Silva's previous television credits include guest appearances on the CBS sitcom "Cosby" in 1997 and as a nun on a 1998 two-part episode of NBC's police drama "Homicide: Life on the Street". She made her professional stage debut in a 1995 Shakespeare Theater production of "Macbeth" in Washington DC and starred in Sam Shepard's one-act play "Chicago", for New York's Signature Theater in 1996. She appeared Off-Broadway in "Edmond" and starred as Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Silva has additionally worked in theater with Anna Deavere Smith, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory and made her feature debut with a brief role as a process server in the romantic comedy "Fools Rush In" (1997).