Everything you need to know about the 32-year-old Cuban actress.
Ana de Armas is one to watch!
The Cuban star made a name for herself starring in must-see films like Knives Out and Blade Runner 2049 -- not to mention her casting in the upcoming James Bond. The 32-year-old actress stars in the new Netflix film, Sergio, which dropped on the streaming platform on April 17. The drama, which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, is a biopic about United Nations diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello.
The brunette beauty has officially entered the A-lister echelon with the ultimate celebrity power move: Going public with a high-profile romance.
Reports of her budding romance with her Deep Water co-star, Ben Affleck, were accompanied by photos of the two together in Cuba, then Costa Rica and now Los Angeles, with Affleck sliding into the comments of a photo she posted of herself that he took on their beach stroll.
"Photo credit pls," Affleck wrote under her Instagram post.
And -- If you haven't enlisted in the #deArmasArmy yet, ET has compiled a handy guide below to everything you need to know about Ana de Armas.
1. She comes from humble beginnings.
Born in Havana, Cuba, with limited access to pop culture beyond her native country, de Armas knew she wanted to be an actor at the age of 12. She attended Cuba's National Theater School at the age of 14 and filmed three movies during that time: Una rosa de Francia (2006), El edén perdido (2007) and Madrigal (2007). She left shortly before presenting her thesis, as Cuban graduates are forbidden to leave the country.
2. She moved to Spain at the age of 18.
Thanks to her Spanish citizenship through her maternal grandparents, de Armas was able to move to Europe and kick-start her acting career. Two weeks after arriving in Spain, she booked a small screen role on, El Internado, which would go on to become one of the most successful TV series in the country. After six seasons on the boarding school drama, de Armas left to star in a handful of films, yet felt typecast in teenage roles.
3. She's been married to an actor before.
In mid-2010, De Armas began dating Spanish actor Marc Clotet, who was best known at the time for starring in the soap, El cor de la ciutat, and the comedy series, Física o química. They were married in Costa Brava, Spain, in July 2011 and divorced in early 2013.
4. She made her big move to Hollywood in 2014.
Without knowing any English, de Armas moved to L.A. and quickly landed her first movie, Jonathan Jakubowicz's Hands of Stone, opposite Édgar Ramírez. (Her lines were in Spanish.) The movie shot in late 2013 but wasn't released till 2016. In the interim, she booked the horror flick, Knock Knock, with Keanu Reeves. "I wasn't really sure what I was saying," she told The Hollywood Reporter, revealing that she learned her lines phonetically.
As soon as she began mastering the English language, she told her team she didn't want to audition for Latin-specific roles. "I said, 'I don't want to audition for Maria, Juana and Lola and all these things. I want to audition for the same parts that everybody is auditioning for.'"
5. In the star-studded Knives Out, she stole the show.
After co-starring opposite the likes of Miles Teller in 2016's War Dogs and Ryan Gosling in 2017's Blade Runner 2049, de Armas booked a lead role in Rian Johnson's star-studded whodunit, Knives Out, alongside Daniel Craig, Chris Evans and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Her performance as Latina caretaker Marta Cabrera earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, while the cast won the National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble.
"[I'm] still trying to take it minute by minute," she told ET on the red carpet at the Globes. "I'm very proud and humbled. I can't believe that this movie has received so much love from the audience and now the nomination was so unexpected, it's incredible."
6. She's already been called the next Penélope Cruz.
While she credits Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Winslet as her idols, de Armas' career has also drawn comparisons to Oscar winner Penélope Cruz. "The Cuban is already a diva, and her career reminds us of that of Penélope Cruz in its beginnings," Spanish-language media announced.
The two did both get their starts on Spanish TV before (eventually) becoming household names for their diverse bodies of work and lauded performances. Cruz and de Armas actually star together in Olivier Assayas' Wasp Network, which also reunites the latter with Édgar Ramírez. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, with a 2020 release date to follow.
7. Prepare to see a lot more of her on the big screen soon.
Following Knives Out, de Armas has three major projects in the pipeline: the final James Bond film starring Daniel Craig, No Time to Die, the Marilyn Monroe drama, Blonde, and Deep Water, with Affleck.
The role of Paloma in No Time to Die was created specifically for her and redefines what it means to be a Bond Girl. "When I read it, I was like, 'Oh, wait -- I can be a Bond girl. I’m that. I’m that messy,'" de Armas told Los Angeles Times. "That’s what felt so attractive, on top of what she’s actually doing in the story, which is another step toward giving women a more powerful and strong place in the films."
In Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, she will don a platinum wig to play a fictionalized take on the Hollywood icon, followed by the erotic thriller, Deep Water. The film follows a well-to-do husband (Affleck) who, after giving his wife permission to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce, becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.
"It's pretty exciting. I don't think I've ever done anything like it," she told ET about working with Affleck. "It's a genre that I have never played, and Adrian Lyne is the master of that genre. I love Ben and everything's going well, but it's too soon to even know what it's going to be like."
Deep Water is set to open in theaters on Nov. 13, ahead of No Time to Die's release on Nov. 25. (The latter's April release was officially postponed due to coronavirus.) Blonde will stream on Netflix this year.
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