She began her career in theater and made her onscreen debut starring with Ann-Margret and Kris Kristofferson in the television movie, Blue Rodeo, for director Peter Werner.
Herrera was born in central New Mexico to her mother, a kindergarten teacher and former Franciscan nun, and her maternal grandparents (grandmother née Salazar).
By her senior year of high school, while performing in a run of Brighton Beach Memoirs, Herrera decided to pursue acting as a career.
Herrera graduated from a private performing arts conservatory in Manhattan and also enrolled at the University of New Mexico, majoring in religious studies and minoring in communication.
[2] Herrera's onscreen debut was portraying a deaf youth in Blue Rodeo, a 1996 CBS Sunday Night Movie of the Week based on a novel of the same name by Jo-Ann Mapson.