[1][3] She spent the early years of her life on the Azorian island of Terceira, where both her parents were born, but moved with her family to Lisbon after the archipelago was struck by a serious earthquake in 1980.

[4] From the age of 5 or 6[a] to 14, she was a pupil at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, until deciding to pursue a career in the visual arts rather than in music.

[6] Moniz was still relatively unknown in Portugal when, at the age of 19, she entered the Festival da Canção with the song "O meu coração não tem cor".

[citation needed] In 2003, Moniz got her international break when she played the role of Aurélia in the film Love Actually, among a cast that included Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, and Rodrigo Santoro.

In 2011, the design work for a cookbook undertaken by Moniz received a Gourmand Award, and a book of her photographs, Vou Tentar Falar Sem Dizer Nada, was published two years later.

[20][21] Moniz reprised her role from Love Actually for Red Nose Day Actually, a short-film sequel that was broadcast on British television in March 2017 to raise money for the charity Comic Relief.