Ana de Armas has put out a call for Spanish filmmakers to get in touch with her, saying she would love to work in the country again.
Speaking in the latest In Conversation event at Red Sea International Film Festival, de Armas was asked if she would ever return to work in the country, where she lived and worked from 2006-2014.
“100%,” said de Armas. “Every time I go back to Spain I say it. Please call me, I want to work here, send me scripts.”
“There’s something there that’s unreachable,” said de Armas as to why she hasn’t worked in the country since leaving for Los Angeles in 2014. “But I would love to go back and work there. I love European cinema.”
The actress discussed her whole career in the 60-minute talk, including moving to the US without being able to speak English at all. “I never thought I was going to live in the US,” said de Armas. “My grandparents were from Spain; Spain was always the place that felt like my second home.”
de Armas recalled learning lines phonetically on her first two English-language projects, Eli Roth’s Knock Knock and Todd Phillips’s War Dogs.
“I remember one scene I was doing [on War Dogs] with Miles Teller, and Todd wanted to change the lines,” said de Armas. “I took him to one corner of the set and said ‘please don’t’. I was terrified, I’d just memorised that line.”
Her stubborn nature made her stick with the move amid the linguistic challenges. “I’m a very determined person,” said de Armas. “I’m never afraid of taking a step back if I feel like I went too fast. But when I try, I really try to give it a good shot of what I’m doing.”
Reenactment
de Armas confirmed that her next film will be Grant Singer’s Reenactment which she will film in January, opposite Benicio del Toro and Cameron Diaz. 193 began pre-sales on the project at the American Film Market last month.
The actress also discussed Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde, for which de Armas received an Oscar nomination for best actress in 2023. de Armas said she attended an initial meeting for the project, with executives from both producers Plan B and backers Netflix present.
“I’m not going to say who, but not everyone was supportive of my casting,” said de Armas of the meeting. “I get it – a Cuban playing Marilyn Monroe is very strange, and with a week of preparation on my own.”
“It was the most scary thing I’ve ever done,” said de Armas. “But a beautiful, delicious torture. I loved every single day of that film.”
Following a successful early career in her native Cuba, de Armas moved to Madrid, Spain aged 18, appearing in titles including 2009 comedy-drama Sex, Party & Lies.
After moving to the US in 2014, de Armas appeared in films including Roth’s erotic thriller Knock Knock and Phillips’s War Dogs; before reaching blockbuster level with titles including Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 and the most recent James Bond title No Time To Die.
Her credits also include Rian Johnson’s first Knives Out film; and recent titles Eden by Ron Howard and John Wick spin-off Ballerina.
The Red Sea In Conversation programme continues tomorrow (Saturday, December 6) with Juliette Binoche and Adrien Brody.
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