From Spanish soap operas to the largest Hollywood productions, Ana de Armas has been established in recent years as one of the growing stars of action cinema.
After having marked the spirits in Dying can wait or in With knives thrownThe Cuban actress, who left Havana for Spain at age 18 before settling in Los Angeles, offers the first role of BallerinaFemale Spin-Off of the John Wick saga, on theaters this Wednesday, April 4. Back in his extraordinary rise.
An childhood marked by the special period in Cuba
Nothing predestined Ana de Armas in the cinema. Born in the Havana of a mother in charge of human resources in the Ministry of Education and Father, sometimes director of Banking, School, Professor and Mayor, the future actress grows in an environment far from the red carpets and the Hollywood seals.
When he was a child, Ana de Armas lives with her grandparents and once she receives the visit of her parents and her brother living in the coastal city of Santa Cruz del Norte once a week.
His childhood was remarkably marked by the special period, a terrible economic crisis that devastated Cuba in the early 90s, after the fall of the USSR. In an interview, he says he experienced food ration periods, as well as frequent electricity cuts.
“We lived without luxury, with the necessary, enough, enough to eat every day and go to the beach in summer,” he explained in 2019 in the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair magazine.
But the actress states that she has never been deprived of anything thanks to the inexhaustible support of her parents “workers very and full of disinterest.” “Thanks to my parents’ franchise, I was always aware of what we could and we couldn’t have. My brother and I went out and play like crazy. I was very freedom,” he recalls.
No Internet access or DVD player
During your childhood, Ana de Armas, either Internet access or DVD player. The only authorized entertainment: 20 minutes of cartoons on Saturdays and cinema on Sunday morning.
“In a way, it made the moment even more special. We had very little time to see something. We knew we had to do our homework and help clean the house in time to watch our movie. When we finally arrived in front of television, we did not want them to bother us,” he told the net media to use in 2020.
It is with her neighbor that the teenager passionate the cinema. Fascinated by the films he sees, the young Anuse has fun learning by heart the replicas of certain scenes to reproduce them in front of his mirror. At age 12, he discovered his vocation: to become an actress.
“If I saw a movie on television and I saw a scene that I liked, unimportant to me who was a man or a woman, he was running towards the mirror and imitated her,” said the actress of the Spanish media the avant -garde.
“One day, I saw a movie, I think it was ‘Matilda’, and when I returned, I repeated the whole movie to my brother, who had not seen her. I always submerged the most moving scenes of the movies that I loved,” he adds.
Madrid with 200 euros in pocket
More motivated than ever to become an actress, Ana de Armas joined the National Theater of Cuba in Havana at the age of 14, where I will do hutop every day to take her lessons. Then, at 18, he went mass for Madrid before the end of his studies “with 200 euros in pocket” to continue his dream.
“Technically, I did not finish the school, I had to go before presenting my final memory of the students. I was 18 years old and I felt that the time had come to move on,” said the actress of the media of Cuba.
“I went with 200 euros in my pocket, which I had saved thanks to the last movie I had made in Cuba, ‘The Lost Eden’, and I told my parents that I would return when I would not have money,” he continues.
“Of course, that did not happen. My money was exhausted in a week and I didn’t return. Fortunately, everything went very well for me and worked tirelessly during the eight years I spent in Spain,” added the actress.
In Spain, Ana de Armas returns her first feature films. She plays in particular in romantic drama A rose of France In 2006 and in comedy Mentra and fat. On television, she is chosen to play Carolina Leal Solís in The boarding schoolA soap for teenagers that takes place in a boarding school.
This series, popular in Spain, allows Ana de Armas to make a name in the environment. After a brief stay in New York to learn English, he won a role in the series Hispania, the legend And in the horror movie The alley by Antonio Trashorras.
But, despite her success in Spain, the actress points out and flies towards Los Angeles in 2014. “He wanted something else. He wanted to be in a place where he had more opportunities. Spain was in the middle of a crisis and the films that were filmed there was no movement. That is why I went to Hollywood,” she specifies Ana de Armas to the Spanish media. Vanguard.
Start of career in Los Angeles
In Los Angeles, Ana de Armas leaves from scratch to build her career. But before resorting to castings, the actress makes the strategic decision to improve her English, refusing to be limited to the stereotyped roles of Latin women.
It was when learning his phonetically replicas that Ana de Armas won in 2015 her first role in an American film, The Psychological Thriller Pounding Eli Roth, where he shares the poster with Keanu Reeves.
The latter, which later became his mentor, invites him to play in Spanish in the thriller Suspicion (2016), which produces and in which he plays a role. The same year, the actress also made a remarkable appearance in the dramatic comedy. War dogs of Todd Phillips.
If the success is beginning to gradually arrive at him, Ana de Armas quickly clashes with clichés: only the roles of fatal Latin women are offered, confined to be pretty and sexy. However, she manages to leave and plays in 2017 in the science fiction movie Blade Runner 2049 Denis Villeneuve, playing Joi, Ryan Gosling’s virtual partner.
“This is one of the most difficult roles I’ve had as an actress so far,” he told the configuration media in 2023. “His character is very complex. She is a very strong woman, but also very emotional and very happy, as her name suggests.”
Breaking the stereotypes of the action movie
Although secondary, this character will open the doors of Hollywood to Ana de Armas. In 2019, the general public found him in the American Police Thriller With knives thrown Together with Daniel Craig, a film for which he will be named for the Golden Globe for the best actress in a musical film or comedy.
Consecration arrives two years later when you choose to be James Bond’s next girl in Dying can wait. A role that the director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, wrote Sastre. She plays a girl James Bond, far from the clichés del Potiche, a true action hero.
Determined to reverse the stereotypes of the action film, Ana de Armas has taken a new stage in his career in 2022 and won a role in the Netflix blockbuster The gray manTogether with stars like Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.
She confirms her ascent the same year with BlondDisputed Marilyn Monroe’s biographical film directed by Andrew Dominik, in which the famous American actress plays a native nomination.
But, this Wednesday, June 4, Ana de Armas is a new course in its rise. Playing BallerinaSpin-off of the John Wick saga used by Keanu Reeves, the actress plays Eve Macarro, a young criminal traumatized by her father’s death, she decided to take revenge. A role, for which she trained tirelessly to make her waterfalls herself, without lining.
“It was a level of discipline that I did not know. Before filming, there were three, four months of training every day, almost like an athlete. It was a lot of work with my coach, with the team of specialists. It was necessary to learn the management of weapons and chore the fights. You should not release,” said BFMTV microphone actress.
With BallerinaAna de Armas is no longer content to be in the background or play shooting characters. It is now established as a true rude hero, ready to write your own history in the action cinema.
Source: BFM TV
