Ana Celia de Armas Caso (born in Havana on April 30, 1988), better known as Ana de Armas, is a Cuban-Spanish actress. She began her career at the age of 16 in her native country and soon landed a leading role in the Spanish-Cuban romantic drama Una Rosa de Francia (2006). At the age of 18, she moved to Madrid and starred in series such as the popular thriller El Internado (2007-2010) and the historical drama Hispania, la Leyenda (2010-2012).
| Personal Information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Birth name | Ana Celia de Armas Caso | |
| Birth date | April 30, 1988 | |
| Birthplace | Havana, Cuba | |
| Residence | New York | |
| Nationality | Cuban and Spanish | |
| Native language | Spanish | |
| Physical characteristics | ||
| Height | 1.68 m | |
| Eyes | Green | |
| Hair | Chestnut | |
| Family | ||
| Spouse | Marc Clotet (marr.2011; Div.2013) | |
| Couple | David Victori (2013-2014) Franklin Latt (2015-2016) Alejandro Piñeiro (2017-2018) Ben Affleck (2019-2021) Paul Boukadakis (2022-present) |
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| Professional information | ||
| Occupation | Actress | |
| Active years | since 2006 | |
| Member of | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (since 2020) | |
| Distinctions |
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After moving to Los Angeles, De Armas had English-speaking roles in the psychological thriller Knock Knock (2015), the crime comedy War Dogs (2016), and had a supporting role in the biopic Stone Hands (2016). She rose to fame with her role as Joi, a holographic projection of AI in the sci-fi film Blade Runner 2049 (2017). For her portrayal of the nurse Marta Cabrera in the mystery film Knives Out (2019), she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.
Biography
Ana Celia de Armas Caso was born on April 30, 1988, in Havana, Cuba, the daughter of Ramón de Armas and his wife Ana Caso, and grew up in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba. Her father held different positions, including, bank manager, teacher, school director and deputy mayor of a city. She had previously studied Philosophy at a Soviet university. His mother worked in the human resources section of the Cuban Ministry of Education. He has an older brother, Javier, a photographer living in New York who, in 2020, was questioned by the Cuban police for his critical stance on Decree 349 and his links to artists under government surveillance. Although she grew up with food rationing, fuel shortages and power cuts during Cuba’s special period, she has described her past as happy.
When he was younger, he had no internet access and had limited knowledge of popular culture beyond Cuba. He was allowed to watch “20 minutes of cartoons on Saturday and the movie matinee on Sunday.” His family did not had a “DVD or video player” and she watched Hollywood movies at her neighbor’s apartment. She memorized and practiced monologues in front of the mirror, and she decided to become an actress when she was 12 years old.
In 2002, at the age of 14, she successfully auditioned to join Cuba’s National Art School, she hitchhiked and rode the bus every day to attend the “rigorous” course. While she was studying there, she filmed three movies. Her early foray into fiction, she upset the teachers because she was absent too much from classes. She dropped out of the 4-year theater course months before presenting her final thesis because Cuban graduates are prohibited from leaving the country without completing three years of mandatory service in the state.
At the age of 18, after obtaining Spanish citizenship through her maternal grandparents, he from Guardo, in Montaña Palencia, and she from Valverde de Balboa, in the El Bierzo region, moved to Madrid to pursue a career. as an actress advised by a Spanish representative.
Ana de Armas’s career
2006-2014: Early career and Spanish stardom
At the age of 16 in his native country and with only two years of training at the National Art School of Cuba, he had a leading role alongside Álex González in the romantic drama by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Una rosa de Francia (2005 ) filmed between Cuba and Spain. Cuban actor Jorge Perugorría suggested that the director consider the actress for the role, after meeting her while attending a birthday party with her daughters.
The director interrupted her in the middle of her audition to inform him that the paper was his. During that filming, she met a Spanish representative who suggested that she move to Madrid (Spain). She traveled to Spain as part of a promotional tour for the film and was introduced to Juan Lanja, who would later become her Spanish agent. She then acted in the Cuban film, El edén Perdido (2007) and had a supporting role in the Fernando Pérez Valdés film, Madrigal (2007) filmed at night without the permission of her theater school tutors.
At 18, she moved to Madrid. The first casting she did was a week after arriving in Spain, at that audition she met with the casting director Luis San Narciso, who had seen her in Una Rosa de Francia. Two months later, he chose her as Carolina Leal in the teen drama, El Internado, which starred in six seasons from 2007 to 2010.
The television series, set in a mysterious boarding school, became popular with viewers and made Ana de Armas a famous figure in Spain. On a break from filming, she starred in Mentiras y Gordas (2009). Despite the popularity of the teen series, the actress felt typecast as she was offered mainly teenage roles. She asked to be dropped from the series in his second and final season, but he played the role through season six, contributing to his character’s tragic ending and hoping to make the definitive leap into movies.
