Ana Celia de Armas Caso, a Spanish and Cuban actress, was born on April 30, 1988 (Spanish pronunciation: [ana selja e armas kaso]). She made her acting debut in Cuba in the romance drama Una rose de Francia (2006), playing the lead. She relocated to Madrid, Spain, at the age of 18, where she appeared in El Internado for six seasons from 2007 to 2010.
After relocating to Los Angeles, de Armas appeared in the comedic-crime movie War Dogs (2015), the psychological thriller Knock Knock (2015), and the sports biopic Hands of Stone (2016) in English-speaking parts. She became well-known for playing Joi, a holographic AI projection, in the 2017 science fiction movie Blade Runner 2049. She received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in Knives Out (2019) for her portrayal of nurse Marta Cabrera. Her future roles were Marilyn Monroe in the biography Blonde (2022) and Bond girl Paloma in the James Bond movie No Time to Die (2021). De Armas was the first Cuban woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the latter.
De Armas was nurtured in the little town of Santa Cruz del Norte after being born in Havana, Cuba. Her paternal ancestors were Spanish immigrants to Cuba. Ramón, her father, held a variety of positions, including deputy mayor of a town, teacher, bank manager, and principal of a school. In the past, he had taken philosophy classes in a Soviet institution. Her mother Ana worked at the Ministry of Education's Human Resources division. One older brother, Javier, a photographer living in New York, was questioned by Cuban authorities in 2020 as a result of his opposition to Decree 349 and his connections to creatives who were being watched by the government. Despite having to deal with food rationing, gasoline shortages, and electrical blackouts while growing up in Cuba during the Special Period, de Armas has characterised her formative years as joyful.
De Armas didn't have access to the internet growing up and was only vaguely familiar with popular culture outside of Cuba. She was permitted to watch "20 minutes of Saturday cartoons and the Sunday movie matinee." She saw Hollywood films in her neighbor's flat because her family lacked a "video or DVD player". When she was 12 years old, she made the decision to pursue acting and began memorising and practising monologues in front of a mirror. She had a successful audition in 2002 at the age of 14 to join the Cuban National Theatre in Havana. She occasionally took the "rigorous" course by hitchhiking. She made three films while still a student. She dropped out of the four-year theatre programme months before presenting her capstone project because Cuban graduates are not allowed to leave the nation before completing the required three years of community service. She came to Madrid when she was 18 years old to pursue a career in acting and acquired Spanish citizenship through her maternal grandparents.
Career
Beginnings of careers in Spanish film (2006–2013)
In the love drama Una rose de Francia (2006) directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, de Armas played the lead opposite Lex González in her home Cuba. After getting to know de Armas while attending a birthday celebration with his daughters, Cuban actor Jorge Perugorra recommended that the director take de Armas into consideration for the part. The sixteen-year-old's audition was interrupted by the director, who had come to de Armas' theatre school to tell her that the part was hers. As part of a tour to promote the movie, she went to Spain where she met Juan Lanja, who would subsequently represent her in that country. After that, she had a supporting role in Fernando Pérez's Madrigal (2007), which was shot at night without the knowledge of her drama school instructors, and she starred in the film El edén perdido (2007).
De Armas relocated to Madrid when he was 18. She met casting director Luis San Narciso, who had seen her in Una rose de Francia, two weeks after coming. She was given the role of Carolina in the drama El Internado two months later; she played the part for six seasons, from 2007 to 2010. The boarding school-themed television programme gained popularity among viewers and elevated de Armas to notoriety in Spain. She appeared in the popular coming-of-age comedy Mentiras y Gordas (2009) during a break from filming. De Armas felt typecast despite El Internado's success and the fact that she was frequently given roles as young people. In the second to final season of the show, she requested to be cut from the script.
De Armas moved to New York City for a few months to study English before being convinced to come back to Spain to appear in seventeen episodes of the historical drama Hispania (2010–2011). Then she appeared in the drama Por un puado de besos (2014) as well as the horror thrillers El callejón (2011) and Anabel (2015) directed by Antonio Trashorras. De Armas took part in workshops at Tomaz Pandur's Madrid theatrical company during a protracted spell of unemployment from the acting industry and expressed "very anxiety" about the stagnation of her profession.
