Ever since her breakout role in the 2019 film Knives Out, Cuban actress Ana de Armas has been making a name for herself in Hollywood. She joined Daniel Craig as Paloma in No Time to Die, starred alongside Ben Affleck in thriller Deep Water, and joined Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans in The Gray Man.
In 2022 de Armas career changed again when she was cast to play the iconic actress Marilyn Monroe in Blonde. The Netflix movie earned critical acclaim and plenty of backlash. But it also led to de Armas first Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.
Here at Remezcla, we go way back with the star of Ballerina, the latest addition to the iconic world of John Wick. Because for us, her breakout role wasn’t Knives Out or Blonde. It was in the 2000’s series El Internado (The Boarding School.) And we told her just that when we interviewed her in New York City.
Airing from 2007 to 2010, El Internado saw de Armas playing Carolina in a whodunnit mystery series at an exclusive boarding school. And almost 15 years later, that’s the role we remember her from and that de Armas is most recognized for when she visits Spain.
“Every time I’m in Spain, people still call me, “Carolina,” de Armas told Remezcla. And it’s not just millennials, who grew up watching El Internado. A new set of fans are watching the show. “Even this generation, because they seem to have put it on TV again, and they love it.”
And no matter where you stood in your love or hate when it came to her character, Carolina clicked with a lot of people. That’s why she’s so memorable. “She’s a character that reached a lot of people and people identified with her. And she’s also very strong-willed,” de Armas said before easy segwaying into character Eve in From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.
For de Armas, she feels like playing Eve, an assasin who seeks out revenge after her father’s death, echoes the strong will of Carolina in El Internado. “It feels to me like I’m continuing in my lane,” de Armas said about both characters. Both are tenacious and strong-willed women who aren’t afraid to fight like a girl, a key tenant in Ballerina.
When Eve started training at the Ruska Roma organization, the same crime family that trained Keanu Reeves John Wick, she realized how different she was from the assasins she was training with. Eve was smaller in weight, size, and muscle. At first it angered her. But the Ruska Roma taught her that if your opponent is going to underestimate you just because you’re a girl, then fight like a girl.
Eve ran with that and absolutely destroyed anyone that came her way in Ballerina.
For de Armas, the phrase “fight like a girl” really resonated with her and means discovering where your strength is. “Not the [strength] of John Wick. Not that of whoever is around you, but yours,” de Armas told Remezcla, “I think that the character at that moment is going through a moment of so much frustration and so much pain and so much confusion that that advice from her mentor comes at the perfect moment for her to make a click and understand that things that may seem like a disadvantage for her can be her superpower.”
This lesson that de Armas learned while training and filming Ballerina is also something that she carries with her, even as the movie is now hitting theaters. “This is something that I also apply very well in my day-to-day life. It’s how I live my life.”
Ballerina, starring Ana de Armas, is now playing in theaters.
