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Antonio de la Torre (actor)
Spanish actor (born 1968)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Antonio de la Torre Martín (born 18 January 1968) is a Spanish actor and journalist. He is the actor with most nominations overall to the Goya Awards.[1] He won the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actor for Dark Blue Almost Black in 2007;[2] whereas, he earned the Goya Award for Best Actor for The Realm in 2019.[3] He has starred in many films directed by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, with whom he collaborated for the first time in the short film Profilaxis (2003).[2]
Early life and education
Antonio de la Torre Martín was born on 18 January 1968 in Málaga.[4][5] He studied journalism at the Complutense University of Madrid, becoming a close friend of Alberto San Juan, then his classmate at the Complutense's Faculty of Information Sciences.[6][7] Sometime before earning his licentiate degree, he landed a job at Andalusian broadcaster Canal Sur,[6] where he worked as a sports journalist.[8] In order to reconcile his employment in Seville with his acting training under Cristina Rota and attendance to casting calls, he went back and forth from Seville to Madrid on train.[6][9]
Career beginnings
He started his acting career in television series such as Lleno, por favor or Los ladrones van a la oficina.[10] He landed afterwards minor film roles in The Worst Years of Our Lives (1994, his feature film debut),[8] You Shall Die in Chafarinas (1995), The Day of the Beast (1995), Hi, Are You Alone? (1995), and Not Love, Just Frenzy (1996).[10] He has since developed a long career in cinema.[11]
In 2002, he featured in Poniente, a drama film directed by Chus Gutiérrez exploring the plight of irregular immigrants working in greenhouses in Southern Spain, playing a Spanish racist foreman.[12]
Breakthrough
2006 was a key year for De la Torre.[13] He appeared in a small role in Pedro Almodóvar's Volver (2006), portraying the partner of Penélope Cruz's character Raimunda, killed after attempting to rape Raimunda's daughter Paula (played by Yohana Cobo).[14] De la Torre also featured in Dark Blue Almost Black (2006), directed by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, who reportedly wrote specifically De la Torre's role for him, intending to showcase his acting talent.[15] In the film, he portrayed Antonio, the infertile imprisoned brother of the protagonist (Quim Gutiérrez), who convinces the latter to get his partner Paula (Marta Etura) pregnant.[16][17] His performance earned him a Goya Award for Best Supporting Actor, consolidated his career and gained him prestige as an actor.[15] As a result, he left his part-time job as a journalist and fully dedicated to acting since 2007,[18] having applied for a leave of absence from a permanent position in Canal Sur that he had just landed in June 2007.[19]
Established career
De la Torre collaborated again with Sánchez Arévalo in Fat People (2009), putting on 33 kg to portray a slimming pill salesman.[20] De la Torre's performance as Sergio, a silly clown and abusive partner, in Álex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus (2010) earned him his third Goya Award nomination.[21][22]
He played an expeditious, forceful and arrogant police agent in Alberto Rodríguez's Seville-set action thriller Unit 7 (2012).[23]
He starred as an anthropophagous tailor in Manuel Martín Cuenca's Cannibal (2013).[24]
Another collaboration with Alberto Rodríguez, a brief supporting performance as the father of missing girls in crime thriller Marshland (2014), clinched him an additional Goya Award nomination.[25]
He starred alongside Luis Callejo in The Fury of a Patient Man (2016), playing a quiet, well-groomed man patiently waiting to enact vengeance.[26][27] Also in 2016, he starred alongside Roberto Álamo in Rodrigo Sorogoyen's crime thriller May God Save Us playing the role of a lonely and stuttering police inspector tracking down a rapist and killer of elderly women in Madrid.[28][29] With The Realm (2018), a new collaboration with Sorogoyen, De la Torre won his first Goya Award for Best Leading Performance, playing Manuel López-Vidal, a well-positioned regional politician whose life crumbles upon the unravelling of a corruption case.[30] He also landed a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the same ceremony for his role as Pepe Mujica in A Twelve-Year Night.[31] In order to prepare for the latter role, involving Mujica's long time in captivity under the civic-military dictatorship, de la Torre lost 15 kg and worked on improving his Uruguayan accent.[32]
For his portrayal of a man who evades the Francoist repression for 33 years hiding in his house in The Endless Trench (2019), he earned a new Goya Award for Best Actor nomination.[33][34]
De la Torre co-hosted the 37th Goya Awards gala along with Clara Lago in February 2023.[35] His supporting performance in The Movie Teller (2023), portraying a hard-working and humble Chilean man disabled in an accident, demanded De la Torre to work on his Chilean accent.[36][37] In 2024, he appeared as a maquis guerrilla fighter in black comedy film We Treat Women Too Well,[38] and in a bit part as a snooty posh parent in Father There Is Only One 4.[39] He also lost 30 kg to play the role of a terminally ill patient in Pilar Palomero's Glimmers.[40]
Also in 2024, De la Torre shot the thriller film Los Tigres, resuming collaboration with Alberto Rodríguez with a leading role as an industrial diver.[41] Likewise, he landed the titular role of serial killer Juan Díaz de Garayo, aka Sacamantecas, in David Pérez Sañudo's The Harvester, set in late 19th-century Vitoria-Gasteiz.[42] In October 2025, he was reported to have joined the cast of The Black Ball.[43]
Filmography
Views
A vocal supporter of Yolanda Díaz's political project, De la Torre closed the electoral list of Sumar in the province of Málaga for the 2023 Spanish general election.[44]
Accolades
