Ana de Armas Bio
Ana Celia de Armas Caso, known professionally as Ana de Armas, is a Cuban and Spanish actress born on 30 April 1988 in Havana, Cuba. She began her career in her home country with a leading role in the romantic drama Una rosa de Francia (2006) and later rose to international prominence for her roles in Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and Knives Out (2019). De Armas is widely recognized for portraying Marilyn Monroe in the biographical drama Blonde (2022), a performance that earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first Cuban actor to receive such a nomination.
Early Life and Background
Ana Celia de Armas Caso was born on 30 April 1988 in Havana, Cuba, and raised in the nearby town of Santa Cruz del Norte. She grew up during Cuba’s Special Period, a time marked by food rationing, fuel shortages, and frequent electricity blackouts, though she has described her early childhood as a happy one. Her father, Ramón de Armas, held various positions including bank manager, teacher, school principal, and deputy mayor, and he had previously studied philosophy at a Soviet university. Her mother, Ana Caso, worked in the human resources section of the Ministry of Education.
De Armas’s maternal grandparents were Spanish immigrants to Cuba, originally from the regions of Guardo in León and Valverde de la Sierra in Palencia, in the north of Spain, which later gave her access to Spanish citizenship. She has one older brother, Francisco Javier de Armas Caso, an American-based photographer. During her childhood and adolescence, de Armas had no internet access and limited exposure to popular culture beyond Cuba. She memorized and practiced monologues in front of a mirror and decided to become an actress at the age of 12.
In 2002, at the age of 14, de Armas successfully auditioned to join Havana’s National Theatre of Cuba, sometimes hitchhiking to attend the rigorous course. While a student, she filmed three movies. She left the four-year drama course shortly before presenting her final thesis because Cuban graduates were forbidden from leaving the country without first completing three years of mandatory service to the community. At 18, with Spanish citizenship through her maternal grandparents, she moved to Madrid to pursue an acting career.
Path to Celebrity
In her native Cuba, de Armas landed a starring role opposite Álex González in Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón’s romantic drama Una rosa de Francia (2006). Cuban actor Jorge Perugorría suggested that the director consider de Armas for the role after meeting her at a birthday party with his daughters. The director visited de Armas’s drama school and interrupted the sixteen-year-old during her audition to inform her that the role was hers. She later starred in El edén perdido (2007) and had a supporting role in Fernando Pérez’s Madrigal (2007), filmed at night without the permission of her drama school tutors.
Within two weeks of arriving in Madrid, de Armas met with casting director Luis San Narciso, who had seen her in Una rosa de Francia. Two months later, he cast her as Carolina in the drama El Internado, in which she starred for six seasons from 2007 to 2010. The television show, set in a boarding school, became popular with viewers and made de Armas a celebrity figure in Spain. After spending a few months living in New York City to learn English, de Armas returned to Spain to star in seventeen episodes of the historical drama Hispania (2010–2011) and appeared in several Spanish films, including Por un puñado de besos (2014) and the horror films El callejón (2011) and Anabel (2015).
Ana de Armas Career
Early Career (2006–2013)
De Armas began her professional career in Cuba with her leading role in Una rosa de Francia (2006), directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón. Her performance in the romantic drama introduced her to Spanish audiences during a promotional tour and led to her meeting Spanish agent Juan Lanja. She also appeared in El edén perdido (2007) and Madrigal (2007), both of which were filmed in Cuba before her move to Madrid.
After relocating to Madrid, de Armas achieved her first major recognition with the drama series El Internado, which ran for six seasons from 2007 to 2010. The show’s popularity established her as a recognizable face in Spanish television. She also appeared in the successful coming-of-age comedy Mentiras y Gordas (2009) during a break from filming El Internado. Despite the show’s success, de Armas felt typecast and was often offered roles as youngsters, which led her to ask to be written out of the series in its second to last season.
Breakthrough (2014–2019)
With encouragement from a newly hired Hollywood agent, de Armas moved to Los Angeles in 2014 to restart her career. She spoke very little English and spent four months in full-time education to learn the language, not wanting to be confined to playing characters written specifically for Latina actresses. She starred opposite Keanu Reeves in her first Hollywood release, Eli Roth’s erotic thriller Knock Knock (2015), learning her lines phonetically. She also had a supporting role in Todd Phillips’s War Dogs (2016) and appeared in the biopic Hands of Stone (2016) as the wife of Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán.
In Denis Villeneuve’s futuristic thriller Blade Runner 2049 (2017), de Armas had a supporting role as Joi, the holographic AI girlfriend of Ryan Gosling’s character, earning her a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. In Rian Johnson’s ensemble murder mystery film Knives Out (2019), she played immigrant nurse Marta Cabrera, a performance widely praised by critics and one that marked a major breakthrough for the actress. For Knives Out, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, and shared the National Board of Review Award for Best Cast with her co-stars.
Notable Works and Milestones
De Armas is best known for her roles in Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Knives Out (2019), No Time to Die (2021), and Blonde (2022). Her performance as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, as well as nominations for the BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award in the same category. She became the first Cuban actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Ana de Armas Award Nominations
Ana de Armas has received multiple award nominations across her career in both Spanish and English-language cinema. For her performance in Knives Out (2019), she earned a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. Her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde (2022) brought her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role.
Ana de Armas Awards Won
Ana de Armas has won several awards throughout her career, particularly for her performances in science fiction and mystery films. She won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Joi in Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and she received the same honor for Knives Out (2019). She also shared the National Board of Review Award for Best Cast with the ensemble of Knives Out.
Ana de Armas Family
Ana de Armas was born to Ramón de Armas, her father, and Ana Caso, her mother. Her father held various jobs throughout his career, including bank manager, teacher, school principal, and deputy mayor of a town, and he had previously studied philosophy at a Soviet university. Her mother worked in the human resources section of the Ministry of Education in Cuba. De Armas has one older brother, Francisco Javier de Armas Caso, an American-based photographer who, in 2020, was questioned by Cuban police due to his critical stance on Decree 349 and his links to artists under government surveillance.
Personal Life
Ana de Armas holds triple Cuban, Spanish, and American citizenship, and she moved to Los Angeles at the age of 26. As of 2023, she resides in Vermont, United States. She began a relationship with Spanish actor Marc Clotet in mid-2010, married him on the Costa Brava in July 2011, and divorced in early 2013. After meeting on the set of Deep Water in late 2019, she dated American actor Ben Affleck from March 2020 to January 2021.
