Aitana Sánchez-Gijón

Aitana Sánchez-Gijón de Angelis was born in Rome on November 5, 1969 into a family closely related to culture, as her godfather was the famous poet Rafael Alberti, who dedicated a poem to her entitled “Aitana, a new girl”. Alberti himself also had a daughter named Aitana, which alludes to an Alicante mountain range. The father of the future actress, Ángel, a professor of history from Cádiz, had settled in Italy, where he had married Fiorella, a mathematics teacher. A year after the girl was born, the family moved to Madrid.

Aitana had a younger brother, Eloy, who dedicated himself to music, while her cousin, Pablo Carbonell , is well known as a singer, television presenter, actor and even a filmmaker. The girl was very clear that she wanted to be an actress since she was eight years old, when she joined the María Galleta company. At the age of 13, he joined La Barraca, a company that took its name from the one created by García Lorca in the 1930s. After appearing on the youth television program “Nosotros” he played a prominent role in the series Segunda Enseñanza , when he was only 16 years old. .

Although she began studying Hispanic Philology at the Autonomous University of Madrid, she dropped out the second year to focus on her acting career and study Dramatic Art. After small roles in Gayarre , Jarrapellejos and Remando al viento , she plays her first important role in Viento de colera , about two deserters from the army who, accompanied by two women, claim the inheritance that corresponds to one of them.

In theater he established himself with an outstanding role in “La malquerida”, by Miguel Narros , who directed a spectacular show that included a real horse on stage.

She became a popular face for the general public thanks to her work in Bajar al moro , by Fernando Colomo , where she played a young woman in distress who stays at the house of a woman used to going to Morocco to buy hashish to smuggle into Spain.

After interpreting titles such as The Greek Labyrinth , The Bird of Happiness and Mouth to Mouth , the Argentine Adolfo Aristarain gave him the leading role in La ley de la frontera . He also tried to start the Hollywood adventure by starring with Keanu Reeves himself in the sweetened A Walk in the Clouds , by Alfonso Arau , but the film did not achieve the expected success. “Luckily I can work in other languages ​​and that opens up other possibilities. But I feel like a long-distance runner and I only want to see myself in the future working on things that stimulate me, that make me grow and enrich me”, comments the actress.

In France, he filmed the co-production with Spain and Italy La camarera del Titanic , one of Bigas Luna ‘s best works , where he played a waitress who worked on the legendary ocean liner. It so happens that the film was released almost at the same time as the famous James Cameron film .

Perhaps the best work of the actress was her composition of Ana Ozores, protagonist of La Regenta , a television adaptation of the novel by Leopoldo Alas Clarín , directed by Fernando Méndez Leite . She was accompanied by Carmelo Gómez , who played Fermín de Pas, the confessor to whom Ana Ozores felt spiritually attracted. She repeated with him in the stage adaptation of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, by Tennessee Williams , in La carta esférica , adaptation of a novel by Arturo Pérez Reverte, and in the failed comedy Oviedo Express , where she played an actress that he was going to premiere a theatrical version of “La Regenta”.

In 1999, Aitana replaced José Luis Borau in the presidency of the Film Academy. At first, she tried to alternate her activity with filming films like Her eyes closed and the world goes on , Jealousy or Volavérunt , but she soon realized that her acting career was going to suffer and she decided to leave the position in 2000. Subsequently, he has done a bit of everything, as he starred in the television series Los 80 , a failed eighties imitation of Cuéntame cómo paso , in theater he has triumphed with works such as “A wild god”, and in cinema he has shot titles such as The Machinist , La puta and the whale , talk to me about love, Forest of shadows or The Frost (The frost) .

Aitana is very strict when it comes to maintaining privacy. It is known that she married the Argentine painter Papín Luccadane in 2002, with whom she has had a child, whom she has been fond of theater from a very young age, since sometimes the entire family can be seen in theaters in Madrid.