(2014–2020) Entry into Hollywood and breakthrough
She made the decision to go to Los Angeles with the assistance of her recently acquired Hollywood agency. De Armas had to relaunch her career after moving to Los Angeles in 2014 and begin "from scratch." She had a limited command of English, and during her early auditions, she frequently "didn't even know what was saying." She enrolled in full-time English classes for four months because she didn't want to be limited to portraying roles created just for Latina actresses. She phonetically learnt her lines for Eli Roth's sensual thriller Knock Knock (2015), in which she co-starred with Keanu Reeves. Randy Cordova of the Arizona Republic considered de Armas to be "unconvincing" in her portrayal despite giving the movie a good rating. Then, Reeves called de Armas to invite her to play a Spanish-speaking lead in the suspense thriller Daughter of God, in which he also starred and produced. Although director involvement caused Daughter of God to be severely edited and de Armas' prior major part to be diminished, producer Mark Downie had anticipated the movie would be a star vehicle for de Armas. In the end, the movie was released as Exposed in 2016. De Armas was "appealing" in her role, but according to Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter, she was unable to convey her "character's intense emotional demands."
In Todd Phillips' 2016 film War Dogs, De Armas played the wife of an arms dealer opposite Miles Teller. This time, she memorised her lines phonetically. She was deemed to be "memorable in a thankless role" by David Ehrlich of IndieWire. In the 2016 film Hands of Stone, she played the wife of Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán alongside Édgar Ramrez. Hands of Stone was de Armas' debut Hollywood production, despite its delayed release. After seeing her in El Internado, director Jonathan Jakubowicz contacted her when she was still living in Madrid and invited her to fly to Los Angeles to try out for the Spanish-speaking role. De Armas was praised as having "a hugely charismatic presence" by Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com in her review of the movie. She only has a few opportunities to shine, though, and mostly just plays the role of the obedient wife.
De Armas played the holographic AI girlfriend of Ryan Gosling's blade runner character, Joi, in Denis Villeneuve's 2017 sci-fi film Blade Runner 2049. She, according to Mark Kermode of The Guardian, "brings three-dimensional warmth to a character who is essentially a digital projection." She was deemed "wonderful" by Anthony Lane of The New Yorker: "Whenever Joi appears, the movie's imaginative heart starts to race." De Armas spent a large portion of the year after that in her native Cuba, where she bought a house, despite the fact that the performance was initially hailed as a breakout role because of the movie's poor box office success. Additionally in 2017, she played Scott Eastwood's character's love interest in the action thriller Overdrive. As The Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Dalton put it, she "radiates more kick-ass charisma than her thankless sidekick role might suggest."
De Armas and Demián Bichir co-starred in John Hillcoat's medical drama Corazón in 2018. In the short film, which was made with funding from Montefiore Medical Centre to promote organ donation, she portrayed a Dominican woman who is suffering from heart failure. Yesterday, a 2019 romantic comedy, featured de Armas and Himesh Patel in several sequences, however those parts weren't included in the final cut. While de Armas was "really radiant" in her moments, according to director Danny Boyle, the addition of a love triangle plotline did not go over well with viewers.
Rian Johnson's 2019 ensemble murder mystery film Knives Out, which stars De Armas as an immigrant nurse, received positive reviews and established the actress as a major talent. She was reluctant to accept the role of a conventional "Latina caretaker" when she was first approached about the film, but she soon came to see that her character was "so much more than that." The Times' Tom Shone said that "the film's standout performance comes from its least well-known member, the Cuban de Armas, who manages the difficult task of making goodness interesting." Her "striking" performance, according to Benjamin Lee of The Guardian, left a "lasting impression." The movie had a great box office performance. In addition to winning the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress and the National Board of Review Award for Best Cast with the cast, De Armas was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.
