PLAN A

It wouldn’t be right to call Cuban actress Ana de Armas arising star. She is very much a star already –and we bet she hasn’t peaked yet.

- SANDRA PARMEE

Ana de Armas is the kind of actress – the kind of person –people decide they must make room for. For example, her character in the anxiously anticipated 25th film in the James Bond series, No Time to Die, didn’t exist when the director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, offered it to her –he just knew he wanted her in the film. So he wrote a character especially for her.‘Cary called me to say this character doesn’t exist yet in the script but he kept thinking about me and would write it for me,’ Ana says. And he did –he came up with a kick-ass CIA agent named Paloma,a role the 33-year old played with aplomb.

Perhaps it’s her determination, her laser-like focus, that people pick up on.

‘People ask “How did you make this choice or that?” But there was only ever one choice,’ says Ana. ‘I’ve never seen my life in two ways –the way I wanted it, and Plan B. There was only ever the way I wanted it.’

At 12, she already knew she wanted to act. Born in Havana in 1988, Ana moved to the small town of Santa Cruz del Norte with her family shortly afterwards. ‘My [parents] were very present,’ she says. ‘Those were the happiest years of my life. I guess that’s why I go back to Havana whenever things get a bit ugly.’

Like many of us, she spent much of her youth imitating the Spice Girls with friends, though she was largely sheltered from pop culture. TV was usually limited to 20 minutes of cartoons on Saturdays, and the Sunday movie matinee. ‘In some ways, it just made it more special,’ she says. ‘You knew you had to do your homework and help clean the house in time to watch the midday movie. When you finally got in front of the TV, you didn’t want to be bothered.’