Ana de Armas

Ana Celia de Armas Caso (; born 30 April 1988) is a Cuban and Spanish actress. She began her career in Cuba with a leading role in the romantic drama Una rosa de Francia (2006). At the age of 18, she moved to Madrid, Spain, and starred in the popular drama El Internado for six seasons from 2007 to 2010. After moving to Los Angeles, de Armas had English-speaking roles in the psychological thriller Knock Knock (2015) and the comedy-crime film War Dogs (2016). She rose to prominence with her role as the holographic AI projection Joi in the science fiction film Blade Runner 2049 (2017). For her performance as nurse Marta Cabrera in the mystery film Knives Out (2019), she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She subsequently portrayed the Bond girl Paloma in the film No Time to Die (2021) and Norma Jeane in the biopic Blonde (2022). For Blonde, de Armas became the first Cuban to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Early life De Armas was born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in the small city of Santa Cruz del Norte. Her maternal grandparents were migrants to Cuba from the north of Spain (El Bierzo, (Leon) and Palencia). Her father Ramón worked in various jobs, including a bank manager, teacher, school principal and deputy mayor of a town. He previously studied philosophy at a Soviet university. Her mother Ana worked in the human resources section of the Ministry of Education. De Armas has one older brother, Javier, a New York Citybased 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. While de Armas grew up with food rationing, fuel shortages and electricity blackouts during Cuba's Special Period, she has described her early life as happy. During her childhood and adolescence, de Armas had no internet access and had limited knowledge of popular culture beyond Cuba. She was allowed to watch "20 minutes of cartoons on Saturday and the Sunday movie matinee." Her family did not own a "video or DVD player" and she watched Hollywood movies in her neighbor's apartment. She memorized and practiced monologues in front of a mirror, and decided to become an actress when she was 12. In 2002, aged 14, she successfully auditioned to join Havana's National Theatre of Cuba. She sometimes hitchhiked to attend the "rigorous" course. While a student, she filmed three movies.