Melissa's love for acting first began when she auditioned for The Wizard of Oz in middle school. "There's something magical about musical theatre troupes that is very alluring; it seduces me," she told The Last Magazine in 2018. "So when I was in the gang, I was like, 'This is what I want to do for my life. I don't want to get off the stage, I don't want to lose the warmth of these people and the passion we all have for signing and acting and dancing.'"
After graduating high school, Melissa left Mexico to attend NYU, where she had dreams of making it big on Broadway. "I thought that was going to be my life, I thought that, 'I'm going to go to New York, I'm going to graduate, I'm going to audition and book something on Broadway, and that's going to be my life forever.' And then life happens," she recalled.
Melissa ended up moving back to Mexico because she wasn't an American citizen and got into television. She appeared in several telenovelas, including La Mujer de Judas, Siempre Tuya Acapulco, Perseguidos, and Club de Cuervos, before she eventually moved to Los Angeles and landed the part of Lyn in Vida. Now, she's taking on leading roles as Vanessa in In the Heights and Carmen in the upcoming film Carmen with Paul Mescal. She's also set to appear alongside Courteney Cox in the forthcoming Scream 5 movie.