After spending a few months living in New York (United States) to learn English, she was later persuaded to return to Spain to star in seventeen episodes of the historical drama, Hispania, la Leyenda (2010-2011).
In 2011, while she was working in Spain, she started doing castings in the United States. At the same time, he starred in the horror films by Antonio Trashorras, El callejón (2011) and Anabel (2015), and the Spanish drama, For a Handful of Kisses (2014), along with his former partner from El Internado, Martiño Rivas.
During a long period without acting, she participated in workshops at Tomaž Pandur’s Madrid theater company and felt “very anxious” about the lack of momentum in her career. With the encouragement of her newly hired Hollywood agent, she decided to move to Los Angeles.
2015-present: Transition to Hollywood and international recognition
When she first arrived in Los Angeles in 2014, she had to start her career all over again “from scratch”. She spoke very little English and, during early auditions, often “didn’t even know what [she] was saying”. She spent four months in full-time education to learn English, not wanting to be limited to characters written specifically for Latina actresses.
At an airport, she met a producer who knew director Eli Roth, who cast her in the erotically tinged psychological thriller Knock Knock (2015) opposite Keanu Reeves. This film marked her first Hollywood release, and for her, she had to phonetically learn the lines from her. Reeves got along with the Cuban woman so much during her filming that he later phoned the actress to invite her to star in a role in Spanish in the thriller Exposed (2016), in which she acted and produced.
Thanks to the insistence of her representative, Ana soon found herself doing castings for the big Hollywood studios. She then had a supporting role in the Todd Phillips film War Dogs (2016), in which she stars opposite Miles Teller as the wife of an arms dealer, and again learned her lines phonetically. her. Phillips changed the nationality of her original character to accommodate the Cuban accent, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich found her “memorable in a thankless role”.
The actress acted alongside Venezuelan Édgar Ramírez in the biopic Manos de Piedra (2016) as the wife of Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán. Despite its late release, Hands of Stone was the first Hollywood film she shot after being contacted by director Jonathan Jakubowicz while still living in Madrid, who had seen her in El Internado and asked her to travel to Los Angeles to do an audition for the part in Spanish. Reviewing the film, Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com described the actress as “a hugely charismatic presence. But, except for a couple of flashy moments, she has little to do besides function as the dutiful wife”.
Ana convinced Denis Villeneuve at the last moment, for the futuristic thriller and sequel to Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049 (2017), sharing credits with Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling and Jared Leto. She had a supporting role as Joi, the holographic AI girlfriend of Gosling’s character. The actress imposed a diet and an exercise plan for the role. Mark Kermode of The Guardian said that she “brings three-dimensional warmth to a character who is essentially a digital projection”. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker found her “wonderful”: “Whenever Joi appears, the imaginative heart of the film begins to pick up speed”.
While the performance was initially discussed as a breakthrough role, the film underperformed commercially, and the actress spent much of the next year in her native Cuba, where she bought a home. Also in 2017, she had a supporting role in the action thriller Overdrive as the love interest of Scott Eastwood’s character. Stephen Dalton of The Hollywood Reporter said that she “radiates more charisma than her thankless partner role might suggest”. opposite Demián Bichir in John Hillcoat’s medical drama Corazón, where she played a Dominican woman with heart failure in the short film, funded by Montefiore Medical Center to raise awareness about organ donation.
Her breakout role as Marta Cabrera, an immigrant nurse in the mystery film Knives Out (2019), written and directed by Rian Johnson, was widely praised and marked a breakthrough for the actress. When she was first approached about the project, she was not enthusiastic about playing a stereotypical “Latina caretaker”, but soon realized that her character was “so much more than that”. Tom Shone of The Times commented: “The film’s outstanding performance comes from its lesser-known member, the Cuban De Armas, who handles the difficult task of making goodness interesting.” Benjamin Lee of The Guardian said that her “amazing performance” of hers left a “lasting impression”.
For her performance, she was nominated at the 77th Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy and along with the cast won the National Board of Review Award for Best Cast. On the other hand, while scenes of the actress opposite Himesh Patel in the 2019 rom-com Yesterday were included in the film’s trailer, they were ultimately cut from the final cut. Director Danny Boyle said that while the actress was “really beaming” in her scenes, the introduction of a love triangle subplot was not well received by audiences.
She later starred in four American films released in 2020. She had a supporting role in the crime thriller The Informer as the wife of Joel Kinnaman’s character. Guy Lodge of Variety found “her reduced role is even more apparent after her stardom in Knives Out ». She appeared as a femme fatale in the noir crime drama The Night Clerk. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com said that the film had “no idea” what to make of her “blinding charisma” while Katie Rife of The A.V. Club remarked that it would be remembered, “in any case, as a film for which De Armas was too good.” She starred opposite Wagner Moura in the Netflix biopic Sergio (2020) as Carolina Larriera, a UN official and partner of diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello.
