Cuban actress Ana de Armas spent half her 20-year career making her way to Hollywood with a three-year stint in Spain before heading to L.A. with three suitcases, her dog and very little English in 2016.

The actress’ trajectory since is the stuff of dreams with her some dozen credits since including Bladerunner 2049, Knives Out, No Time To Die, an Oscar-nominated performance in Blonde and Ballerina.

In an on-stage conversation moderated by Deadline’s Diana Lodderhose at the Red Sea Film Festival on Friday, de Armas looked back at her time in Spain, where she appeared in popular TV teen dramas, with affection even if she had no regrets about moving on.

However, the actress revealed that she still harboured ambitions of clinching a big role in a Spanish feature film, with the opportunity never arising during her time there due to her TV work.

“I didn’t have time to really do anything else. I really wanted to get back to films, but I just couldn’t get my schedule to work with anything else. I did manage to do a couple films, but it was always in roles that were still teenagers, or like young girls.”

“My years in Spain, unfortunately, I didn’t get to do as many films as I wanted to, and I love Spanish cinema and I love Spanish directors… Every time I go to Spain, ‘I say it, please call me. I want to work here. I’m available, send me scripts’,” she said.

“I feel like they feel because I’m not really there, that I’m unreachable… I love going back and forth and I love European cinema.”

De Arma said moving to L.A. having achieved some fame in Spain was “a humbling” experience in her early days in the city.

“Leaving everything in Spain… that was not an easy move. In Spain, even though I was doing mostly TV and a couple of films, I had a career, I could have kept going there, I was settled, I was good,” she recalled.

“When I moved to the U.S., it was the most humbling thing I’ve ever done. No one knew who I was. No one cared. My work in Spain or Cuba didn’t exist. I didn’t speak the language. They were not very patient either.”

Her breakthrough moment was being cast in Eli Roth’s Knock Knock, opposite Keanu Reeves, who became a friend and recently reprised his John Wick with her in Ballerina.  

Even though de Armas is now one of Hollywood’s hottest acting properties, she revealed flashes of imposter syndrome in the conversation.

Asked if her Oscar nomination for Blonde had opened doors, de Armas replied: “Not really. I don’t know, I feel like some people think that it was kind of a fluke… there’s still this kind of feeling of having to prove myself again somehow.”

“But I’ve always been the one looking for what I want to do instead of just waiting for what they have to offer,”  she continued, making it clear she was looking for fresh challenges.

“Not to devalue what Ballerina is, which is the most fun I’ve had on set and I love doing an action movie, but that’s probably what the industry would want me to keep doing… but it’s not all I have to offer. It’s me who chases what’s coming next, who is looking for the writers and the directors.”

Having worked with established directors such as Len Wiseman, Ron Howard and Andrew Dominik in recent years, de Armas heads to the set next in Grant Singer’s Reenactment, alongside Benicio del Toro and Cameron Diaz.

“I’m gonna do this movie in LA with Grant Singer, who’s a director that just by doing rehearsals and some work on the script so far, I love working with, collaborating with. He’s a very young director. I think he’s brilliant.

“Benicio del Toro, who if you haven’t seen in One Battle After Another, please go because he is unbelievable as always. So, I’m doing that with him and Cameron Diaz… We’re going to be filming in January,” she said.

Asked for details, she said: “It’s top secret. They will kill me.”