Ana de Armas

1988-present

After kickstarting her film career as a teenage theater student in her native Cuba, Ana de Armas commenced her run on the famous Spanish teen drama El Internado in 2007. A move to Hollywood brought roles in features like Hands of Stone and War Dogs (both 2016) before she emerged as a standout in the high-profile films Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and Knives Out (2019). Following her turn as a spunky Bond girl in No Time to Die (2021), de Armas took on the iconic role of Marilyn Monroe for Blonde (2022).

FULL NAME: Ana Celia de Armas Caso
BORN: April 30, 1988
BIRTHPLACE: Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba
SPOUSE: Mark Clotet (2011-2013)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Taurus

Ana Celia de Armas Caso was born on April 30, 1988, in Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba. The daughter of a teacher and a human resources worker, de Armas spent her early years with her brother, Javier, in a small beach town on Cuba's northern coast. It was an environment that fostered an active childhood mostly spent outdoors. "I never had PlayStation or even a DVD player," she told Men's Journal. "So all I could do was to go out there and play with the other kids."

That lifestyle changed when she moved with her family to the Cuban capital of Havana at age nine. For a girl who once assumed the persona of "Baby Spice" in a Spice Girls cover band, the immersion into big-city culture accelerated a desire to express herself through performance.

De Armas entered Cuba's National Theater School at age 14, and at 16, she made her feature film debut in the Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón drama Una rosa de Francia (2006). The burgeoning actress followed with two more films, Madrigal and El edén perdido (both 2007), but her busy working schedule left her at odds with her instructors, and she left school at age 18 to pursue her career in Spain.

Despite arriving in an unfamiliar country with few contacts and just 200 Euros to her name, de Armas hit the ground running and landed the role of Carolina in the teen drama El Internado (2007-10). The murder-mystery series soon became one of the most popular shows on Spanish television, and de Armas leveraged her growing fame with a prominent part in the sexually charged comedy Mentiras y Gordas (2009).

Following her exit from El Internado, de Armas resurfaced in the historical series Hispania, la leyenda (2010-12) as the enslaved Nerea. She also continued her work on the big screen by starring in the horror flick El callejón (2011) and playing the HIV-positive Sol in the romantic comedy Por un puñado de Besos (2014).

Again seeking new career challenges, de Armas moved to the United States in 2014 to learn English and try her luck in the moviemaking mecca of Hollywood. Although she had to learn her lines phonetically for her first English-language roles, the combination of her natural talents and radiant beauty quickly placed her on the path to stardom.

Knock Knock, Hands of Stone, and War Dogs

De Armas' American debut paired her with Keanu Reeves for the psychological thriller Knock Knock (2015), a remake of 1977's Death Game. Her reteaming with Reeves for Exposed (2016) went largely unnoticed, but she drew attention for playing the wife of boxing great Roberto Durán in the biopic Hands of Stone. De Armas also made the most of her limited time in the crime comedy War Dogs, alongside Miles Teller and Jonah Hill, before landing in the adrenaline-laced production of Overdrive (2017).

Blade Runner 2049

De Armas' career took a big leap forward after joining the cast of Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049, the eagerly anticipated sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic. Literally lighting up the screen as the holographic Joi, love interest to Ryan Gosling's replicant K, de Armas was recognized for providing the emotional core of a story in which humanity and artificial intelligence intersect, and helping to drive its commercial and critical success.

Knives Out

Following supporting roles in the crime drama The Informer and the true-story-based Wasp Network (both 2019), de Armas again emerged as the standout of a star-studded cast in the Netflix whodunit Knives Out. It was a project she nearly bypassed, after initially seeing her character, Marta, described as a "pretty Latin caretaker." But she warmed to the part after learning that Marta was more complex than expected, and her commitment to the performance led to her first Golden Globe nomination.

No Time to Die and The Gray Man

While the 25th James Bond film, No Time to Die, earned notoriety for its production- and COVID-related delays, the good news to come out of the numerous script rewrites was a part specifically penned for the Cuban actress. She ultimately dazzled in her brief but memorable turn as CIA Agent Paloma, helping to send her Knives Out colleague, Daniel Craig, out of his final 007 starring role in style. And while de Armas insists that action fare "is not where I'm the most comfortable," she again sunk her teeth into the role of a CIA operative in the summer 2022 Netflix thriller The Gray Man, with Gosling and Chris Evans.

Blonde

Another milestone moment came when de Armas was tapped to play Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik's Blonde, a long-gestating project based on the best-selling Joyce Carol Oates novel. As the actress told Vanity Fair, the process of proving that a Cuban could portray the iconic bombshell was an arduous one: "I only had to audition for Marilyn once, and Andrew said, 'It's you,' but I had to audition for everyone else. The producers. The money people. I always have people I needed to convince." More critics surfaced after the unveiling of a trailer that revealed lingering traces of her Spanish accent, but the Marilyn Monroe Estate and producer Brad Pitt were among those who came to the star's defense before the film's September 2022 release.

De Armas married Spanish actor and model Marc Clotet from 2011 to 2013. Years later, she found herself the subject of extensive tabloid attention when she dated Hollywood hunk Ben Affleck, her co-star in Deep Water (2022), for most of 2020. Afterward, she entered into a relationship with Tinder executive Paul Boukadakis.

Beyond her screen work, de Armas serves as a spokesperson for Only Natural Diamonds. She retains close ties with her friends and family in Cuba and visits the house she owns in Havana.

• I do want to play Latina. But I don't want to put a basket of fruit on my head every single time.
• People ask, 'How did you make this choice or that?' But there was only ever one choice at a time. I've never seen my life in two ways, the way I wanted it and plan B. There was only ever the way I wanted it.

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