Celebrity Biographies
Alberto Ammann
It came practically out of nowhere. Alberto Ammann made his feature film debut starring in one of the great successes of Spanish cinema in recent years. And although many pointed out that this Cordovan actor (from Argentine Córdoba) could be a flash in the pan, little by little he is making a name for himself in the cinema.
Alberto Ammann was born in the aforementioned South American town on October 20, 1978. But his parents, Nélida Rey and the journalist Luis Alberto Amman, left their country when he was very young after the rise to power of the military man Jorge Rafael Videla.
The boy grew up in Madrid, and although some time later he returned with his family to Argentina, he decided to spend another season in the capital of Spain to study acting at the school of Juan Carlos Corazza, his compatriot. In order to finance his stay, he worked in a bar “putting straws”, according to his own words. While studying, he played a role in the television series Plan America , which no one saw.
Despite his inexperience, Daniel Monzón – in need of a new face – bet heavily on him, recruiting him as the protagonist of Cell 211 , where he would share the screen with Luis Tosar , a heavyweight in Spanish acting. “It’s very strange, because I hadn’t done anything, nor did I usually go to castings. I didn’t know more than my family and my friends,” recalls Alberto Ammann.
He played a prison officer who poses as an inmate to survive in the midst of a riot led by the dangerous Malamadre (Tosar). The film, an amazing prison thriller, became the big winner at the 2009 Goya gala, winning 8 categories. Ammann himself won the award for the revelation actor.
After this impressive debut on the big screen, he leads the cast of one of the most ambitious productions in Spanish cinema, Lope , by Andrucha Waddington , where he plays Lope de Vega himself , the ‘Phoenix of Wits’ from the Teatro del Spanish Golden Age. But despite the great production effort, his character is not quite well defined, so the film does not finish working.
His work on the screen in Thesis on a homicide is also somewhat tarnished , having in front of him none other than Ricardo Darín , a movie monster, who literally eats him. Hernán Goldfrid ‘s film , a pleasant thriller that wants to go along the lines of El secreto de sus ojos , maintains interest, despite the disappointing outcome. In addition, Alberto Ammán had a small role – the father of the protagonist – in the convincing futuristic fantasy Eva , by filmmaker Kike Maíllo .
When the actor went to the casting for Invasor , the director Daniel Calparsoro recognized him immediately. But not because of his movies, but because he had frequented the bar where Ammann worked as a waiter. Under the orders of the Basque director, he ended up playing one of his best roles (along with that of Cell 211 ), as Pablo, a military doctor who investigates what happened in a small town during the Iraq war. Calparsoro was so satisfied with his work that he hired him again for his next film, Combustion , where he plays an unscrupulous guy who defrauds wealthy individuals with the help of his girlfriend.
Alberto Ammann has the opportunity to make himself known internationally with the US production Mindscape , the feature debut of Spanish Jorge Dorado , with Mark Strong and Taissa Farmiga as headliners.
The actor maintains a discreet relationship with Clara Méndez-Leite, daughter of veteran filmmaker Fernando Méndez-Leite , who has worked as a make-up artist on several films, some of them with Ammann in the cast.