Adriana Paz

Adriana Paz (born January 13, 1980) is a Mexican actress and dancer. She began her artistic career in Spain, shooting commercials and acting in a play. She was recognized for her role as Toña in the Mexican film Rudo y Cursi with a nomination for the Ariel Award for Best Supporting Actress. She garnered critical praise starring as Miranda in Las Horas Muertas (2013), for which she was awarded Best Actress at the Morelia International Film Festival. She subsequently starred in the TV series Sucedió en Un Día (2010), Capadocia (2010), El Encanto del Aguila (2011), Dios, Inc. (2016), and Vis a vis (2018–2019).

Paz is also featured in other films, including Todos los Besos (2007), Backyard: El Traspatio (2009), Not Forgotten (2009), Un Mexicano Más (2009), El Mar Muerto (2010), 4 Maras (2012), Morelos (2012), Elysium (2013), Spectre, and Las Aparicio (2015). For her lead performance in the drama La Tirisia (2014), she received the Ariel Award for Best Actress and for the films Hilda (2015) and La Caridad (2016) she won two consecutive Ariel Awards for Best Supporting Actress. In 2017, her performance in El Autor earned her a nomination for the Goya Award for Best New Actress. For her role in the film Emilia Pérez, Paz was recognized with the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress in 2024.

Background Adriana Paz was born in Mexico City in 1980. She wanted to study dramatic literature and theater, but was accepted at the School of Philosophy and Letters of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Upon graduation, Paz relocated to Spain to join the Estudi Dansa Montserrat in Tarragona and the Estudis de Teatre in Barcelona. Her television debut was in the series Historias de Leyenda, broadcast by Canal Once. That same year, Paz shared her head shots with actor Manuel Teil, who then invited her to the casting for a film. Later she was invited to the casting sessions for Carlos Cuarón's first feature film. At a callback meeting, Paz met Cuarón and Diego Luna, and the following day Teil told her that she had won the role of Toña, the wife of Beto "Rudo", the character played by Luna. The film, Rudo y Cursi (2009), starring Luna and Gael García Bernal, is about two soccer players who are half-brothers and become rivals when a talent scout discovers them and asks them to try out for a professional team. Paz received her first Ariel Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Rudo y Cursi. The following year, she was featured in the film Backyard: El Traspatio, directed by Carlos Carrera.

2009–2012: El Mar Muerto, Un Mexicano Más and first leading role in Las Horas Muertas Paz played a supporting role in the film El Mar Muerto directed by Ignacio Ortíz in 2009, starring Aída López, Joaquín Cosio, Leticia Gutiérrez, and Mario Almada. The film used the historic center of Mexico City as its main location, and the plot was about a murder that happens during a blackout.

In 2010, Paz starred with Kristyan Ferrer in the film Las Horas Muertas, directed by Aarón Fernández; this was the first lead role for the actress. Jay Weissberg of Variety stated that it was a "truly breakthrough role" for Paz, since she "enlivens the screen with palpable charm". Weissberg also said that "without the warmth and ironic self-awareness that Paz brings to Miranda, the pic might have been a lesser vehicle, or at least a less absorbing one". About the award, the actress stated to El Sol de México: "I do not like to think about awards, it is better to make things for the pleasure of doing them and, if they arrive [accolades] are appreciated and enjoyed". In 2011, Paz also had a small role in Elysium directed by Neill Blomkamp starring Matt Damon, and was also featured in the film Morelos by Antonio Serrano, about the last days of José María Morelos' military career.

2014: La Tirisia Paz played Cheba, the lead role in La Tirisia, a film written, produced, and directed by Jorge Pérez Solano (2014). The plot, inspired by a popular term tirisia (which means "a perpetual sadness defined as 'the death of the spirit'"), is set in the Mixteca region of Mexico, and centers on two women (Paz and Gabriela Cartol) who were impregnated by Sylvestre (Gustavo Sánchez Parra). The film was not exhibited in commercial movie theaters in Mexico because distribution was too expensive. Instead, La Tirisia was screened at film festivals such as the Chicago International Film Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and the Toulouse Latinoamerican Film Festival, and later had a month-and-a-half stretch at the Mexican art house Cineteca Nacional. Paz commented about it: "It is not very fair. We do not have the same resources that the big production companies have, and we don't have the same possibilities for making films. It is very difficult to produce a project and know that there is not a fair distribution and exhibition of these films". Jaime López Blanco of Sputnik magazine referred to her acting as "fascinating on that introspection of a mother dead inside, suffering the absence of one of their children". At the 57th Ariel Awards, Paz received the Best Actress award for her role in the film. She appeared in the opening scene of the film Spectre, along with Mexican actors Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Stephanie Sigman, and British actor Daniel Craig in 2015. In the same year, Paz joined the cast of Hilda, Andrés Clariond's first feature film, which is based on a play written by French author Marie NDiaye. The film is about a housewife (Verónica Langer) who hires a maid (Paz) and, in the days that follow, develops an obsession with her, preventing her from leaving the house. Clariond cast Paz since he did not want very well known faces and he liked her "personality and strength".

In his review of the film, Luis Fernando Galván of En Filme described Hilda's character as "complex and beyond any cliché imposed by the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, where the poor is seen as decent, honest and kind, for example, Nosotros Los Pobres (1947) or the telenovelas, where the humble and pretty maid is rescued by prince charming from the clutches of her evil patron". Paz said of this role: "If you are a brunette actress with long hair, this is the kind of role that [the producers] usually give you, but fortunately this was very deep. It is difficult because Hilda does not speak, everything surges out of her energy and presence. She is not very funny or mouthy or a thief. Hilda is nothing like that. She is a woman who is making a household with her husband and is a very worthy woman who does not stoop, does not steal, and is not one of those stereotypes". Filmed in 2013, Las Aparicio (a film adaptation of the TV series of the same name) was released in 2016, with Paz in a small role. It was met with mixed reviews but Paz was praised by Jesús Chavarría of Cine Premiere for her "brief and effective" performance. The series featured performances by Rafael Sánchez Navarro, Luis Arrieta, Rocío Verdejo, Carlos Torres Torrija, Isabel Burr, Dagoberto Gama, Manuel Balbi, and Fernando Luján. the film was released in Mexico in August 2017 as Casi Una Gran Estafa. Paz and Veronica Langer (her co-star in Hilda) re-united for the film La Caridad, directed by Marcelino Islas in 2016; Paz and Tenoch Huerta filmed El Móvil (released as El Autor) in Spain, and they star as a couple being spied upon by a writer who uses them as inspiration for a novel. The actress ended 2018 joining the third season of the Spanish TV drama series Vis a vis. Set during the 70s, the drama is about a housewife dealing with machismo, "I think it is very interesting how Jesus [the film director] raises these issues. Women have suffered from machismo, but we are also those who perpetuate it. How it influences younger generations. At that time they had to go against all odds, they didn't even talk about that. I think it is important to identify the role that women have in it, because men also suffer from it, like Rigoberto [played by Jorge A. Jiménez], who has to fulfill that role," Paz said to Sector Cine magazine.

Toña

La Guillo

Isabel

Post-production Television