Fele Martínez is a Goya Award-winning Spanish

Spanish people

The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

.

Early years

Martínez was born in Alicante

Alicante

Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. A product of the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, he began to act and direct theater at an early age. His first acting attempts were with the Sexpeare Teatro theater company.

Career

His chance at stardom came at the hand of Alejandro Amenábar

Alejandro Amenábar

Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth...

, who offered him a role in his opera prima Tesis

Tesis

Tesis is a 1996 Spanish film. It is the feature debut of director Alejandro Amenábar, and was written by him and Mateo Gil. The movie won seven 1996 Goya Awards , including the award for Best Film. It stars Ana Torrent, Fele Martínez and Eduardo Noriega...

. It was for this work that Fele received the Goya Award for Best New Actor in 1996. Among his films are the notable Abre Los Ojos

Abre los ojos

Abre los ojos is a 1997 Spanish film directed by Alejandro Amenábar which was written by himself and Mateo Gil. It stars Eduardo Noriega, Penélope Cruz, Fele Martínez and Najwa Nimri...

 (Amenábar, 1997), Los amantes del círculo polar

Los amantes del círculo polar

Lovers of the Arctic Circle , sometimes called The Lovers from the North Pole, is a 1998 film by the Spanish director Julio Médem, starring Najwa Nimri and Fele Martínez...

 (Julio Médem

Julio Medem

Julio Médem is a Spanish writer and film director.Medem was born in San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain and showed an interest in movies since childhood, when he would take his father's Super 8 camera and shoot at night, while nobody was paying attention...

, 1998), El arte de morir (Álvaro Fernández Armero, 1999), Capitanes de Abril (María de Medeiros, 1999), Tuno negro (Pedro L. Barbero y Vicente J. Martín, 2000), and La Mala Educación (Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular...

, 2004).

He has also participated in several independent film projects including the short films Pasaia (1996), for which he won Best Actor at the Elche Film Festival, Amigos (1997), La cartera (2000), and El castigo del ángel (2002) which he also directed.

Filmography

• Pasaia (1996)
• Tesis
  Tesis
  Tesis is a 1996 Spanish film. It is the feature debut of director Alejandro Amenábar, and was written by him and Mateo Gil. The movie won seven 1996 Goya Awards , including the award for Best Film. It stars Ana Torrent, Fele Martínez and Eduardo Noriega...
  
   (1996)
• Amigos (1997)
• Abre los ojos
  Abre los ojos
  Abre los ojos is a 1997 Spanish film directed by Alejandro Amenábar which was written by himself and Mateo Gil. It stars Eduardo Noriega, Penélope Cruz, Fele Martínez and Najwa Nimri...
  
   (1997)
• Los Amantes del Círculo Polar
  Los amantes del círculo polar
  Lovers of the Arctic Circle , sometimes called The Lovers from the North Pole, is a 1998 film by the Spanish director Julio Médem, starring Najwa Nimri and Fele Martínez...
  
   (1998)
• Lágrimas Negras (1998)
• Tú qué Harías por Amor (1999)
• El Arte de Morir (1999)
• Capitanes de Abril (2000)
• Tuno Negro (2000)
• Tinta Roja (2000)
• La Cartera (2000)
• Noche de reyes (2001)
• El Castigo del Ángel (2002)
• Darkness
  Darkness (2002 film)
  Darkness is a 2002 horror film directed by Jaume Balagueró about an American teenage girl who moves into a haunted house with her family in the Spanish countryside. The film stars Anna Paquin, Lena Olin, Iain Glen, and Fele Martínez....
  
   (2002)
• Hable con ella (2002)
• Dos Tipos Duros (2003)
• La Mala Educación (2004)
• Tánger (2004)
• El Síndrome de Svensson(2006)
• A un metro de tí (2007)
• 14, Fabian Road (2008)
• Carmo (2008)
• El Kaserón (2008)
• Los Minutos del Silencio (2009)

External links

This page draws heavily on the corresponding article in the Spanish-language Wikipedia which was accessed in the version of 30 November 2005.