Santiago Segura

Info

Full Name: Santiago Segura Silva
Date of birth: July 17, 1965 (61 years old)
Location: Madrid
Country: Spain

Santiago Segura has been active for 2026 years, participating in 74 movies that average a 5.7/10 score.

Videos eCartelera

Tráiler en VOSE de 'Harry Potter' T1

Biography

Nobody in Spanish comedy has created anything quite as gloriously repulsive as José Luis Torrente: a racist, sexist, greasy former policeman who worships Franco, fried squid and Atlético de Madrid. The man behind the shades, Santiago Segura, born in Madrid on 17 July 1965, has turned that monster and a string of family comedies into two of the most successful franchises in the history of Spanish cinema, selling more tickets at home than any other filmmaker of his generation.

Segura grew up in Carabanchel, a modest neighbourhood in southern Madrid, obsessed with drawing and comic books. He studied Fine Arts at the Complutense University and paid for his first short films in the most Torrente way imaginable: by winning money on television quiz shows. The gamble worked. His short 'Perturbado' (1993), a twisted nod to Hitchcock, won the Goya Award for Best Fiction Short.

A metalhead with a Goya

While making shorts he popped up in small roles: a stretcher bearer in Bigas Luna's 'The Ages of Lulu', fleeting appearances in Pedro Almodóvar's 'High Heels' and in Luis García Berlanga's 'Everyone Off to Jail'. The turning point came through Álex de la Iglesia, who cast him in his debut 'Acción mutante' and then handed him the role of his life in 'The Day of the Beast' (1995).

As José María, a death metal record shop clerk recruited by a priest to stop the birth of the Antichrist, Segura became an instant cult figure and won the Goya for Best New Actor. Bigger parts followed in Fernando Trueba's 'The Girl of Your Dreams' alongside Penélope Cruz, in the wild 'Perdita Durango' and in 'Dying of Laughter', and years later he rejoined De la Iglesia for 'Witching and Bitching' and 'Mi gran noche'.

The Torrente phenomenon

In 1998 he wrote, directed and starred in 'Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley', a comedy so politically incorrect that almost nobody in the industry saw its success coming. Around three million Spaniards bought a ticket and Segura collected the Goya for Best New Director. The 2001 sequel, 'Torrente 2: Misión en Marbella', snatched Spain's opening record from 'Star Wars' and finished with 5.3 million admissions and 22.1 million euros, attendance figures no other film in the saga has matched.

Three more sequels arrived between 2005 and 2014, each stuffed with celebrity cameos, and then the character went quiet. He came back with a vengeance. 'Torrente presidente' (2026), in which the wreck of a man runs for prime minister of Spain, scored the best opening for a Spanish film in fifteen years and closed on 28 million euros and 3.8 million admissions, making it the fourth biggest Spanish film ever at the domestic box office. The saga as a whole has passed 80 million euros, and the new film landed on Netflix in June 2026.

The Spaniard Guillermo del Toro loves to kill

Segura met Guillermo del Toro in the early nineties at the Sitges Film Festival, where the Mexican was presenting 'Cronos', and their friendship has become one of cinema's longest running jokes: del Toro keeps giving him cameos and keeps killing him horribly. He appears in 'Blade II', 'Hellboy', 'Hellboy 2: The Golden Army' and 'Pacific Rim', and in 'Frankenstein' (2025) he plays a condemned man whom Oscar Isaac's Victor rejects as raw material for his creature because of his bad breath.

Elsewhere he filmed 'Two Much' with Antonio Banderas, shared scenes with Adam Sandler in 'Jack and Jill' and voices Dracula in the Spanish dub of the 'Hotel Transylvania' films.

Spain's family comedy machine

In 2019 Segura reinvented himself with 'Padre no hay más que uno', a remake of the Argentine hit 'Ten Days Without Mom', playing a smug father convinced that raising his five children is child's play until his wife, played by Toni Acosta, leaves him alone with them. It became the top Spanish film of 2019 with 14.2 million euros.

The formula grew into five installments in seven years and a genuine summer tradition in Spanish cinemas. The '2020 sequel' was the most watched film in Spain during the pandemic year, the third entry earned a franchise best 15.6 million euros, and 'Padre no hay más que uno 5: Nido repleto' delivered the best Spanish opening of 2025.

Between sequels he directed more crowd pleasers, among them '¡A todo tren! Destino Asturias' with comedian Leo Harlem and 'Vacaciones de verano', and played a Santa Claus knocked out of action in the Christmas hit 'La navidad en sus manos' opposite Ernesto Sevilla, which earned a sequel in 2025. His daughters Calma and Sirena Segura, born to his wife, makeup artist María Amaro, whom he met on the first Torrente shoot, have grown up on his sets and appear across the family saga and in the latest Torrente.

Away from the set he is one of Spain's best known comic book collectors, a passion he honoured by playing legendary cartoonist Manuel Vázquez in 'The Great Vazquez', and he famously gains weight every time he revives Torrente. Spanish critics have rarely been kind to his brand of humour. It's never mattered much: for almost three decades, whenever Santiago Segura has opened a film, Spain has shown up.