John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter found her “magnetic” while Jessica Kiang of Variety said she imbued the role “with an intelligence and will that make her more than just De Mello’s romantic foil.” She also reunited with Moura to play the wife of one of the Cuban Five in Olivier Assayas’ Netflix spy thriller La Red Avispa, which also starred Edgar Ramírez, Penélope Cruz and Gael García Bernal. The film was shot in locations in Cuba and it was the actress’s first job in her home country since she left when she was 20 years old. Glenn Kenny of The New York Times found her “magnificent” while Variety’s Jay Weissberg described her as “a joyous, bewitching presence whose career seems destined for the big time”.
In 2021, De Armas reunited with her Knives Out co-star Daniel Craig to play the new Bond girl in Cary Fukunaga’s No Time To Die. Fukunaga wrote the character of a Cuban CIA agent with De Armas in mind and a replica of central Havana was built at Pinewood Studios in London.
In 2022, she starred opposite Ben Affleck in Adrian Lyne’s erotic thriller Deep Water, based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name, in which the actors play a couple in an adulterous marriage. The film was released on Prime Video and marked Lyne’s return to directing after twenty years. That same year, she also released the espionage thriller, The Gray Man from the Russo Brothers for Netflix, co-starring with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans. The film is so far the most expensive in the history of the platform.
In 2022, she released the biopic about the life of Marilyn Monroe, Blonde directed by Andrew Dominik and produced by Brad Pitt for Netflix. The film is based on the fictional novel by Joyce Carol Oates. Director Andrew Dominik recalled the actress’s performance in Knock Knock and while she was going through a lengthy casting process, Dominik secured the role of her after the first audition. In preparation for her character, she worked with a dialect coach for a year. Considered “one of the most important films of the year,” the actress received a 15-minute standing ovation for her excellent work at its premiere at the 75th Venice International Film Festival, after receiving a wave of criticism for her Latin accent.
In December 2022, the actress is nominated for a Golden Globe at the 80th Edition of the Awards, for best actress in a dramatic film for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde.
In 2023, she will star in the Apple TV+ movie Ghosted, opposite Chris Evans again, where De Armas was the replacement for Scarlett Johansson. She will also star in the thriller, Ballerina, a spinoff of John Wick and directed by Len Wiseman.
Public image of Ana de Armas
In 2016, she signed for CAA (Creative Artists Agency), the most important representation agency in Hollywood, beginning to work with the publicist Anett Wolf, who also manages the public image of Cate Blanchett and Cindy Crawford. The image of Ana de Armas has been especially favored after her jump to Hollywood.
Ana has worked with some of the most important stylists in the US, such as Micaela Erlanger, the same one who works with Meryl Streep, or Karla Welch, who has dressed celebrities such as Olivia Wilde, Sarah Paulson or Elizabeth Moss. She is currently linked to the stylist, Samantha McMillen, who is in charge of the outfits of Elle Fanning and Brie Larson.
The actress was included in Time Magazine’s 2021 Top 100 Emerging Characters of Next Generation Artists, Activists and Leaders. His gifts are evident. He also added: “A megastar has arrived: may you be the star that shines high and strong, Ana de Armas.” While specialized critics have mentioned her, “as one of the actresses with the best close-up in current Hollywood.”
Currently, her representative is Josh Lieberman, the same one who leads the career of Robert de Niro.
Advertising
The actress has lent her image to various advertising campaigns for American brands such as La Mer or the Natural Diamond Council, which since 2020 continues to be an ambassador for the American brand.
In 2019, she is the face of the new Campari short film, directed by Matteo Garrone.
In 2021, she became the global ambassador for Estée Lauder.
Personal life
Ana de Armas began a relationship with the Spanish actor Marc Clotet in mid-2010; they married in July 2011 and divorced in early 2013. She subsequently dated Spanish director-screenwriter David Victori from mid-2013 to mid-2014. She was then briefly engaged to American talent agent Franklin Latt for a year, from 2015 to 2016. And she dated Cuban painter Alejandro Piñeiro Bello from 2017 to 2018. Later, she was in a relationship with American actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck, whom she met on the set of Deep Water in the fall of 2019. In January 2021, they ended their relationship after just over a year of dating. She is currently in a relationship with the actor and businessman, Paul Boukadakis, also vice president of Tinder.
She is a close friend of Chris Evans and Elena Furiase, with whom she continues to keep in touch since her first meeting on the set of El Internado.
While hosting Saturday Night Live on April 15, 2023, she declared that she would receive US citizenship in three weeks.
