49 Fun Facts About Jane the Virgin

Jane the Virgin is a loose adaptation of Juana la Virgen, a 2002 telenovela from which country?

Venezuela's original followed a 17-year-old schoolgirl; the American version made its heroine a 23-year-old and kept a nod to its origins by making her family Venezuelan-American.

Who developed Jane the Virgin for American television?

Jennie Snyder Urman ran the show for all five seasons, wrote its final chapter herself and picked the moment for Jane to stop being a virgin, saying the device had no drama or comedy left.

In which city is Jane the Virgin set?

Miami is home to the Villanuevas on screen only: apart from a pilot shot on the California coast, the series was filmed on soundstages in Los Angeles.

Gina Rodriguez won Best Actress for Jane the Virgin at which ceremony in January 2015?

The Golden Globes win came halfway through the first season; Rodriguez used her speech to say what the show meant to Latino viewers, and the series was up for best comedy the same night.

Which doctor accidentally artificially inseminates Jane during a routine checkup?

Luisa Alver, Rafael's sister, was meant to use his stored sample on his wife Petra that day; distraught, she gave it to the wrong patient.

Who plays hotel owner Rafael Solano?

Justin Baldoni also stepped behind the camera, directing a season-four episode, and his first feature film as a director, Five Feet Apart, reached cinemas as the final season aired.

Which actor plays Detective Michael Cordero in Jane the Virgin?

Brett Dier was written out when Michael died in the third season, only for the writers to bring him back from the dead as a regular for the final one.

Who plays Jane's mother Xiomara?

Andrea Navedo's Xiomara had Jane as a teenager and raised her without the father, which is the cautionary tale behind her daughter's vow to wait for marriage.

Which actress plays Jane's devout grandmother, Alba, in Jane the Virgin?

Ivonne Coll plays Alba almost entirely in subtitled Spanish: the character understands English perfectly but answers her family in her own language, even when they speak English to her.

Which actor plays telenovela star Rogelio de la Vega in Jane the Virgin?

Jaime Camil was a real telenovela leading man, famous in Mexico for La fea más bella, the local version of the show remade in America as Ugly Betty, so he was sending up his own career.

Which actress plays Petra Solano in Jane the Virgin?

Yael Grobglas ends up with two parts: from the second season she also plays Anezka, the long-lost twin who turns up, drugs Petra and takes over her identity.

Who voices the Latin Lover Narrator?

Anthony Mendez was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Narrator in both 2015 and 2016 for the part, and only in the final episode does he drop the Latin-lover accent, for a single line.

In the finale of Jane the Virgin, the Narrator is revealed to be whom?

Jane's grown-up son Mateo is voicing the telenovela made from her novel, having been told as a boy by Rogelio's mother that he would be great at voice-over work.

Which later-famous actress played Jane at age 10 in the flashbacks of Jane the Virgin?

Jenna Ortega had the recurring part of young Jane from the pilot onwards, appearing in more than 20 chapters, and the exposure helped get her noticed in Hollywood years before her starring roles.

From season three's fourth episode, which words were crossed out on the title card each week?

A different comedic substitution appeared in their place every episode, mirroring the fact that Jane was no longer a virgin.

In season three of Jane the Virgin, Michael collapses and dies on the day he sits which exam?

The LSAT was his way out of police work after a failed medical; the collapse, a delayed effect of the bullet he took the season before, was written to be shockingly ordinary.

When Michael turns up alive with amnesia, what name does he go by?

Jason, as the amnesiac Michael now calls himself, is a stranger in the same body: he speaks slowly, dotes on his dog Bo and is put off by everything about Jane and her family.

After the three-year time jump in Jane the Virgin, Rogelio and Darci's romance is a sham kept up for what?

A reality show: The De La Vega-Factor Factor is a ratings hit, so the pair go on faking the relationship through staged weddings and reshoots long after the feelings have gone.

Which character turns out to be the crime lord Sin Rostro?

Rose had spent the season hiding in plain sight as a soft-spoken former lawyer caught up in a secret love affair, which kept suspicion on everyone but her.

Which character is murdered by his own wife, the crime lord Sin Rostro?

Emilio Solano, Rafael's adoptive father and the owner of the family's hotels, is killed in the very scene that unmasks his wife, the twist that closes the twelfth chapter.

What is the name of the hotel Rafael owns and where Jane works?

The Marbella is reopened by Petra after the time jump as a child-friendly resort, and she is soon feuding with, and sleeping with, the owner of the adults-only hotel across the street.

Petra names her twin daughters after which two characters?

Anna and Elsa got their names because neither parent had heard of Frozen; Petra came to hate the jokes so much that Elsa became Ellie.

Petra's long-lost twin grew up with a rough life in which country?

The Czech Republic is Petra's homeland too: she fled it with their mother under a new name while Anezka grew up there without them, so the twins first meet as adults.

Petra Solano was born under which first name?

Natalia reinvented herself as Petra after fleeing an abusive boyfriend with her mother, which is why a background check in season one finds that her name and references are fake.

Which Jane the Virgin schemer only pretends to need the wheelchair she uses?

Magda, Petra's mother, fakes paralysis as cover for her plotting, and she is the one who shoves Alba down a flight of stairs in the first season.

Who is revealed in the season four finale of Jane the Virgin to have killed Anezka?

