María del Pilar Peña Sánchez (born 14 July 1973), professionally known as Candela Peña, is a Spanish actress. Since her film debut in the 1994 thriller '' Running Out of Time'', she has had a lengthy career in cinema. She won the

Goya Award for Best Actress The Goya Award for Best Actress (Spanish: ''Premio Goya a la mejor interpretación femenina protagonista'') is one of the Goya Awards, Spain's principal national film awards. Since its inception, the award has been given to 26 actresses. At the 1s ...

for her performance in ''

Princesses Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a subst ...

'' (2005) whereas she won the

Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

for ''

Take My Eyes ''Take My Eyes'' ( es, Te doy mis ojos, links=no, translation, I Give You My Eyes) is a 2003 Spanish romantic drama film directed by Icíar Bollaín, starring Laia Marull and Luis Tosar. Critically acclaimed for its unclichéd treatment of domestic ...

'' (2003) and '' A Gun in Each Hand'' (2012).

Biography

María del Pilar Peña Sánchez (her real name; she took the artistic name of Candela reportedly upon joining the theatre school), was born on 14 July 1973 in

Gavà Gavà () is a municipality in the Baix Llobregat comarca, in the province of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. It borders the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between Viladecans and Castelldefels. Gavà has a beach and two population centers: the cit ...

province of Barcelona Barcelona (, ) is a province of eastern Spain, in the center of the autonomous community of Catalonia. The province is bordered by the provinces of Tarragona, Lleida, and Girona, and by the Mediterranean Sea. Its area is .Murcia Murcia (, , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country. It has a population of 460,349 inhabitants in 2021 (about one ...

and a father from

Lora del Río Lora del Río is a city and Municipio, municipality located in the Seville (province), province of Seville, Spain. According to the 2006 census by Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Spain), INE, it has a population of 19,077 inhabitants. Geograph ...

who had a bar in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

. When she was four years old she started to learn

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

in the city and after finishing high-school she went to

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

to begin

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

classes there and eventually in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. She made her first television appearance in the

TV3 Channel 3 or TV 3 may refer to: Television *Canal 3 (Burkina Faso), a commercial television channel in Burkina Faso *Canal 3 (Guatemala), a commercial television channel in Guatemala *Channel 3 (Algeria), a public Algerian TV channel owned by EPTV ...

show ', making her film debut with a performance in the 1994 thriller '' Running Out of Time'', which earned her two Goya Award nominations ( New Actress and Supporting Actress). Encouraged by

Pedro Almodóvar Pedro Almodóvar Caballero (; (often known simply as Almodóvar) born 25 September 1949) is a Spanish filmmaker. His films are marked by melodrama, irreverent humour, bold colour, glossy décor, quotations from popular culture, and complex narr ...

, she published the novel ''Pérez Príncipe, María Dolores'' in 2001. She won the

Goya Award The Goya Awards ( es, Premios Goya) are Spain's main national annual film awards, commonly referred to as the Academy Awards of Spain. The awards were established in 1987, a year after the founding of the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sci ...

in 2003 (for the movie ''

Te doy mis ojos ''Take My Eyes'' ( es, Te doy mis ojos, links=no, translation, I Give You My Eyes) is a 2003 Spain, Spanish romantic Drama (film and television), drama film directed by Icíar Bollaín, starring Laia Marull and Luis Tosar. Critically acclaimed for ...

'') after being nominated several times previously.

Filmography

Film

Television

Accolades

References

External links

* Spanish film actresses Film actresses from Catalonia Living people 1973 births Best Actress Goya Award winners 20th-century Spanish actresses 21st-century Spanish actresses {{Spain-actor-stub