Najwa Nimri

It seems born to be loved or hated, since Najwa Nimri does not leave indifferent. Most of her has an opinion about her, either for or against her. The halo of mystery that radiates from her person goes from her walk to her eyes, without forgetting her voice. A voice that, like her, does not go unnoticed. Her whispers help many adore her and exalt her to great levels of sensuality, while others interpret it as something that borders on the unbearable, a trait of someone they consider a distant and arrogant person. Both for one and for the other, there is a link, because she would not have so many detractors and admirers if she were one of the bunch. And it is that everything in her person produces some concern, beginning with her name, an unpronounceable Najwa. She is the daughter of a Jordanian father and a Navarrese mother, his full name honors his two parents, Najwa Nimri Urrutikoetxea. Faced with the inevitable question of how many times her name has been mispronounced, she replies: “Thousands. It happens to me since I was little.”

Najwa is not an actress who sings or a singer who acts, as she has always combined both disciplines. She was born in Pamplona in 1972 and started singing soul while studying drama at the William Layton School . This equality between music and interpretation is perfectly reflected in the fact that Ella Najwa has been nominated four times for the Goya. Two as an actress – Los amantes del círculo polar and Lucía y el sexo –, and two as a singer – Asfalto and Guerreros -. Although it is true that her popularity was reached by the hand of the cinema. The one who was her husband, Daniel Calparsoro , gave her her first great opportunity with the trafficker Alex, protagonist ofLeap into the void (1995). The director did not give her simple characters, since she was also a thief in Pasajes (1996) and Asfalto (2000), and an ETA terrorist in Blind (1997). However, the role that brought her popularity was that of Nuria, the mysterious femme fatale in Abre los ojos (1997), by Alejandro Amenábar . She established herself a year after her when Julio Medem chose her to star in Los amantes del círculo polar , where she was once again an enigmatic young woman condemned to live an impossible love story. It was also in 1998 when she published the first –’No Blood’– of the five albums that make up her discography to date.

Film and music launched Najwa to fame, to which she did not react well at all. During those years, she created a borderline and intractable image that in many cases was deserved. Over time, the actress responded emphatically to the question about whether her success was great for her: “Yes, call it turkey, stick, pumice stone, paper or scissors. The thing is, I spent a few tense years.” And she adds, “I realized that she was famous when I started wearing a cap so that people wouldn’t recognize me on the street.” Some very revealing words, because if Najwa has always wanted something, it is for people not to interfere in her life. She is so jealous of her privacy that it is difficult to write these lines, due to the little information there is about her. Among the few data that transcend, it is known that Najwa has been with a new partner for years with whom she had her son Teo in 2004, an experience, that of motherhood, of which she affirms that “she has given me everything and has taken everything from me.” To continue with this zeal to protect his privacy, he has a recipe to avoid unwanted intrusions, “it’s very simple: not wanting anything to be known. Nobody chases you if you don’t want to.”

The dark characters of the first films have had their counterparts in roles such as the supporting role of Fausto 5.0 where he tried to shed light on Fausto’s life and prevent him from falling into the networks of Santos (Mephistopheles); in Elena de Lucía el y sexo (2001) –again with Medem–, where he was the support of the crumbling Lucía ( Paz Vega ); or in the recent Natalia from the horror film Disorder (2006), where she was a harassed pregnant woman.

Titles shot with foreign directors sneak into his filmography, such as Before Night Falls (2000), by Julian Schnabel , with Javier Bardem and Olivier Martinez as protagonists, Secret Agents (2004) by Frédéric Schoendoerffer and starring Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci , or The method (2005) by Marcelo Piñeyro . These more international works have never relegated his films to Spain. Thus, the actress has worked twice under the orders of Ramón Salazar – Piedras (2002) and 20 centimeters(2005)– or with Gonzalo Suárez in Oviedo Express (2007). However, her best work in recent years has been that of Eva, long-suffering detective from Mataharis (2007), by Icíar Bollaín . It is unknown what her next project will be, although she will surely continue to combine cinema and music between whispers of clappers and mysterious chords.