Elena Anaya

Elena Anaya is a Spanish actress from Palencia. In 1996, Anaya dropped out of the Universidade de Cadíz to join the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramática de Madrid, where she studied under actor Manuel Morón. After her acting debut in the 1996 drama África de Alfonso Ungría, Anaya continued to impress the public and the critics with her supporting roles in films such as Lágrimas Negras and Las Huellas Borradas. In 2001, Elena Anaya revealed herself to be a promising actress with her role in Lúcia y el Sexo, an explicitly sexual and erotic drama directed by Julio Medem, which won her a nomination for Best Secondary Actress at the Goya Awards. This piqued director Pedro Almodóvar’s curiosity, who subsequently chose her to be part of the cast of Habla con Ella (2002), a film which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The actress has collaborated, more than once, in films by Agustín Díaz Yanes, such as Don’t Tempt Me, Alatriste and Solo Quiero Caminar. In 2011, she returned to working with Almodóvar in the film La Piel Que Habito, where she acted opposite Antonio Banderas and for which she won the Goya Award for Best Actress. Recently, she acted in Lejos del Mar (2015), the psychological drama La Memoria del Agua (2015), and in Zipi y Zape y La Isla del Capitán (2016), a film based on the characters of artist and comic book writer José Escobar.