Julia Goldani Telles is an American actress and ballet dancer. She is best known for her supporting role as Whitney Solloway on the Showtimeoriginal seriesThe Affair and as Sasha Torres on the short-lived ABC Family series Bunheads.
Early life
Telles was born in Los Angeles, California to a Brazilian mother and Mexican American father. She moved with her parents to Rio de Janeiro when she was almost two years old. It was there that she was introduced to the world of ballet at the age of five. When the family relocated back to Los Angeles at age five, Telles could only speak Portuguese and learned English after the family's move. Telles moved to New York City when she was thirteen and attended Professional Children's School in Manhattan, New York. Telles trained at the School of American Ballet and Ballet Academy East, and appeared in numerous ballet performances including Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Don Quixote, and Swan Lake. A case of tendonitis and labral tears in her hips at the age of 15 forced Telles to stop practicing ballet for a year; to avoid depression, she decided to take a drama course.
Career
Telles' first role in television came in 2011 when she successfully auditioned for the part of Sasha Torres in ABC Family's Bunheads. She did so having never had an acting job before and without head-shots or a résumé. Her agent felt Bunheads should have been one of her first auditions as he felt she would be comfortable with the dancing aspect of the show. The pilot episode was filmed in November 2011. Bunheads was picked up to series and ran for eighteen episodes from June 11, 2012 to February 25, 2013. As well as Bunheads, Telles also appeared in the Nat & Alex Wolffmusic video for the song "Greatest Prize" in early 2012. She also guest starred on the Blue Bloods episode "The Bogeyman" which aired January 10, 2014. Telles plays the role of Whitney on the Showtime drama seriesThe Affair. In October 2019, it was announced that Telles would play Iris in the Starz series The Girlfriend Experience.
