Martin traveled to Mexico to appear in a stage musical; the gig led to a role as a singer on the 1992 Spanish-language telenovela, Alcanzar una Estrella, or "To Reach a Star." The show proved so popular that he reprised the role in a movie version of the serial. In 1993, Martin moved to Los Angeles, where he made his American TV debut in the NBC sitcom Getting By. From 1995 to 1995 he acted on ABC's daytime soap opera, General Hospital and in 1996 he starred in the Broadway production of Les Miserables.

While Martin was actively pursuing his acting career, he was also recording and releasing albums and making concert appearances. He had become well known in his native Puerto Rico and among the Latin/Hispanic community as a whole. His third album, A Medio Vivir, came out in 1997, the same year that he lent his voice to the Spanish-language version of Disney's animated feature, Hercules. His fourth album, Vuelve, released in 1998, featured the hit single, "La Copa de la Vida" ("The Cup of Life"), which Martin performed at the 1998 World Cup soccer tournament in France, as part of a showcase broadcast to two billion people around the world.

At the Grammy Awards in February 1999, Martin, already a global pop sensation, gave a sizzling performance of "La Copa de la Vida" at Los Angeles's Shrine Auditorium just before picking up an award for Best Latin Pop Performance for Vuelve. He followed up on his star-making Grammy night with the release of his phenomenally successful first English single, "Livin? La Vida Loca," and his album, Ricky Martin, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart. Martin was also featured on the cover of Time magazine and credited with helping to bring a growing Latin cultural influence into the mainstream of American pop music.