artistry and necessity, has been achieved
through the kind of determination few in
her position have come by so honestly.
“People ask, ‘How did you learn Eng-
lish so quickly?’ I’m like, ‘Because my life
depended on it.’ ”
But can’t it also be true that she is not
alone, that the industry machinery has
been trying to position her as the next
Penélope Cruz since War Dogs? Can’t
it also be true that she’s actually quite
entrenched in Caviar Town, USA? She
was a pre-implosion Weinstein Com-
pany starlet, starring in 2016 ’s Hands of
Stone. Early in her L.A. life, she was in a
serious relationship with agent Frank-
lin Latt, heir apparent to Kevin Huvane
at CAA. As her name recognition has
spread, she’s become no stranger to
paparazzi or dating gossip—the funda-
mentals of American visibility. Perhaps,
so close to the other side of fame’s door,
such realities can seem like potential
liabilities to discuss.
We don’t get into names, but about
her personal life, she says, succinctly:
“I’ve had company here, but it’s been the
wrong company so I prefer to be alone.”
“For anyone who ever questions or
how did I get to do this or that, fuck them.
They will not get to spend their New
Year’s with me. They are not the people
whose opinion I should care about. They
are not the people I share my happiness
with. I’ve never had an agenda. All I want
to do is work. All I want to do is get some-
thing challenging and prove to myself
that I can do it.”
We are both full of beans. And rum.
Outside, the sky has turned orange, per-
haps a more worthy backdrop for a roof-
top in Havana than the middle of Venice
Boulevard. The restaurant lights flicker
for a fourth time and we silently agree
that we are all feliz cumpleaños’d out.
No matter what happens at the awards
tomorrow night, de Armas knows she
will remember it as one wonderful eve-
ning during “this moment in time that
might, that will, keep changing.” As we
head for the door, she flings a suede
leopard-print YSL bag over her shoul-
der. I stop her.
“Wow, your stylist really did hook you
up.”
“No, no,” she smiles, “This one’s
mine.” I tell her I’d be worried I’d destroy
it. “Oh, you can’t be,” she says, going
back out the way she came in. “Life is
for living.” nlot of big acting, myself very much included, but she shines
through because she’s the real deal. She’s got very good comic
timing and we’re not offering her a huge part. But she came in
and just nailed it. She had very little to go on, the scripts are
being rewritten, you’re changing things all the time or throw-
ing them at her, and she’s not fazed by it.”
Looks like someone doesn’t have to beg anyone’s pardon
anymore. Zing.
“You could also tell that Phoebe was in there,” says de Armas.
“There was that humor and spikiness so specific to her. My
character feels like a real woman. But you know, we can evolve
and grow and incorporate reality, but Bond is a fantasy. In the
end you can’t take things out of where they live.”
“There wasn’t any other choice,” explains longtime Bond
producer Barbara Broccoli, sounding as laser-visioned as
de Armas herself. “It was Ana we all wanted.”
Between Barbara and her father, the legendary “Cubby”
Broccoli, they have produced 25 bond films. Her hold music is
Shirley Bassey’s “Diamonds Are Forever.”
“Her character is someone who’s just started working for
the CIA, and so she’s supposed to have minimal training when
she first meets Bond. The expectation is that she’s not going to
be the most proficient agent, but let’s just say that she really
packs a punch.”A
S REFRESHING AS de Armas is, it would be a mistake
to think of her as a babe in these tinsel-strung
woods. This is an assumption she herself goes
back and forth on, sometimes hitting the gas of
savvy movie star and sometimes the brakes of vulnerability:
“I’m like a fish out of water.” The big-picture version of her
is less like her Knives Out character in her first scene and
more like her in the movie’s last shot—the kindhearted woman
who got drawn into a game she didn’t necessarily want to
play but still won.
When the lights flicker again in the restaurant and waiters
sing feliz cumpleaños a ti to a neighboring table, she decides,
“Ah, so not just like Cuba, too bad.” She means for this inter-
view in the same way that, when she gamely suggests we get a
drink, she orders a daiquiri because a mojito is “too Heming-
way, too obvious.” When she first got to L.A., she met pro-
ducer Colleen Camp while with her agent in the CAA parking
garage. Camp then introduced her to Broccoli, which led her
to No Time to Die. It’s true that de Armas’s success, equal partsFor more Ana
de Armas and
behind-the-
scenes footage
from our
cover shoot,
visit VF.com.“I like talking about life and art
and babies and pets. Acting is what
I love to do, but I can’t talk
about it, not all the time.”
SUITED TO
THE TASK
Jacket, vest, shirt,
and pants by Etro;
earrings by Hermès.
Throughout:
hair products by
Living Proof;
makeup by Giorgio
Armani Beauty;
nail enamel by
CHANEL Le Vernis.