Verónica Echegui
Quick Facts
Biography
Verónica Fernández Echegaray (born 16 June 1983), known professionally as Verónica Echegui, is a Spanish actress. She has been nominated for three Goya Awards.
Early life
Echegui was born and grew up in Madrid. Her father is a lawyer and her mother a civil servant.In a 2015 interview she said she wanted to be an actress since she was eight but her parents wanted her "to study a career. My great-auntie was dying and told me I had to do what I wanted, although I must not tell my mother".Moving to London, she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. while working as a waitress and as a dog-walker.
Career
Echegui was discovered by Spanish director Bigas Luna, who cast her in the 2006 film My Name Is Juani, for which she was nominated Goya Award for Best New Actress and won multiple awards including Milan International Film Festival Award for Best Actress
In 2009, she made herself known to British audiences in the Mighty Boosh film spin-off Bunny and the Bull. Starring alongside Boosh mainstays Noel Fielding, Simon Farnaby and Julian Barratt, she played a foul-mouthed waitress caught up in a bizarre, hallucinogenic road trip involving a kidnapped stuffed bear, jars of urine, deranged tramps and dogs. At the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, she was one of ten young European actors honoured with the Shooting Stars Award.
In 2012, Craig Mathieson wrote in the Australian entertainment paper The Age"In Roberto Perez Toledo's romantic drama Six Points about Emma she plays a wilful and sexually confident blind woman, while for Manuel Martín Cuenca's sparsely atmospheric Half of Oscar she is a silent, recessive sibling circling her estranged brother, and in Icíar Bollaín's Kathmandu Lullaby she displays a forthright passion as a teacher trying to help abandoned children in Nepal."
In 2018, she made her American television debut appearing in the FX series Trust, playing one of J. Paul Getty's girlfriends, Luciana.
Private life
Echegui is fluent in Spanish and English.
As of 2015, she was living with her then boyfriend of 4 years, Spanish actor Álex García in Brixton, London.
In 2013, her photo was selected for the official poster of the 23rd Festival of the Spanish Cinema (in French '23ème festival du cinéma espagnol') in Nantes, France.
Awards and nominations
Award | Year | Category | Nominated Work | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
Barcelona Film Awards | 2006 | Best Actress | My Name Is Juani | Won |
Cinema Writers Circle Awards | 2006 | Best Newcomer | My Name Is Juani | Nominated |
2008 | Best Actress | My Prison Yard | Nominated | |
Gaudí Awards | 2011 | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role | Kathmandu Lullaby | Won |
Goya Awards | 2006 | Best New Actress | My Name Is Juani | Nominated |
2006 | Best Actress | My Prison Yard | Nominated | |
2011 | Best Actress | Kathmandu Lullaby | Nominated | |
Milan International Film Festival Awards | 2006 | Best Actress | My Name Is Juani | Won |
Málaga Spanish Film Festival Awards | 2007 | Best Supporting Actress | The Least of the Bad | Won |
Sant Jordi Awards | 2006 | Best Spanish Actress | My Name Is Juani | Won |
Shooting Stars Awards | 2009 | Shooting Star | N/A | Won |
Spanish Actors Union Awards | 2006 | Best Newcomer | My Name Is Juani | Nominated |