Liza Colón-Zayas is an American actress and playwright. She is best known for playing Tina Marrero on the comedy-drama series The Bear (2022–2026), for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2024, becoming the first Latina to win a Primetime Emmy in that category.
Contents
Early life and education
Liza Colón-Zayas was born as Liza Colón in The Bronx borough of New York City. She is of Puerto Rican descent.
She earned her bachelor's degree in theater from University at Albany.
Career
Colón-Zayas began her career off-Broadway. She broke into mainstream theatre when she wrote, produced, and starred in a one-woman show titled Sistah Supreme, a semi-autobiographical play in which she chronicles growing up as a Latina woman in New York during the 1970s and 1980s.
Colón-Zayas has been a member of the LAByrinth Theatre Company, a New York-based traveling actors' group, since its founding in 1992. On stage, she originated the role of Norca in the off-Broadway productions of Our Lady of 121st Street and the role of Haiku Mom in Quiara Alegría Hudes' Pulitzer winner Water by the Spoonful. In 1999, she appeared in the Philip Seymour Hoffman directed play, In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings.
One of Colón-Zayas' most memorable roles to theatergoers was the "Church Lady" in Stephen Adly Guirgis's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Between Riverside and Crazy which played the Atlantic Theater Company in 2014 and then Second Stage Theater in 2015. Colón-Zayas earned a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actress for her portrayal. She went on to play the role once more in 2022 on Broadway at Second Stage's Hayes Theater.
In 2021, she was honored at the Dramatists Guild Foundation with the Madge Evans and Sidnet Kingsley Award. DGF’s longest-running award honors a mid-career dramatist and stage actresses for excellence in the theatre.
On the big screen, she's appeared in United 93 (2006), Righteous Kill (2008), and the 2016 action horror film The Purge: Election Year.
Colón-Zayas has also appeared in television series such as Sex and the City, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Blue Bloods, Dexter, and many more. In 2019, she got her first recurring role on the short-lived OWN drama, David Makes Man, and in 2021, she joined the cast of the Emmy-winning drama, In Treatment, as Rita.
In 2022, Colón-Zayas rose to significant fame after starring in Hulu's dramady series The Bear as cynical cook Tina Marrero. She received critical praise for her performance and won a Screen Actors Guild Award, Imagen Award, and Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Her Emmy win made her the first Latina to win a Primetime Emmy in that category. She starred as Janet in John Krasinski's live-action animated fantasy comedy feature IF, released on May 17, 2024.
In May 2025, Colón-Zayas was announced to have joined the cast of Spider-Man: Brand New Day as Jean DeWolff, a detective and ally to Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland. Brand New Day released on July 31, 2026, and was a massive critical and commercial success.
Personal life
Colón-Zayas is married to actor David Zayas.
Acting credits
Awards and nominations
In 2024, she made history as the first Latina to win an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for The Bear. In 2025, she was nominated again for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for The Bear.