In four films that were released in the US in 2020, De Armas played the lead. She played the character's wife in the crime drama The Informer as a supporting actor. Her tiny role was "all the more glaring in the wake of her Knives Out stardom," according to Guy Lodge of Variety. In the noir crime drama The Night Clerk, she played a femme fatale. It had "no idea" what to do with her "blinding charisma," according to Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com, while Katie Rife of The AV Club said it will be remembered, "if at all, as a movie de Armas was way too good for." She played Carolina Larriera, a U.N. official and the partner of ambassador Sérgio Vieira de Mello, opposite Wagner Moura in the Netflix biopic Sergio (2020). According to Jessica Kiang of Variety, she gave the role "an intelligence and will that makes her more than just de Mello's romantic foil." John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter called her "magnetic." In the Netflix spy thriller Wasp Network by Olivier Assayas, De Armas reconnected with Moura to portray the spouse of one of the Cuban Five. It was de Armas's first project in her native country since leaving when she was a teenager, and the movie was filmed on location in Cuba. She received "superb" reviews from Glenn Kenny of The New York Times and Jay Weissberg of Variety, who called her "a joyous, bewitching presence whose career seems destined for the big time."
Significant positions and ongoing recognition (2021–present)
De Armas worked with Daniel Craig one more in 2021's No Time to Die as a Bond girl. De Armas was in mind when Fukunaga created the persona of a Cuban CIA agent. She called the persona "very irresponsible" and cheerful. Despite having minimal training, Paloma, the character she played in No Time to Die, quickly proved to be very talented. No Time to Die was a critical and financial triumph, earning $774.2 million worldwide. De Armas' "witty and unworldly turn" was complimented by Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian. Based on Patricia Highsmith's novel, Adrian Lyne's sensual thriller Deep Water stars De Armas. She and Ben Affleck portray an openly wed couple. Alongside Chris Evans and Ryan Gosling, De Armas starred in the Netflix action film The Grey Man from the Russo brothers in 2022. The Grey Man and Deep Water weren't exceptionally well received by critics or spectators.
In the Netflix biopic Blonde (2022), based on Joyce Carol Oates' biographical fiction novel of the same name, De Armas played Marilyn Monroe. De Armas underwent a lengthy casting procedure, but director Andrew Dominik was impressed by her performance in Knock Knock and cast her after the first round. De Armas claimed that she read Oates' book, worked with a dialect coach for a year, and studied hundreds of images, videos, audio files, and movies to get ready for the part. Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson and Catherine Bray both praised de Armas' performance, calling it "powerful," and Vanity Fair's Catherine Bray said that "De Armas is fiercely, almost scarily committed to the role, maintaining high and focused energy through every torrent of tears and screams and traumas." However, de Armas' casting received criticism due to her distinct Spanish accent. Along with nominations for the BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Awards in the same category, she also garnered nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
After that, De Armas replaced Scarlett Johansson in the action comedy Ghosted (2023), an Apple TV+ release that also stars Chris Evans. The absence of chemistry between de Armas and Evans was criticised by Benjamin Lee of The Guardian.
Private life
Midway through 2010, De Armas started dating Spanish actor Marc Clotet, with whom she later got married in July 2011 in Costa Brava. Early in 2013, they got divorced. She dated American talent agent Franklin Latt from early 2015 to late 2016, and they were briefly engaged. De Armas dated American actor Ben Affleck from March 2020 to January 2021 after they first connected on the Deep Water shoot in late 2019. Since June 2021, she has been seeing Tinder vice president Paul Boukadakis.
De Armas is a dual citizen of Spain and Cuba. At age 26, she relocated to Los Angeles, and as of 2023, she lived in Vermont. She announced that she would become an American citizen in three weeks when hosting Saturday Night Live in April 2023.