Filmography
Films of Ana de Armas
| Year | Title | Character | Notes | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | A rose from France | Marie | Manuel Gutierrez Aragon | |
| 2007 | Madrigal | Stella Maris | Fernando Perez Valdes | |
| 2008 | And for dessert, what | laura | Short film | Fernando Gonzalez Gomez |
| 2009 | Lies and fat | Carola | Alfonso Albacete and David Menkes | |
| Soul | Juliet | Short film | Ana Victoria Perez | |
| 2010 | Gru: Despicable Me | Margo | Voice (Spanish dubbing) | Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud |
| 2011 | The alley | Pink / Laura | Antonio Trashorras | |
| Chinese puppy | Sabina | Short film | Fran Gil-Ortega | |
| 2013 | Faraday | Inma Murga | Norberto Ramos del Val | |
| 2014 | For a handful of kisses | Sun | David Menkes | |
| 2015 | Anabel | Cris | Antonio Trashorras | |
| Knock Knock | Bel | Eli Roth | ||
| 2016 | Exposed | Isabel de la Cruz | Gee Malik Linton | |
| Stone hands | Happiness Iglesias | Jonathan Jakubowicz | ||
| War Dogs | Iz | Todd Phillips | ||
| 2017 | Overdrive | Stephanie | Antonio Negret | |
| Blade Runner 2049 | Joi | Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress | Denis Villeneuve | |
| 2018 | Heart | Elena Ramirez | Medium-length film | John Hillcoat |
| 2019 | The Informer | Sofia Hoffman | Andrea Di Stefano | |
| Yesterday | Roxanne | Deleted scenes | Danny Boyle | |
| The Wasp Network | Ana Margarita Martinez | Olivier Assayas | ||
| Knives Out | Marta Cabrera | Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical Satellite Award nomination for Best Dramatic Actress |
Rian Johnson | |
| Entering Red | Herself | Short Film (Advertising) | Matteo Garrone | |
| 2020 | Sergio | Carolina Larriera | Greg Barker | |
| The Night Clerk | Andrea Rivera | Michael Cristofer | ||
| 2021 | No time to die | Pigeon | Cary Fukunaga | |
| 2022 | Deep Water | Melinda Van Allen | Adrian Lyne | |
| The Gray Man | Dani Miranda | Joe and Anthony Russo | ||
| Blonde | Norma Jeane/Marilyn Monroe | Andrew Dominik | ||
| 2023 | Ghosted | Sadie Rhodes | Dexter Fletcher | |
| TBA | Ballerina | Announced | Len Wiseman |
Television
| Year | Title | Character | Notes | Chain |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | The Lost Eden | Glory | Television movie | Antenna 3 |
| 2007-2010 | The boarding school | Carolina “Carol” Leal Solis | Main cast; 52 episodes (Temp 1-Temp 6) | |
| 2010-2011 | Hispania, the legend | Nerea | Main cast; 17 episodes (Temp 1-Temp 2) |
Video clips
- 2009 – “Fragile World” by Sidecars.
- 2011 – “Gipsy funky love me do” by Rosario Flores.
- 2018 – “Everyday” by Orishas.
- 2020 – “Before the world ends” by Residente.
Awards and nominations of Ana de Armas
| Oscar Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Category | Nominated Work | Result |
| 2023 | Best Actress | Blonde | Pending |
| Golden Globes | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Category | Nominated Work | Result |
| 2020 | Best Actress – Musical or Comedy | Knives Out | Nominated |
| 2023 | Best Actress – Drama | Blonde | Nominated |
| BAFTA Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Category | Nominated Work | Result |
| 2023 | Best Actress | Blonde | Nominated |
| SAG Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Category | Nominated Work | Result |
| 2023 | Best Actress | Blonde | Nominated |
| Year | Award | Category | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Saturn Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Blade Runner 2049 | Nominated |
| 2019 | Detroit Film Critics Society Award | Revolutionary performance | Knives Out | Nominated |
| National Board of Review | Best Cast | Winner | ||
| Golden Schmoes Awards | Breakthrough Performance of the Year | Winner | ||
| IGN Summer Movie Awards | Best Lead Actor in a Motion Picture | Nominated | ||
| 2020 | Satellite Awards | Best Cast in a Motion Picture | Winner | |
| Best Dramatic Actress | Nominated | |||
| Critics’ Choice Awards | Best Cast | Nominated | ||
| Gold Derby Awards | Best Ensemble | Nominated | ||
| Best Breakthrough Performer | Nominated | |||
| Awards of the Union of Actors and Actresses | Best Actress in an International Production | Winner | ||
| Image Awards | Best Actress – Feature Film | Nominated | ||
| 2021 | Saturn Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Winner | |
| 2022 | Awards of the Union of Actors and Actresses | Best Actress in an International Production | No time to die | Winner |
References (sources)
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