come five years later.

Genesis Rodriguez had a two episode arc on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" in 2018. If you're a fan of the crime drama, you might recognize "The Umbrella Academy" star who played Lourdes Vega, a young woman who was a victim of rape and sex trafficking.

When Rodriguez appears in her two-episode stint on "SVU," it's been five years since her character Lourdes and her friend were kidnapped, raped, and trafficked by Miguel Lopez. Since then she's suffered from PTSD and night terrors. When she eventually manages to track down Miguel she holds him hostage, intending to kill him for what he did to her.

Eventually, Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) finds her. Lourdes explains what Miguel did to her and her friend before surrendering to the SVU captain, who was a lieutenant at the time. Both Lourdes and Miguel are arrested at the scene, but Lourdes is later taken into witness protection while Miguel is convicted for his crimes.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

In the same year she appeared on "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," Genesis Rodriguez starred in the psychological horror film "Delirium." Rodriguez starred in the 2018 film opposite "That '70s Show" and "Spider-Man 3" actor Topher Grace, Marvel alum Callan Mulvey, and "The Maze Runner" and "House of Cards" star Patricia Clarkson.

"Delirium" follows Grace's character Tom Walker, who is put on house arrest in his empty family mansion after spending 20 years in a mental institution. He suffers from delusions and believes he's seeing his dead father as well as his brother Alex (Mulvey), who's in prison for the murder of a young girl — the same crime that also landed Tom under house arrest. Tom's only stable interactions come from his grocery delivery woman Lynn (Rodriguez) who acts as the audience's window into Tom's past, which you quickly learn isn't at all what it seems.

Although the film was met with negative critical reviews, it has enough twists and turns to keep viewers guessing. Any horror fans who've seen "Delirium" will undoubtedly remember Rodriguez's character, who gets a considerable amount of screen time.

Genesis Rodriguez's filmography includes a healthy mix of movies and TV shows. Lately, the actor has focused on television and before she starred in the third Season of "The Umbrella Academy," she had a main role in "The Fugitive." She played Detective Sloan Womack in the 2020 web series.

The show is essentially a remake of David Janssen's 1963 series and Harrison Ford's 1993 film, but with new characters. Boyd Holbrook plays Mike Ferro, the updated version of Dr. Richard Kimble, while Kiefer Sutherland plays Detective Clay Bryce, who leads the investigation into the death of Mike's wife and daughter. Following "The Fugitive" lore, Mike is the number one suspect in the case. Rodriguez shares plenty of screen time with Sutherland in the show, playing his detective protégé.

Rodriguez's other big TV part before "The Umbrella Academy" was a voice role for "Big Hero 6: The Series." She voiced Honey Lemon in 55 episodes of the show, having previously voiced the character in the 2014 "Big Hero 6" movie, which won the Oscar for best animated film of the year.