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“It was such a rollercoaster ride that at times I thought ‘Rubia’ wasn’t going to make it.”
Ana de Armas confessed to Variety magazine in September about her experience in the film Blonde, in which she plays Marilyn Monroe.
But this biopic unconventional written and directed by Andrew Dominik, the actress deserved it 34-year-old Cuban her first Oscar nomination, a feat never before equaled by an actress from the Caribbean island.
De Armas was also nominated for a Golden Globe for this film (as in 2019 for her role as Marta Cabrera in Knives Out).
It’s something extraordinary for an artist who, although already well known in Spain, few had heard of in Hollywood until 2016.
Image copyright 2022 © Netflix
Here we tell you some aspects that you might not know about his origins and meteoric career.
1. He grew up in Havana
Ana de Armas was born on April 30, 1988 in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba and grew up in Havana.
At the age of 12 she decided to become an actress. inspiredAs he said in several interviews, for the movie “Matilda”.
Her dream took shape when she was chosen to attend the National Art School of Cuba, where she studied for several years.
He made his film debut in 2006 with the film “A Rose from France”.
It was his first success, giving way to other works such as the film Madrigal and the soap opera El edén perdido.
2. His career started in Spain with the series “El Internado”
When he turned 18, De Armas left Cuba to move to Spain, the country of which he is a citizen because his maternal grandparents are Spanish.
She says she arrived in Madrid knowing she could live on savings (about $220) that were a lot less than she thought. But success was waiting right there.
Recently arrived in the Spanish capital, De Armas auditioned and was cast in the series El Internado, her springboard to stardom.
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“El Internado” on Antena 3 was his ticket to success in Spain.
He worked on the successful Antena 3 series for three seasons (2007-2009)until she herself asked the producers to kill her character, Caroline faithfulso he can focus on his film career.
Although he wasn’t short on projects, he did get involved in projects in the years that followed “Lies and Fat”, “The cAlley” and “For a Fistful of Kisses”– the young woman aspired to interpret other types of roles and began to think about a different life change.
3. He made the leap to Hollywood and his career skyrocketed
After divorcing the Catalan actor Marc Clotet, whom she had married just two years earlier 2014De Armas sold what he had in Madrid and moved to the United States.
After settling in Los Angeles, California, important job offers would soon be pouring down on her.
Impressed by the actress’ performance in a chapter of El Internado, Venezuelan director Jonathan Jakubowicz approached her to cast her as the wife of Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán “Hands of Stone”, with Edgar Ramírez and Robert de Niro.
Image copyrightGetty Images
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De Armas’ Hollywood career began with Keanu Reeves in Knock Knock.
She hadn’t finished that job when director Eli Roth cast her for the thriller knock Knock along with actor Keanu Reeves, with whom he also worked on his next film The Daughter of God (2016).
From that moment and after being signed by the main agent agency in Hollywood (Agency for creative artists), his Hollywood career skyrocketed.
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caption,
Ana de Armas was a “Bond girl” in “No Time to Die”.
In 2017, she got the role that would catapult her career: Joi, an artificial intelligence-created hologram who was Ryan Gosling’s virtual girlfriend in Blade Runner 2049.
Shortly after, another of her milestones was confirmed: the young Cuban became the new Bond girl in the film No Time to Die, which premiered in April 2020.
And that year, his performance in Knives Out, his first comedic role since landing in the US, earned him a Golden Globe nomination.
Image CopyrightIMDB
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The character of Marta Cabrera earned Ana de Armas a Golden Globe nomination.
That year he once again ran for a Hollywood Foreign Press Association award for Best in Cinema and Television, this time for portraying “blonde temptation” in Blonde, a role for which he is now vying for a Best Actress Oscar fights
4. He had a hard time learning English (and criticism of how he speaks it)
In fact, one of the reasons De Armas moved from Madrid to Los Angeles, he said, was to learn English.
So upon arrival in the Californian city He turned to the lessonhe language to which he devoted six hours a day.
Image copyright 2022 © Netflix
After a few months at this pace, he began auditioning in both English and English Learn the dialogues phoneticallywhich left him a good catalog of anecdotes.
In several interviews, for example, she has shared how overwhelmed she felt filming Tom Phillips’ Game of Arms (War Dogs).
“I was shooting a scene with Miles Teller and he changed my lines and I couldn’t. We had to paste the text from before because I definitely wouldn’t say that‘ he confessed in an interview with the Spanish show El Hormiguero.
“It was a long process, many years. But making a character like Marilyn Monroe (…), a real person that we’ve all heard, an icon with a very specific voice… was another level of work. “
In an interview with Variety in September, she explained how, despite already being director Andrew Dominik’s favorite Marilyn paperHe had to convince Netflix, the tape distributor, of this in a screen test.
She went to the appointment with her diction teacher, who dictated the correct pronunciation of the lines during the test. The scene chosen was one in which Monroe begs her husband, Joe DiMaggio, to let her move to New York to “start fresh, away from Hollywood.”
Image copyright 2022 © Netflix
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Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in the biopic Blonde, starring Adrien Brody who plays writer Arthur Miller, who was her third husband.
“I knew that everything I did that day would be crucial in getting the film greenlit,” he told the magazine. “But I got worse and worsewhich reminded me I wasn’t good enough.”
What he did was take advantage of that insecurity and use it for the character. “I embraced my fears and my vulnerability, my discomfort and my insecurities,” she explained.
“I approached the whole film with these emotions, the way I felt playing the role.”.
But her performance, which has been highlighted by awards season pundits, has also drawn criticism.
When the trailer was released last August, there were a few voices On social networks, they attacked the pronunciation of De Armasconsider it inappropriate.
Other users came to their defense, accusing the haters of intolerance and xenophobia, and they also defended them from Authentic Brands Group (ABG), holders of the image rights to “The Blonde Bombshell,” and Brad Pitt, whose company Plan B has the film co-produced.
“It was more about capturing his essence, his spirit and understand why he spoke that way, rather than trying to copy itthede Armas explained at the time.
On March 12, it will be known if all this work will be enough to win the Oscar for best actress.
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