30 Awesome Facts About the New Bond Girl Ana de Armas

Ana de Armas, since her very first appearance in the “Knock Knock” movie, she had always managed to turn heads with almost anything she does. With her striking hazel-green eyes, the Cuba-born actress has already made her mark as a Hollywood icon. And now, the actress has some really big roles up her sleeve like – Bond girl Paloma in “No Time to Die,” and Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde.” Here are some interesting facts about the actress that will make you love her more:

"Ana de Armas" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

1.  Director Andrew Dominik was impressed with her performance in the “Knock Knock” movie, but still, she had to undergo the very lengthy casting process before being cast in the role of Norma Jeane/ Marilyn Monroe for the upcoming movie “Blonde.”
2.  Dominik offered her the role after her very first audition. In preparation for her role as Marilyn Monroe she spent nine months trying to perfect the Monroe’s voice and dialect.
3.  She claimed in an interview that the dialect coaching, practicing and automated dialogue replacement sessions, were totally exhausting and felt like her brain was fried.
4.  James Bond actor Daniel Craig personally hand-picked Armas as the lead Bond girl Paloma in the upcoming movie “No Time to Die,” which is also Craig’s last movie as the Bond.
5.  It was said that Craig chose Armas for the role, due to the strong chemistry between them after working together in the movie “Knives Out.”
6.  With this, Ana de Armas became the first Cuban born actress, to be feature as a major leading Bond Girl, in the history of James Bond franchise.
7.  Her first starring role was in her native Cuba, as Marie in “Una rosa de Francia,” opposite álex González. She claimed that she was basically poverty stricken at that time, and happily agreed to strip naked to play a prostitute to get the role.
8.  Director Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón actually met her in a birthday party, which he attended with his daughters. Later he visited her drama school, and informed her that the role was hers, when she was in audition.
9.  Ana Celia de Armas Caso was born on April 30, 1988 in Havana, Cuba, and was raised in Santa Cruz del Norte, to Ramón de Armas and Ana Caso.
10.  Her father Ramón held different positions like bank manager, teacher and a school principal in different fields, including being a deputy mayor of the town.

"Ana de Armas y Florentino Fernandez en El Hormiguero. Lunes 4 de Octubre 2010" by ElHormiguero is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

11.  Her mother Ana worked in the human resources section of the Ministry of Education. Ana de Armas has one elder brother Javier, who is a New York based photographer.
12.  During her childhood, she was exposed to very limited knowledge of popular culture beyond Cuba, as they had no internet access. She watched Hollywood movies in her neighbor’s apartment.
13.  She moved to Madrid, Spain, at the age of 18, in order to pursue an acting career, with her Spanish citizenship through her maternal grandparents.
14.  Just after two weeks, casting director Luis San Narciso, who was impressed with her performance in “Una rosa de Francia,” met with her, and cast her as Carolina in the “El Internado.”
15.  When she was offered the role of Iz, in the movie “War Dogs,” she could not speak English fluently and learned her lines phonetically.
16.  Her role as Joi in the movie “Blade Runner 2049,” required Armas to cut her hair short, but she refused immediately. Throughout the movie, the make-up crew had to use a wig for her.
17.  She was one of the contenders for the role of Selina Kyle/Catwoman in the upcoming movie “The Batman.”
18.  Near the end of 2013, she went on for a long period without any movies or any other acting gig. At that time, she participated in workshops at Tomaz Pandur’s Madrid theatre company.
19.  However, with a newly hired Hollywood agent, she moved to Los Angeles in 2014, and started her transition to Hollywood, and was first cast in the “Knock Knock” movie, opposite Keanu Reeves.
20.  Despite spending four months in full-time education for learning English, Armas had to learn and recite her dialogues by memorizing it phonetically.

"Ana de Armas y Mariño Rivas vinieron a divertirse a El Hormiguero" by ElHormiguero is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

21.  However, Reeves was impressed with her performance, and after the completion of the movie, he offered her chance to star in a Spanish language role in the 2016 movie “Exposed.”
22.  She was featured in a very minor role in the Beatles tribute movie “Yesterday,” which was directed by Danny Boyle. It was Boyle who was supposed to direct “No Time to Die” for a long time, but quit from the production due to creative differences.
23.  However, the scene in which her character of Roxanne, a rival love interest, appears as a guest with Jack on James Corden’s show, was deleted from the final cut of the movie. But still, glimpses of Armas can be seen in the trailers of the movie.
24.  She was involved in a romantic relationship with Spanish actor Marc Clotet in the mid-2010, and got married in July 2011, in the Costa Brava region.
25.  However, their relationship did not last long as the duo separated within a period of a year and were officially divorced in the early 2013.
26.  She was initially not interested in taking up her role as Marta Cabrera in the movie “Knives Out,” as did not like the idea of playing a stereotypical "Latina caretaker." However, after getting to know her character, she felt that Cabrera had “so much more than a simple caretaker.”
27.  In the “Blade Runner 2049” movie, the threesome scene was shot for real, without using any greenscreen and very minimal digital insertion. The entire scene was shot twice, with Ryan Gosling and Armas doing their choreography in one shot and Gosling and Mackenzie Davis repeating their movements in the second. Both the shots were then combined.
28.  Her movie “Sex, Party & Lies” took a period of 4 years to be made, during which there was a lot of actors who were in consideration. However, the role of Carola was attached to Armas, since the very beginning.
29.  She was engaged to American talent agent Franklin Latt for a brief period, during her relationship with him from early 2015 to late 2016.
30.  In early 2020, Armas started dating actor Ben Affleck, whom she met in the sets of “Deep Water.” However, their relationship did not last long, and ended in January 2021.
31.  Ana de Armas Net Worth: $4 Million