Vega, Paz

(1976- )

   Paz Vega gained prominence in television series (such as Más que amigos [ More Than Friends ], which aired in the 1997-98 season) and her film debut in a small part in Perdón, perdón (Excuse Me, Manuel Ríos San Martín, 1998), which was followed by similar roles in Zapping (Juan Manuel Chumilla) and Sobreviviré (I Will Survive, Alfonso Albacete and David Menkes), both released in 1999. She was first noticed by film critics in Mateo Gil's Nadie conoce a nadie (No One Knows No One, 1999), as the protagonist's girlfriend. But her career-defining role was the eponymous character in Julio Medem's Lucía y el sexo (Lucía and Sex, 2001), as a free-wheeling, sexually liberated young woman who travels to Forment-era to heal her wounds at the end of a relationship. After a number of bland characterizations, Vega conveyed in this film intense, touching emotions and revealed a versatile performer who was unafraid of intimacy. The role also gave her international exposure, and it would become the cornerstone of her Hollywood career.

   But first came a series of parts in Spanish films that turned her into one of the most exciting new actresses of the new millennium. She shown in El otro lado de la cama (The Other Side of Bed, Emilio Martínez Lázaro, 2002), was excellent in Novo (Jean Pierre-Limosin, 2002), and her Carmen (2003) for Vicente Aranda was immensely watchable and among the most complex interpretations of the role ever undertaken, the warm heart of a flawed film. She was also very funny in a cameo in Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con ella (Talk to Her, 2002) as a scientist who shrinks her lover.

   In 2004, she debuted in Hollywood with Spanglish, a James L. Brooks' comedy, in which she plays a Mexican nanny. She was criticized in Spain for accepting a role that was considered racial stereotyping, but the real problem was that she seemed lost, with a weak grasp on language, and completely unrelaxed. Determined to have an international career, she persisted in roles abroad with 10 Items or Less (Brad Silberling, 2006), The Spirit (Frank Miller, 2008), and The Human Contract (Jada Pinkett Smith, 2008), and she also continued her television work in the popular sitcom Siete vidas (Seven Lives) until 2006. However, her most substantial acting since Carmen was in Ray Loriga's Teresa, el cuerpo de Cristo (Teresa, Body of Christ, 2007), where she played a sexualized version of the Catholic saint.