Rodriguez attended Lincoln Park High School and left for Hollywood, California shortly after graduation to take a role in his first film.

He went on to play roles such as Ninja in The Pest, an obnoxious jock in Can't Hardly Wait and Carla's brother Marco on Scrubs.

[7] In 2005, Rodriguez played a vicious inner-city drug dealer named Hector in the movie Havoc, and a jockey in the film Dreamer, co-starring Dakota Fanning.

[8] Rodriguez starred alongside Roselyn Sanchez in the 2003 movie Chasing Papi, playing "Victor" (directed by Linda Mendoza).

He starred as El Wray in Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez's portion of the double-feature film Grindhouse (2007),[8] and played the role of Gustavo Brambila in the true-life story Bottle Shock (2008).