About Grace Santos

Thank you for visiting my website!  Here’s my bio:

Grace Santos is an actor, attorney, executive producer, and producer.

Her producing credits include upcoming teen comedy Almost Popular directed by Nayip Ramos and starring Ruby Rose Turner and the family comedy How the Gringo Stole Christmas starring George Lopez.  She also produced award-winning shorts showcased at Oscar-qualifying film festivals, such as the post-apocalyptic drama Odessa with Sean Michael Turrell and David Moscow, Silk by Catherine Dent (The Shield) and starring Oscar Nominee and Emmy Winner Shohreh Aghdashloo, Election Night by Tessa Blake (NCIS) and starring Peri Gilpin (Frasier), A Tricky Treat by Patricia Chica, and the comedy Spun (awarded by the Producers Guild).  She has also executive produced and produced series: Bree Does Comedy (a comedy web series starring Bree Olson, Kimberly McVicar, and Grace Santos, and obtained 30,000 subscribers in its first week), the first season of Last Life and the first two seasons of Girl Talk (150k subscribers in its first month, over half a million views per episode, and still growing).

Grace’s extensive experience spans leadership roles at companies and organizations that have financed, produced, and distributed hundreds of films and series.  As VP and Head of Business Affairs and Operations for Gamechanger Films, Grace contributed to The Inspection with A24 Films and it has garnered 25 nominations so far, including the Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, and Gotham Awards, and worked on Run Sweetheart Run with Amazon Studios, Universal, and Blumhouse.  Grace worked in the Creative Development, Business Affairs, and Production Departments at financier/producer Michael Mendelsohn’s Patriot Pictures and now Grace is producing projects with Patriot Pictures to be released soon.  Grace was also VP of Business Affairs for production, distribution, and foreign sales companies owned by Producer Steven Paul (who has output deals with Sony, Paramount, and Hallmark).  Grace was one of the year-round staff for the Bentonville Film Festival, which has a mission to promote women and people of color in media and entertainment and to help them secure distribution deals with its sponsors Paramount, SONY, Warner Bros, Universal, and Lionsgate.  When Grace worked for the now AMC Networks divisions Image Entertainment / RLJ Entertainment, UMC/ALLBLK, and AcornTV, she was mentioned several times in the Hollywood Reporter and Variety for closing multi-million dollar deals such as The Rewrite starring Hugh Grant and Marisa Tomei, Pay The Ghost starring Nicolas Cage, and Bone Tomahawk starring Kurt Russell.  Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Grace worked as General Counsel for Paragon Capital Partners, an investment company by CEO Santosh Govindaraju.  Her first Hollywood opportunity was interning for the creative development team at Silver Pictures / Dark Castle Entertainment and working as a Teaching Assistant for the UCLA Professional Programs in Producing and Television Writing. Grace founded Ethos Pictures.

As an actor, Grace has appeared in numerous plays, commercials, new media series, and films. Grace also won Best Actor from Creative Loafing for her role in Tony Award winner Neil Labute’s Reasons to Be Pretty.  For her role in “Odessa”, film critic Richard Propes writes “Grace Santos is the focus here as Estrella.  Santos avoids histrionics.  She trusts this story to be ‘enough.’ She gets it. She understands it.  You can see it in her eyes and her body language and as she speaks Doug Johnson’s sparse yet intentional dialogue.  There’s a ‘What if?’ around every corner and Santos captures that unknowing, that fear, and that doubt.”  She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA.

Grace’s parents are from Caloocan, Philippines, emigrated to the United States, owned laundromats and were church planters.  Grace’s parents had a profound calling from God to bring people to Christ. With their unique backgrounds and warm personalities, they believed they could best serve by reaching Filipinos in the United States. By speaking Tagalog and sharing Filipino food, they created a welcoming environment that made it easier for members of the Filipino community to come together, feel at home, and grow in their faith.

Grace was born in Paterson, New Jersey, then moved to Tampa, Florida at the age of nine.  She has one sister, Joy.  Grace was also a child dancer – she danced professionally for the Philippine Performing Arts Company, touring internationally by the time she was in middle school.  She also earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

After Thespians in high school, Grace started performing in professional theatre and booking commercials such as the national T-Mobile campaign directed by Spike Lee.  Her performance in Tony Award-winner Neil Labute’s “Reasons to Be Pretty” won Grace the Best Actress Award by arts publication Creative Loafing.  But she learned that there weren’t a lot of roles with depth for her “type” – female Filipina-American. So she decided to also study law and tv/film production to help create more of those roles.

Grace earned the International Baccalaureate diploma from C. Leon King High School, then a BA from the University of Miami, double majoring in Religious Studies and International Studies, and minoring in Theatre Arts.  During her undergraduate studies, she also studied for one year at Flinders University of South Australia’s Drama Centre.  Then she earned a Juris Doctor / Law Degree from Stetson University, and a Certificate in Production from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.  She was selected to be one of the participants in the 2020 Producers Guild Power of Diversity Fellowship.

Grace is a single mom to a daughter.  They currently live in Los Angeles, take martial arts classes and volunteer for nonprofits together.

Some people call Grace a social activist and she has been awarded the Public Interest Award, Pro Bono Award, Organizational Officer of the Year, among other awards, for her work as an Election Protection volunteer, environmental clean-up groups, strong stance for welfare programs, and pro bono work for Immigrant Women and arts organizations.  Grace co-founded a nonprofit with her daughter, Grace’s Faith, Inc., to help single moms and their children.  Also prior to moving to Los Angeles, Grace founded the Asian Pacific American Scene Inc (APASI Productions), the first nonprofit production company in Florida whose purpose is to promote Asian American stories and American actors, artists, filmmakers, and theatre-makers that are of Asian descent.  Grace is on the Board of Directors for FilAm Creative, a Los Angeles nonprofit that supports Filipino-American Stories.