Maria Ozawa was born in Canada to Philippine parents who speak both Spanish and Japanese. She was raised in Japan and also in Britain, but according to some biographers, she considers herself and her nationality to be Japanese. She went to study dance at RADA in Paris and then studied sculpture in Italy, all while continuing her acting and modeling career.
In the late eighties, she went back to Japan to study broadcasting and she worked in broadcasting in Tokyo as well. Later in the nineties, she started a theatre career and appeared in a number of Japanese films. Then she ventured into acting, playing different characters in Japanese films, including a minor role in a Japanese production called The Perfect Pair. Then in 1996, she appeared in the feature-length animated movie Mommy to Go! That film helped establish the career of Maria Ozawa as an actress who can play sexy yet petite characters in adult films.
In her early days as a nude model, she appeared in many such ads, often with her pet cat Hide. Later, she decided to enter the pornography industry and that led to her being called the “God of Genders” by the World Illustrated Monthly. Later, she went into writing and developed roles in many more popular novels. It was after all these years that she became one of the most accomplished and versatile performers of our time, having made over fifty films and been nominated for an Order of the British empire OBE. She is currently married to the film director J.M. De Laurentiis and they have two children.