Michelle Rodriguez began her acting career as a character channeling her rage through boxing in the 2000 movie "Girlfight."

She has been kicking up a fuss on film ever since.

Over the past decade, Ms. Rodriguez has reprised that tough-girl role over and over, and she makes no apologies for it. She has said that while she admires actresses such as Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock and their seriocomic tendencies, she was always a fan of James Cameron's women on film, such as Linda Hamilton in "Terminator" and Sigourney Weaver in "Aliens."

It's a type she calls "the warrior princess," and she finally got a chance to become one of those women, as a pilot in the megahit "Avatar."

"There's one kind of [women's role] that hasn't been exploited in Hollywood, and that's the warrior princess," she says in a video on her own MRodOfficial Web channel, as seen on YouTube and her website, www.michelle-rodriguez.com.

The site opens to an image of Ms. Rodriguez from the film "Machete," arriving in theaters today. She's wearing a leather bra, pants and holster, and the image is decorated with a splatter of blood.

The warrior princess, she said, "is very honest; what you see is what you get, and she will stand her ground. She has integrity. The majority of time I do these tough roles that seem really masculine, but that's only due to the lack of creativity of 95 percent of the writers in Hollywood ... who don't know any active, cool girls. So the majority of time you see me playing really masculine-type roles, but in reality that warrior princess can be beautiful, she can be sexy. But until people respect her and until she's a common thing in Hollywood, I'm going to have to keep being this macho girl."

A favorite of fanboys, Ms. Rodriguez was a big hit at Comic-Con International in July, where she was promoting "Battle: Los Angeles," an alien-invasion film told from the perspective of a military platoon on the ground, coming next year.

She also was handing out tacos with "Machete" co-star Danny Trejo in the streets of San Diego during Comic-Con.

A screening of Robert Rodriguez's blood-and-guts film had a rock-concert-like atmosphere, and a scene involving a bad guy's large intestine -- take that literally -- drew the loudest screams. The movie's eclectic cast includes Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan and a small part for Pittsburgh's Tom Savini, the actor and special-effects makeup maestro.

Ms. Rodriguez's character, Luz, runs a taco stand and is otherwise in full-out warrior princess mode, toting a gun and an attitude.

Other "macho girl" roles from the Michelle Rodriguez resume include:

• Ana Lucia Cortez, "Lost": The ex-cop with a brutal past shows up as a "tailie" in the hit ABC series and accidentally guns down Shannon, the girly-girl from among the original survivors. A favorite Sawyer nickname for her: Rambina.

• Trudy Chacon, "Avatar": Ex-Marine pilot works for the Research Administration Development team on the planet Pandora, where she flies sorties for science teams. She joins forces against RDA when it threatens the native populace. There's a Trudy action figure, too.

• Letty Ortiz, "The Fast and the Furious": Fast-driving Letty is a daredevil and girlfriend/partner in crime to Dom (Vin Diesel).

• Rain Ocampo, "Resident Evil": A volatile and confrontational policewoman, she becomes a marksman for a commando unit fighting zombies.

• Video-game voiceovers: Besides reprising movie roles, she has provided voices as a Marine in "Halo 2" and Calita, the ruthless leader of a car theft gang, in "Driv3r."

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