Her sister Petra did it after Anezka threatened her daughters, which turns the season on its head: the frame-up her own lawyer was blackmailed into helping with was pinning the crime on the right woman.

What does Alba make ten-year-old Jane crumple to teach her that lost virginity can never be restored?

A white flower: Jane can't smooth it back into shape, and the image stays with her so strongly that the series returns to it when she finally has sex in the third season.

What is Xiomara's job when Jane the Virgin begins?

Dance teacher is the day job; the dream is a singing career, which she is still chasing in season three when she thinks about giving it up for something more realistic.

What is the first name of Rogelio and Darci Factor's daughter?

Baby Michaelina de la Vega Factor began as a business arrangement: Rogelio went to Darci, a professional matchmaker, to find a woman to have a child with, and ended up having one with her.

In the season one finale of Jane the Virgin, Xiomara and Rogelio learn they got drunkenly married in which city?

Las Vegas is where the pair had gone to perform, leaving Jane in false labour; they learn what they did there on the same night she gives birth and her newborn is taken from the hospital.

Which screen legend guest-stars as Rogelio's vain mother, Liliana?

Rita Moreno's Liliana clashes with Xiomara from her very first visit, and the veteran star came back to play her one last time in the series finale.

Which pop star, Rogelio's nemesis, checks into Rafael's hotel as herself in season two?

Britney Spears plays herself in the season's fifth chapter, and Rogelio, convinced the two are locked in a feud, is determined to confront her the moment she checks in.

Which singer, her childhood idol, does Xiomara meet at an awards show in season one?

Paulina Rubio plays herself in the midseason finale, at an awards night where Rogelio is so sure of being named best telenovela actor that he has brought Xiomara along to watch.

Rogelio tries to recruit Eva Longoria for the American reboot of which of his telenovelas?

The Passions of Santos is Rogelio's signature telenovela; his pursuit of Longoria as a co-star for the remake collapses when the two discover they are cousins with no chemistry.

Brooke Shields plays which nemesis of Rogelio's, a spoof of herself, in Jane the Virgin?

River Fields goes to war with Rogelio after he announces that he has male postpartum depression, a spat that starts online and ends with the two having it out on a daytime talk show.

Which actress plays attorney Jane Ramos, known as J.R., who defends and then falls for Petra?

Rosario Dawson's J.R. takes Petra's case over the death of her twin while secretly being blackmailed into helping frame her, a betrayal she eventually confesses to Petra herself.

Which Teen Wolf star plays Adam Alvaro, Jane's first love?

Tyler Posey was pitched for the part by Gina Rodriguez herself; his Adam, the boy Jane nearly married after high school, walks back into her life carrying a letter Michael had written to her.

Gina Rodriguez's directing debut, Jane the Virgin's 'Chapter Seventy-Four', was built around which milestone?

Jane and Rafael's first time in bed, or rather in a shower, comes four seasons after the mix-up that gave them a son, and Rodriguez directed the long-delayed scene herself.

Which pop star sings for Jane and Michael's first dance as newlyweds in Jane the Virgin?

Bruno Mars appears as himself for the first dance, the peak of a reception Rogelio planned as pure fantasy, on a night that ends with the groom shot in a hotel hallway.

Which prestigious honor did Jane the Virgin pick up for its first season?

A Peabody Award went to the series for 'skillfully combining a half-dozen show premises within one sharp, funny and compassionate narrative', in the judges' words.

The tie-in novel based on the book Jane writes in the show, published in 2017, is titled what?

Snow Falling went on sale under the name of its fictional author, Jane Gloriana Villanueva, and recasts her romance with Michael as a love story set in 1902.

In the Jane the Virgin finale, Jane and Rafael reach their own wedding aboard what, collecting guests on the way?

A city bus: Jane has to bail Rafael out of jail that morning, and the two round up the whole wedding party on the ride, an echo of the bus on which she fainted in the first episode.

The Jane the Virgin spin-off ordered to pilot in 2019 was to be called what?

Jane the Novela was pitched as an anthology in which each season would adapt a different novel written by Jane, with Gina Rodriguez narrating; The CW passed on it that May.

The original 2002 Juana la Virgen was produced by which broadcaster?

RCTV's telenovela has travelled a long way from its first run: besides the American version, the story has been remade in India, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Israel and South Korea.

Michael is shot in the chest at the end of season two by whom?

His supposed new partner was Sin Rostro in disguise all along.

When Jane finally loses her virginity in season three, what animated image does the show cut to?

A rocket ship blasting off, with cartoon versions of the newlyweds inside, comes only after a long wait: Michael was shot on their wedding night, and one interruption after another delayed the moment.

What does Michael discover hidden beneath the hotel in season one?

A plastic-surgery clinic is operating under the hotel, giving wanted criminals new faces, and Michael's discovery of it makes Rafael his prime suspect.

Rafael's frozen sample was his last chance at fatherhood because he had survived what?

Cancer treatment had left Rafael believing the frozen sample was his only chance to be a father, a belief the first-season finale upsets when a second vial turns up in Petra's hands.

Jane's son Mateo is named after which relative?

Alba's late husband, Mateo, died before Jane was born, so the name ties her son to a grandfather she never met; the boy's full name also works in Gloriano and Rogelio.