Adrián Lastra

Adrián Lastra kept going through rejection. He has said that of about 50 castings, 47 ended in a no [6]. He now has a Goya nomination, a long run in Spanish musical theatre and the role of Pedro in the Antena 3 series Velvet [5].

Vallecas and the first musicals

Lastra was born on 26 February 1984 in Palomeras Bajas, a neighbourhood of Vallecas in Madrid [6] [1]. He has two siblings, Rocío and Raúl. His father and sister sing flamenco and play guitar [6]. He says he decided to become a singer after watching the first episodes of the talent show Operación Triunfo [6]. He took singing lessons with the opera singer Victoria Manso and acting classes with Patricia Ferro [6].

In 2003 he won a pop-rock contest, which led to casting calls for musicals [6]. Before his stage breakthrough he sang with the group La Década Prodigiosa [6]. In 2004 he appeared in Broadway Millenium [1]. The next year he joined Hoy no me puedo levantar, a musical built on songs by Mecano. It opened at the Teatro Rialto in Madrid and toured until 2009, and he played Mario, Colate and Panchi [1]. Lastra later said that the show brought him more recognition than his first television hit [4]. He returned to it at the Teatro Coliseum as Colate, and that role earned him the 2017 Premio Gran Vía for best male cover [1].

Other musicals followed: 40, el musical, in which he played a journalism student for two seasons from 2009, and Más de cien mentiras, based on songs by Joaquín Sabina [1] [5].

Television: from Lalola to Velvet

His early television work was small: an episode of Los hombres de Paco and one of Yo soy Bea in 2006 [1]. In Lalola (Antena 3, 2008 to 2009) he played Juan Manuel, known as Boogie [1] [4].

The role that most people know him for is Pedro Infantes in Velvet, an Antena 3 series [1] [5]. FormulaTV dates his run to 2013 to 2016 in one section and 2014 to 2016 in another, so the exact start year is not settled in that source [1]. A sequel, Velvet Colección, ran on Movistar+ from 2017 to 2019 with Lastra again as Pedro [1]. For the original series he received the Unión de Actores award for best supporting actor, which FormulaTV dates to 2016 [1] [5]. In an interview he credited the series with changing his life [4].

More recent television credits include Jaguar on Netflix (from 2021, as Sordo), Sin límites on Amazon Prime Video (2022, as Captain Mendoza) and Camilo Superstar on Atresplayer (from 2023, as Teddy Bautista) [1] [2].

Film and the Goya nomination

His first film appearance was a brief part in Fuga de cerebros in 2009. He described it as a character with two lines [1] [4]. The breakthrough came with Primos (2011), directed by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, in which he played José Miguel, a hypochondriac [3]. Lastra called working with Sánchez Arévalo "the biggest gift of my life" [4]. The role brought a nomination for the Goya for best new actor, announced in January 2012 for the ceremony of 19 February [7] [3]. One 2015 interview says he won the award, but the other sources, including eCartelera, describe a nomination, and that is how it is recorded here [6] [1].

Other films include Fuga de cerebros 2 (2011), De chica en chica (2015), Toc Toc (2017, as Otto), Litus and Si yo fuera rico (both 2019), Hasta que la boda nos separe (2020), La manzana de oro (2022) and Matusalén (2023) [2]. In 2017 the Cinema Jove festival in Valencia gave him its "Un futuro de cine" award, with a retrospective of his work [5] [4].

Theatre, dance shows and height

In 2015 he played King George VI in the stage version of El discurso del rey, directed by Magüi Mira, at the Teatro Español in Madrid [6] [1]. The role earned him the Premio Ercilla in 2016, and by 2016 he had given more than 2,000 stage performances in total [5] [3].

Lastra also took part in the Univision dance contest Mira Quién Baila All Stars in 2020 and finished third [8] [9]. He came back for ¡Mira quién baila! La revancha in 2023 [9]. Profiles list his height as 1.74 m [1] [2].