Imanol Arias

Manuel María Arias Domínguez was born on April 26, 1956 in the Leonese town of Riaño, famous because much later, in 1987, the town moved and the original disappeared under the waters of a swamp, in a controversial decision by the socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez. His family soon moved in search of work to Ermua, in Vizcaya, sadly famous in the 1990s for the cruel murder of councilor Miguel Ángel Blanco at the hands of ETA gunmen.

After translating his name into Basque, “Imanol” began to study industrial master’s degree in electronics. He never finished his studies, because he decided to devote himself to acting in the 1970s, and joined various independent Basque theater companies. He moved to Madrid, where he suffered real calamities, and ended up having to sleep on the subway. Luckily, he manages to become a regular actor at the National Dramatic Center, an institution created at that time by the Ministry of Culture to make Spanish theater of the 20th century and young values ​​known. He participates in celebrated productions of works such as “Los gigantes de la montaña”, by Miguel Narros .

He made his film debut with La Correa , by Pedro Olea , and Humberto Solás offers him to travel to Cuba and become the protagonist of Cecilia . A very young Pedro Almodóvar hired him to star in the excessive vaudeville Laberinto de Pasiones . He played the son of the overthrown emperor of Tirán, a supposed Arab country, who arrived in Madrid, where he fell in love with a young nymphomaniac, a member of a violent musical group. Antonio Banderas headed a commando that wanted to kidnap him, in his first collaboration with the Manchego filmmaker.

The general public began to know Imanol Arias for his work in Anillos de Oro , a series that he starred in with fellow screenwriter Ana Diosdado , about a law firm specializing in matrimonial matters. He also took part in the very choral La colmena , with which Mario Camus adapted the novel by Camilo José Cela , and was one of the protagonists of Demonios en el jardín , by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón , about a post-war family. And he did convincing work as a priest in Jaime Chávarri ‘s Bearn or the Doll Room , and a homosexual in Mikel’s Death .

After divorcing actress Socorro Anadón, he joined actress and presenter Pastora Vega in 1984, with whom he had two children, Jon and Daniel, and from whom he separated in 2009.

His work as a scientist in Tiempo de silencio marks his first collaboration with Vicente Aranda , who would make him his fetish actor for a long time. Shortly after, he returned to his orders to become one of the most famous criminals in Franco’s Spain, Eleuterio Sánchez , in El Lute: Camina o reventa , with which he won the Silver Shell in San Sebastián, and its sequel, El Lute II: tomorrow I will be free . With Aranda he also shot El amante bilingüe and Intruso , of lesser interest. Arias met Almodóvar again, playing a minimal role, as the husband of Marisa Paredes inThe flower of my secret . He paired up with this actress again in Salvajes , the debut of the promising Madrid director Carlos Molinero .

Imanol Arias has been very active in the television field. He starred in the series Central Brigade , Dear Teacher , Severo Ochoa. The conquest of a Nobel Prize -in which he played the famous scientist-, and above all Cuéntame cómo pasó , in which he plays a prototypical family man, Antonio Alcántara, and which has been one of the greatest successes of his career .

He has also starred in Pájaros de papel , Emilio Aragón ‘s directorial debut , where he played an artist trying to survive in the world of entertainment. In 1995, Imanol Arias made his directorial debut with the thriller A private affair , very poorly received by critics and the public, and starring Pastora Vega. She became the protagonist of the main programs and gossip magazines when she left Arias to go with the actor Juan Ribó , but Imanol Arias decided to follow the path of discretion, in his usual line.