Filmography
Film
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
2006 | Una rosa de Francia | Marie | |
2007 | Madrigal | Stella Maris | |
2009 | Sex, Party and Lies | Carola | Original Spanish title Mentiras y gordas |
Y de postre, qué | Girl | Short film | |
Ánima | Julieta | Short film | |
2011 | Blind Alley | Rosa / Laura | Original Spanish title El callejón |
2012 | Perrito chino | Sabina | Short film |
2013 | Faraday | Inma Murga | |
2014 | For a Handful of Kisses | Sol | Original Spanish title Por un puñado de besos |
2015 | Knock Knock | Bel | |
Anabel | Cris | ||
2016 | Exposed | Isabel de la Cruz | |
Hands of Stone | Felicidad Iglesias | ||
War Dogs | Iz | ||
2017 | Overdrive | Stephanie | |
Blade Runner 2049 | Joi | ||
2018 | Corazón | Elena Ramírez | Short film |
2019 | Entering Red | Ana | Short film |
The Informer | Sofia Koslow | ||
Wasp Network | Ana Margarita Martinez | ||
Knives Out | Marta Cabrera | ||
2020 | Sergio | Carolina Larriera | |
The Night Clerk | Andrea Rivera | ||
2021 | No Time to Die | Paloma | |
2022 | Deep Water | Melinda Van Allen | |
The Gray Man | Dani Miranda | ||
Blonde | Marilyn Monroe | ||
2023 | Ghosted | Sadie | |
2024 | Ballerina | Rooney / The Ballerina | Post-production |
Television
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
2007 | El edén perdido | Gloria | Television film |
2007–2010 | El Internado | Carolina Leal Solís | 56 episodes |
2010–2011 | Hispania, la leyenda | Nerea | 17 episodes |
2023 | Saturday Night Live | Herself (host) | Episode: "Ana De Armas/Karol G" |
Music videos
Year | Title | Role | Artist |
2009 | "Mundo frágil" | Niña | Sidecars |
2018 | "Everyday" | Chica | Orishas |
2020 | "Antes Que El Mundo Se Acabe" | Herself | Residente |
Awards and nominations
Year | Organization | Category | Work | Result |
2018 | Saturn Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Blade Runner 2049 | Nominated |
2019 | Detroit Film Critics Society | Best Breakthrough | Knives Out | Nominated |
National Board of Review | Best Cast | Won | ||
Golden Schmoes Awards | Breakthrough Performance of the Year | Won | ||
IGN Summer Movie Awards | Best Lead Performer in a Movie | Nominated | ||
Satellite Awards | Best Cast – Motion Picture | Won | ||
Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical | Nominated | |||
2020 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical | Nominated | |
Critics' Choice Movie Awards | Best Acting Ensemble | Nominated | ||
Gold Derby Awards | Best Ensemble | Nominated | ||
Best Breakthrough Performer | Nominated | |||
Actors and Actresses Union Awards | Best Actress in an International Production | Won | ||
Imagen Awards | Best Actress – Feature Film | Nominated | ||
2021 | Saturn Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Won | |
2022 | Critics' Choice Super Awards | Best Actress in an Action Movie | No Time to Die | Nominated |
Deauville American Film Festival | Hollywood Rising Star Award | — | Won | |
Chicago Film Critics Association | Best Actress | Blonde | Nominated | |
2023 | Capri Hollywood International Film Festival | Best Actress | Won | |
EDA Awards | She Deserves a New Agent Award | Won | ||
Most Egregious Lovers' Age Difference Award | Deep Water | Nominated | ||
Golden Globe Awards | Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Blonde | Nominated | |
London Film Critics' Circle Awards | Actress of the Year | Nominated | ||
AACTA International Awards | Best Actress | Nominated | ||
Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role | Nominated | ||
British Academy Film Awards | Best Actress in a Leading Role | Nominated | ||
Academy Awards | Best Actress | Nominated | ||
Actors and Actresses Union Awards | Best Female Performance in an International Production | Won |
Quick Bio
Nickname | Ana |
Gender | Female |
Age | 34 years old (in 2023) |
Date of Birth | April 30, 1988 |
Real Name | Ana Celia de Armas Caso |
Profession | Actress |
Nationality | Spanish, Cuban |
Birthplace | Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba |
Religion | Christianity |
Zodiac Sign | Taurus |
School | National Theater School of Cuba |
Profession | Actress |
Height, Weight & Physical Stats
Body Measurements | 34-24-36 inches |
Body type | Slim |
Height | 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 m) |
Weight | 55 kg (121 lbs) |
Waist | 24 inches |
Hair Color | Fair |
Eye Color | Green |
Shoe Size | 8 (US) |
Dress Size | 6 (US) |
Family & Relatives
Father | Ramón de Armas |
Mother | Ana Caso |
Brother | Javier Caso |
Marital Status | Married |
Husband | Marc Clotet (m. 2011–2013) |
Past Relationships | Alejandro Pineiro Bello |
Facts
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