Paz Vega

Paz Vega went from waiting in Madrid bars between castings to a Goya in a few years. The film that did it, Sex and Lucia, also pulled her out of a successful television sitcom. [3] [4]

She was born María Paz Campos Trigo on 2 January 1976 in Seville, Spain, and took the surname Vega from her grandmother. [3] [5]

From Seville theatre to Madrid

Vega began a degree in Information Sciences but dropped it for acting. [3] At 16 she joined the Centro Andaluz de Teatro in Seville. [4] After studying dramatic arts she moved to Madrid, where she worked in bars while going to castings. [3] [4]

Television came first. Hola lists small parts in the series Menudo es mi padre, Más que amigos and Compañeros. [4] Her first film credits were Zapping and Sobreviviré. [4] The part that made her known to Spanish viewers was Laura in the sitcom 7 vidas, where she played the Andalusian cousin of Toni Cantó's character. [4] The series is dated 1999 to 2006 in one filmography. [3] Vega left it to make Sex and Lucia. [4]

Sex and Lucia and the Goya

Julio Medem's Lucía y el sexo (Sex and Lucia, 2001) was her breakthrough in film. [3] It won her the Goya for Best Newcomer Actress. [3] [4] Sources disagree on the year of the award: one gives 2001 and Hola gives 2002. [3] [4] Vozpópuli describes it as the only Goya of her career. [6]

Other Spanish work followed quickly. In 2002 she appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con ella (Talk to Her) and in El otro lado de la cama, and Hola counts her among the "chicas Almodóvar". [3] [5] [4]

Spanglish and Hollywood

Her English-language debut was Spanglish (2004), directed by James L. Brooks. [3] She played Flor, a Mexican nanny who speaks no English, opposite Adam Sandler and Téa Leoni. [7] The Philadelphia Inquirer's critic called her "beguiling" and wrote that she "gets by on vivacity". [7]

More American films followed, among them 10 Items or Less (2006), The Spirit (2008), Triage (2009, with Colin Farrell) and Grace of Monaco (2013). [3] She also appeared in the series The OA. [3]

She appears in Rambo: Last Blood (2019), directed by Adrian Grunberg and starring Sylvester Stallone. [8] Her character is a reporter who covers the Mexican drug trade and teams up with Rambo after her younger half-sister is kidnapped. [8]

Back to Spanish television and film

Vega kept working on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2019 she played the lead villain Catalina Creel in the remake of the telenovela Cuna de lobos, and she then appeared in La casa de las flores (2020). [3] Vozpópuli reported in late 2021 that she had lived for a long period in the United States and had settled again in Spain, while keeping her contacts there. [6] The same piece mentions her thriller El lodo, released in Spanish cinemas on 10 December 2021, and the Netflix series Jigsaw, which she was shooting in New York. [6] The series later aired as Caleidoscopio (2023). [3]

Directing Rita

In 2024 Vega directed and wrote her first feature, Rita. [1] She also plays the mother. [1] The story is set in a working-class neighbourhood of Seville in 1984, during a backlash against the divorce law, and follows seven-year-old Rita (Sofía Allepuz) as she notices her mother's unspoken suffering. [1] The film had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival and played in the Official Section, out of competition, at Seminci in Valladolid. [1] It was also in the international competition of the Mar del Plata festival. [2]

Trinidad and 2026

The latest film announced with her is Trinidad, a western directed by Laura Alvea and José Ortuño with a budget of more than 14 million euros. [9] Vega plays the mother of the title character (Gabriela Andrada), alongside Karla Sofía Gascón as the villain, the Widow Bronson. [9] [10] Part of the shoot took place in southern Gran Canaria. [9] Two outlets give 4 December 2026 as the cinema release date. [10] [11]