Amara De Escalones

Played By Lidia Porto


Lidia Porto stars in GET SHORTY as “Amara De Escalones,” Miles’ boss, the Latina Godmother of a Nevada crime ring and a sociopath who orders murders like other people order lunch. She can be girlish and flirtatious, 60 going on 16, or paranoid, furious and self-pitying. A complex and terrifying stew, she’s been successful at running her “family” but now finds herself under attack.


Lidia Porto is a Hispanic actress born in Barranquilla, Colombia, and eventually moved with her family to Houston, Texas at the age of three. Raised in both countries until the age of 14, Lidia studied at Marymount School in Barranquilla, and began acting at Dulles High School in Stafford, Texas. She studied French and Spanish literature and International Affairs at Trinity University in San Antonio and the Institute of Political Science in Strasbourg, France where she interned in Economics at the Council of Europe. After college she worked and studied acting in Texas and Los Angeles and began her professional career in 1990. For years she was a staple of the Houston performing arts community, accumulating credits in TV shows like Prison Break, Friday Night Lights and the GCB pilot, and movies like Rocketman, Mike Judge’s Idiocracy and Extract, and the Hallmark Christmas favorite When Angels Sing. She also did commercial, voiceover and educational projects for a wide gamut of clients. She once studied playwriting with the late Edward Albee.

 

In 2012 Lidia was cast as Maria in Malcolm D Lee’s Scary Movie 5; a project that brought her back to Los Angeles and to acting full-time. She has since had recurring roles on shows such as Reverie, Shameless, Jane the Virgin, American Housewife and Major Crimes and has appeared on shows such as True Detective, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Lady Dynamite, Rizzoli and Isles, Legit and Kickin’ It. She played the lead in the critically acclaimed short film, Doris for which she was awarded “Mejor Interpretación Femenina: (Best Actress) at the Festival de Cine Social in Toledo, Spain and nominated by the Official Latino Short Film Festival in New York City. Lidia played the criminal family matriarch Antonia in Machinima Prime’s online series, Chop Shop. Recent film credits include Bell Canyon, the short films New Vista Lane and Gringa, Horrible Bosses 2, Dope, Running Wild, Pray for Rain and Lifetime’s Girl Missing.