LAYSLA DE OLIVEIRA CRUZ CONTROL

The star of Special Ops: Lioness on working with Nicole Kidman, growing up in Canada and planning the wedding of her dreams

- ANNA HAWKINS

Like the character she plays in the buzzy new series Special Ops: Lioness, Canadian actress Laysla De Oliveira started from humble beginnings. "I didn't flip burgers, but I did work at a restaurant in Toronto," she tells Hello! Canada while drawing parallels between herself and her character, Cruz Manuelos, a fast-food workerturned-CIA agent. "I was a hostess for a really long time and then I was a bartender. And then I moved to L.A. - I told them I had big dreams." Now co-starring alongside the likes of Zoe Saldana, Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman, Laysla is making those dreams come true. "She was so lovely," the 31-year-old actress says of her first meeting with Nicole, who plays Kaitlyn Meade, a senior supervisor in the CIA. "She complimented my work and I think my soul left my body. I wanted to just bottle up that moment forever!"