Najwa Nimri

Pamplona-born actress and vocalist Najwa Nimri divides her time between onscreen roles, recording sessions, and tour bookings. As a musician (on such tracks as "I'll Wait for Us" and "Capable"), Nimri demonstrates stylistic versatility, wafting between a kind of Latin techno-hip-hop and a sensual brand of alternative folk, with tracks sung in both English and Spanish. Her albums include Najwajean Selection (2002), Mayday (2003), and Walkabout (2006). As a character actress, she has proven herself adept at multiple genres, but spent the first decade or so of her career gravitating mostly to psychological thrillers.

Born in 1972 to Jordanian and Spanish parents, Nimri gravitated to performance as a small child, training rigorously in drama and dance under the aegis of the highly esteemed coaches John Beitia and William Layton. She landed her first significant motion-picture role in director Daniel Calparsoro's feature-film debut, the urban drama Salto al Vacío (1995) -- and won critical laurels for that effort -- but five years passed before the actress broke through to international acclaim with her turn as Fina Correa in Julian Schnabel's arthouse hit Before Night Falls (2000). Nimri re-teamed with Calparsoro that same year for the crime thriller Asfalto and then appeared in the intense psychological thriller Fausto 5.0 (2001). Nimri could also be seen in a prominent role in Julio Medem's 2001 arthouse erotic drama Sex and Lucia (having previously taken on a starring role in his lesser-known 1998 film Lovers of the Arctic Circle). In 2005, she joined the cast of Ramon Salazar's fanciful, comic musical 20 Centimeters. Nimri scored first billing as the title character in Antonio Chavarrías's 2006 nail-biter Celia's Lives. The picture concerns the criminal investigation that follows a brutal rape and murder, and the suicidal housewife (Nimri) helplessly entwined in the case.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide