Rodrigo Santoro was born in Petrópolis, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, to an Italian father and a Brazilian mother of Portuguese descent. He decided to try his luck as an actor in Rio de Janeiro and after working for many years on Brazilian television productions, he was offered roles in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, the TV movie The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and Love Actually. He also refused a role on the ABC show Alias in 2004. He had joined the cast of the ABC hit show Lost
Santoro had shown interest for the stage since his childhood. At home, he organized a puppet theater for his family on holidays like Christmas and Easter. At Colégio Aplicação, where he studied, with the help of a Portuguese teacher, he adapted TV movies to what they used to call "musical-literary sessions". He was said to have a great stage presence, through which he met his first girlfriend, at the age of 14.
As it usually happens to young people who live in the suburbs, by the time of his 17th birthday, Santoro realized that the focus of his life had shifted to Rio de Janeiro. He frequently travelled to the "big city", to surf with friends, study for the vestibular (the standard Brazilian college admission exams) and audition for TV Globo, in hopes of starting his acting career.
In 1993, he was admitted to PUC as a marketing and advertising major. That same year, he got his first acting role on a TV production, as a secondary character in the soap opera Olho no Olho. At this time he was still living at the university dorms, having left his first apartment in the seaside neighbourhood of Copacabana in fear after nearly getting hit by a stray bullet from a nearby favela.