Victoria Abril

Info

Full Name: Victoria Mérida Rojas
Date of birth: July 4, 1959 (67 years old)
Location: Madrid
Country: Spain
Redes sociales: X Instagram

Victoria Abril has been active for 41 years, participating in 25 movies that average a 7.2/10 score.

Videos eCartelera

Tráiler en VOSE de 'Harry Potter' T1

Biography

Before she was an Almodóvar muse, Victoria Abril was dancing as one of the first hostesses on the legendary quiz show 'Un, dos, tres'. Out of that 1970s television came one of the boldest, most well-travelled and most decorated performers in Spanish cinema. She was born in Madrid on 4 July 1959 (her real name is Victoria Mérida Rojas) and grew up in Málaga with her mother, in a childhood marked by the absence of her father, a void she filled by throwing herself into classical ballet. That dancer's discipline, that physical commitment to the work, would never leave her.

From 'Un, dos, tres' hostess to teenage film actress

Although the wider public discovered her as one of Chicho Ibáñez Serrador's hostesses in 1976, the truth is that Victoria had already stepped in front of a camera before then: she made her film debut at just fifteen in 'Obsesión' (1975) and soon strung together small roles, even in international productions such as 'Robin and Marian' (1976), where she shared the screen with Audrey Hepburn and Sean Connery. Her artistic restlessness knew no limits: in 1979 she even entered the national heat to represent Spain at Eurovision with the song 'Bang Bang Bang', though the chosen entry was ultimately Betty Missiego. The little girl who dreamed of dancing had become, almost without realising it, a born actress.

Muse to Aranda and Almodóvar

Her career took a decisive turn when she crossed paths with Vicente Aranda, the director who turned her into one of the most fearless performers of her generation. With him she dared to do anything from very early on, playing a transgender woman in 'Cambio de sexo' (1977), and together they would make titles as intense as 'Girl with the Golden Panties' (1979), 'El Lute: Run for Your Life' (1987), 'If They Tell You I Fell' (1989) and the unforgettable 'Lovers' (1991), a drama of passion based on a real crime that won her the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival. They would team up again on 'Intruder' (1993) and 'Libertarias' (1996).

In parallel, Pedro Almodóvar turned her into a pop icon no fewer than three times: she was the kidnapped woman who falls for her captor in 'Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!' (1990), the TV presenter caught in a mother-daughter melodrama in 'High Heels' (1991) and the madcap crime reporter Andrea Caracortada in 'Kika' (1993). Her greatest prize at home, however, came courtesy of another director: she won the Goya for Best Actress for 'Nobody Will Speak of Us When We're Dead' (1995), directed by Agustín Díaz Yanes, one of the eight times she has been nominated for those awards.

Paris, her second home

If anything sets Victoria Abril apart, it is her double life on both sides of the Pyrenees. During a shoot she met the Parisian cinematographer Gérard de Battista, fell in love and, in 1982, packed her bags to settle in France, where she has lived ever since. There she soon became a fully fledged star, first with the box-office hit 'Gazon maudit' (released in the UK as 'French Twist') and, more recently, with her role as the matriarch in the long-running series 'Clem'. Her bond with France is so close that in 1998 she was named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. From that relationship came her two sons, Martín (1990) and Félix (1992), whom she has always fiercely shielded from the spotlight. And as if acting were not enough, Abril is also a singer: in 2005 she released 'Putcheros do Brasil', a bossa nova and jazz album with which she took to the stage to sing in Spanish, French and Portuguese. All of this without ever stopping her work in Spain, where she has continued to appear both in film, with 'No News from God' (2001) and 'Just Walking' (2008), and in series of the calibre of 'Sin identidad' (2014) or 'Días de Navidad' (2019).

A woman who speaks her mind

Free-spirited and unselfconscious, Victoria Abril has never been afraid to say what she thinks, on screen and off, a frankness that has earned her both admiration and the odd high-profile controversy (in 2021, during the Feroz Awards gala, her remarks about the pandemic and vaccines sparked notable public controversy). That same night, however, she collected the Honorary Feroz Award, a recognition of a whole career that sums up well what hers has been: that of an unclassifiable performer, capable of embodying the most extreme emotions of several generations of Spanish women. An actress in two languages, a singer and an indomitable spirit, Victoria Abril is one of those happy rarities: a Spanish star who is also, in her own right, a figure of French cinema.