THE GRAY MAN Star Ana de Armas Covers ELLE’s August Issue

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Ana de Armas graces ELLE’s August 2022 issue, on newsstands July 26th. The actress speaks about her role in The Gray Man, the summer action movie costarring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans, reportedly the biggest-budget film Netflix has ever made, why the intense attention from paparazzi during her relationship with Ben Affleck led her to leave LA, her Cuban background and her hopes for an increasing emphasis on diversity in Hollywood going forward: “It’s definitely changing; it’s getting better. But it’s hard to know now, being in my position, because I know it’s not the same for everybody,” de Armas says. “And I feel like it’s coming from filmmakers, that diversity has become a must. You have to do the right thing. Thank God.”

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On how she really felt about all the attention focused on her widely photographed and gossiped-about relationship with Ben Affleck and why it led her to leave LA: “Horrible,” she says, nodding and opening her big, round hazel eyes for emphasis. Really? “Yeah, which is good,” she says. “That’s one of the reasons why I left L.A.” She had spent seven years in Los Angeles, seeing other performers’ lives become a fishbowl complete with paparazzi tracking your every move. “Going through it [myself] confirmed my thoughts about, ‘This is not the place for me to be,’” she says. “It became a little bit too much. There’s no escape. There’s no way out.” In Los Angeles, she adds, “it’s always the feeling of something that you don’t have, something missing. It’s a city that keeps you anxious.”

On balancing her intense drive to make it in the industry and a feeling of being displaced: “I feel sometimes I’m not part of the Cuban artist community, and then when I was in Spain and I feel like I’m not part of the community there – especially because in Spain, I did more TV than movies,” she says. “And then I’m here, and I feel like I’m not there yet either. You know? Am I part of the community? I barely know anybody.”

On Hollywood becoming slightly more open – minded in its casting practices and the importance of diversity: “It’s definitely changing; it’s getting better. But it’s hard to know now, being in my position, because I know it’s not the same for everybody,” de Armas says. “And I feel like it’s coming from filmmakers, that diversity has become a must. You have to do the right thing. Thank God.”

On playing Latina roles on her own terms and her hope for Latin actors going forward: “I do want to play Latina. But I don’t want to put a basket of fruit on my head every single time,” she says. “So that’s my hope, that I can show that we can do anything if we’re given the time to prepare, and if we’re given just the chance, just the chance. You can do any film – Blonde – you can do anything. The problem is that sometimes you don’t even get to the room with the director and prove yourself.”

[Photo Credit: Christian MacDonald/ELLE Magazine]

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