5 things to know about Ana de Armas, the actress linked to Ben Affleck
The Cuban-born actress just wrapped filming an "erotic thriller" with the Cambridge native.
Are Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas dating?
That’s the question on every gossip hound’s mind after the Cambridge native, 47, and the Cuban-born actress, 31, took a trip to Havana together last week, not far from where the actress grew up. A new report in People magazine quoted a source saying that the duo are “definitely dating,” and reported that Affleck and de Armas were spotted making out at the airport.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9a2dFVh6xJ/
Affleck is obviously well-known here in Boston, but de Armas may be less familiar to some, despite her recent Golden Globe-nominated performance in the Massachusetts-filmed “Knives Out.”
Here are a few things to know about the actress, as well as some of the evidence floating around in gossip circles that she and Affleck are an item.
1. Her first major lead role was “Knives Out,” but she’s been in other big-budget fare as well.
Ana de Armas in “Knives Out.”
De Armas was a revelation in the 2019 modern-day whodunnit from Rian Johnson, earning a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. But even before then, de Armas was a rising star. After starting her acting career in Spain at age 18, her first American role came in the 2015 erotic horror thriller “Knock Knock,” directed by Newton native Eli Roth. After 2016 appearances in the sports biopic “Hands of Stone” (with Edgar Ramirez, Robert De Niro, and Usher Raymond) and the dark comedy “War Dogs” (with Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, and Bradley Cooper), she had a breakthrough role as AI hologram Joi in the 2017 sci-fi film “Blade Runner 2049” opposite Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford.
2. Affleck and de Armas recently finished filming an “erotic thriller.”
If you’ve read about de Armas’s name on this website beyond her starring role in “Knives Out,” it’s probably because of her role opposite Affleck in “Deep Water,” an erotic thriller from Adrian Lyne, the director of “Fatal Attraction.” Based on a novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith, “(“Strangers on a Train,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley”), Affleck and de Armas play Vic and Melinda Van Allen, a couple stuck in a loveless marriage whose extramarital dalliances and sadistic mind games lead to dead bodies. The pair recently wrapped filming in Louisiana, and the movie is slated to hit theaters Nov. 13.
3. She’s starring in the next James Bond film as well.
Ana de Armas “No Time to Die.”
In case you couldn’t get enough of seeing de Armas and Daniel Craig on screen together in “Knives Out,” the actress is joining the veteran James Bond actor in “No Time to Die,” Craig’s final performance in the spy franchise. The film was recently pushed back from a scheduled April debut to a November release due to the coronavirus outbreak.
De Armas told the Los Angeles Times that her role as a CIA agent named Paloma came about after director Cary Fukunaga decided to write one for her once it was determined the movie would be filming in Cuba. Though the nature of Paloma and Bond’s relationship in the film has been kept under wraps, de Armas said that once she read the script, she decided she could play Fukunaga’s version of “a Bond girl.”
“I wouldn’t say she’s ordinary, because when she needs to perform her job, she does,” de Armas told the Los Angeles Times. “But [she] is flawed. She says what she feels, she’s nervous, she’s scared. It’s human. When I read it, I was like, ‘Oh, wait — I can be a Bond girl. I’m that. I’m that messy.'”
4. Until she moved to Hollywood in 2014, she didn’t speak English.
The actress was born in Cuba and moved to Spain when she was 18, so when she took a leap and moved to the U.S. to further her career, she had to learn English. In a 2016 interview, de Armas told AOL that the script for “War Dogs” didn’t initially call for an accented performance, but was retooled once she landed the part.
“The part was not reading as a Cuban woman or even from Miami, so I felt very flattered that the studio was open to having an actress with an accent, which is sometimes a little bit of a struggle in Hollywood,” de Armas said. “I don’t know if you know, when I moved to LA two years ago, I didn’t speak English at all, so forgive me if I make a mistake or say something weird.”
Affleck, it should be noted, recently conducted several interviews in Spanish for his new film “The Way Back,” and said on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” that he’s trying to improve his Spanish so that his daughter Violet doesn’t surpass him.
“She’s always been a very good student, and she’s been interested in Spanish, and so I would often help her,” Affleck said. “Now, all of a sudden, she’s gotten into the grade where she’s, like, in the harder Spanish classes and she’s getting better.”
5. Like Affleck, she’s been married before, but she says she “prefers to be alone.”
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rami Malek, and Ana de Armas at the Saint Laurent show in Paris, France.
Before coming to Hollywood, de Armas was married to Marc Clotet, a model and fellow actor in Spain. The duo ended their relationship in 2013, with de Armas moving to Los Angeles shortly thereafter.
Despite rumors linking her to Affleck, de Armas has downplayed questions about her dating life in recent interviews. In a cover story for Vanity Fair’s March 2020 issue, de Armas tersely summed up her dating life in Hollywood, saying, “I’ve had company here, but it’s been the wrong company so I prefer to be alone.”
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com