Ana de Armas is not long into her thirties but has already been in the Ridley Scott blockbuster sequel Blade Runner 2049 with Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, Todd Phillips’ comedy-crime caper War Dogs alongside Jonah Hill and Robert De Niro, plus Usher Raymond and Edgar Ramirez in the Roberto Duran biopic Hands of Stone.
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1988, de Armas was just 16 when she made her first film appearance, in Virgin Rose, directed by Manuel Gutiérrez. She moved to Spain in 2007 and married fellow actor Marc Clotet in 2011, before divorcing less than two years later.
When she moved to Los Angeles in 2014, de Armas was only able to speak Spanish. Single-minded and determined to learn English in order to get auditions, she succeeded to the extent she was able to get a part in Eli Roth’s thriller Knock, Knock with Keanu Reeves.
That determination has been one of the main reasons the actress has continued to rub shoulders with the household names of Hollywood, and she has previously said that she had left behind an established career in the Iberian Peninsula to “forget my ego and go back to being nobody again.”
She linked up again with Reeves in Exposed in 2016 before War Dogs and Hands of Stone catapulted her to new heights. A year later, de Armas starred with Scott Eastwood in Overdrive, before the sci-fi thriller Blade Runner 2049.
With The Informer, Knives Out, and of course, her appearance as the new Bond girl in the upcoming No Time to Die, de Armas’s status as a star for the next era of Hollywood is almost secured.
STRIPLV: You’ve started the year with a Golden Globes nomination for your role as Marta in Knives Out. DE ARMAS: Yes, I was so surprised by that nomination, and when I found out, I just had to call my parents who still live back home in Havana. Luckily, it was the same time as me where I was in New Orleans, so it wasn’t the middle of the night. They cried when I told them, and I opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate. STRIPLV: And you’ve got the Bond film No Time to Die to come later in 2020. DE ARMAS: Absolutely. It’s so great to have worked on the film with so many incredible, established actors and actresses. I’ve always loved Bond. It’s crazy to think that the first 007 film that I saw in the cinema was Skyfall and that was at the Madrid premiere as I was living there in 2012. Javier Bardem’s performance in Skyfall was absolutely amazing. STRIPLV: What other recollections of Bond do you have? DE ARMAS: Obviously, since then, I’ve explored the back catalog more, and anyway, everyone knows the legacy of James Bond. It is almost unique to have a character who has crossed over so many different decades and generations. It is a magical thing, and no other movie storyline can come anywhere close to it. STRIPLV: Does that add to the pressure? DE ARMAS: I am not too worried about the pressure. When you are shooting a movie, the pressure is usually off. It is not as if you are filming it in front of a watching crowd who are judging your every line. Filming is actually a very safe, controlled, stable environment. It is behind closed doors, and you have the comfort of knowing that if something goes wrong, you can do it again. The skill and precision of the Bond movies is such that nothing will ever move forward until the last thing you’ve done is perfect. It is a standard that everyone abides by, so when you wrap up a movie like Bond, in your mind, the idea is that you’ve achieved something close to perfection, and certainly I’ve not had that feeling on any other movies. Naturally, it is only the audience who will decide if your perception of perfection is true, but this is what we try to create, after all. One thing that connects both Knives Out and No Time to Die is, of course, Daniel Craig. STRIPLV: What has it been like working with him again? DE ARMAS: It’s been so great working with Daniel almost back to back for those two films, and I’ve enjoyed watching his performances and also working with him in the scenes and on set, especially as the roles that he was playing in the two films couldn’t have been more different. In Knives Out, he is still working on the side of the good, trying to figure out who the murderer is. Trying to piece together what has happened, and that accent is nothing like his own. But I think that he pulled it off really well and you don’t even question it at all; you just go with it. We obviously know how he is and who he is as James Bond, so the two performances are almost the opposite of each other. But with both, it was great working with him in seeing how he varies his work and performances. STRIPLV: Being a native of Havana, Cuba, English isn’t your first language. Looking through your movie resumé, it seems that your first English language film was Knock Knock, and that’s only in 2015. What convinced you to make the decision to move to America and further your career? DE ARMAS: Yeah, I think that’s right about it being my first English-language film. I like the challenges and also the adventure, but also, as you said, I wanted to advance my career in film and see how far I can go. I have a dialect coach, her name is Samara Bay, and she has helped a lot of actors who have been trying to perfect their English. What you also have is the ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement), and that can help in the editing process so that it will improve things anyway. But I’d like to think that I have come quite far with my English and I suppose the Golden Globe nomination could support that. The thing with being comfortable in Spanish and working entirely on Spanish film and television series is that those options would be the only thing I could really hope to do if I didn’t speak English. There was never a chance of me coming over to America if I didn’t speak the language, and I would never have seen the point if I couldn’t. So, that was the reason I began to start all over again from the bottom of the ladder and learned English so I could make sure that I was able to get auditions in English-speaking movies, and then go from there. It took a bit of time to build that up and to get where I am now, but it has certainly all been worth it. STRIPLV: But that’s no mean feat for someone who didn’t speak it at all until adulthood. DE ARMAS: I’ve never been afraid of a challenge in anything I’ve done. I’ve always been of the opinion that if you ever experience self-doubt, then that is the point at which you should push yourself into an uncomfortable situation. It is a really valuable tool for anyone in any position of worry or anxiety, and the positive effect you can give yourself from pushing forward into unusual or fearsome situations is really nothing I have experienced before. It has certainly got me to where I am today, and that all comes out of fear. STRIPLV: Who have been your favorites so far in terms of actors and directors? DE ARMAS: I’ve been very fortunate to have been cast so many fantastic people, and I am honored to work on the same projects as them. I can’t say that I have favorites because they are all so wonderful and I really mean that, and I’ve had so many great experiences in preparing for films as well. Obviously, Cary Fukunaga for No Time to Die and all of the brilliant cast there, working with Todd Phillips and Jonah Hill on War Dogs was very funny and such a great learning curve for me, especially as I was still working with Samara on that, and I was also pretty much the only actress on that movie. Then, you have Denis Villeneuve for Blade Runner 2049, and the Ryan Gosling versus Harrison Ford chemistry was just a wonderful thing to watch. There you have two actors with total humility, such a pure and warm approach to what they do, and the ability to laugh off even the biggest of challenges. I learned so much from those two, and I cannot tell you. Daniel Craig is actually very similar, and in fact, all of those are so strictly professional too. They try their very best not to mix their professional and private lives together. I have a lot of respect for that, and that’s a great quality to have. I worked with Robert De Niro and Edgar Ramirez on Hands of Stone and also got to stay with Roberto Duran and his family for Christmas when I was researching for that film, playing Roberto’s wife. That was a great feeling, and I needed to get used to how Roberto is in real life. He is a man who pretty much says what’s on his mind and doesn’t think twice about it, it can come across as rude and probably is, but he is someone who speaks as he sees it. The positive thing about that is that you always knew where you stood with him, and that was another educational phase. STRIPLV: What else would you like to get into, music or modeling? DE ARMAS: Fashion has always been a big thing for me. Obviously, we are very close to that in this industry, but I must say it isn’t a priority. I have been offered small bits of modeling, but at the moment, I don’t want anything to take away the art that I want to maintain, and that is in acting.