Ana Mena

The casting call that changed a childhood in Estepona

Ana Mena was born in 1997, and before turning twelve she already knew what a professional film set was like. She won the Veo Veo contest in 2006. That early triumph opened the doors of national television to her with the miniseries Marisol, the movie released in 2009.

It was her first real contact with the entertainment industry.

Pedro Almodóvar called her for The Skin I Live In in 2011. She played the child version of the character played by Blanca Suárez, and had to sing in front of the director from La Mancha's camera. It was a technical shoot where precision mattered more than teen charisma, and where Mena realized that filmmaking demanded an almost military discipline.

But music was always there, pushing forward in parallel. In 2016, she released her first single after years of quiet training in recording studios. That early stage in the music industry was slow and full of sound checks in shopping malls.

The Italian connection and the business of the charts

In 2018, she decided the Spanish market wasn't enough for her ambitions. She moved to Italy to collaborate with Fred De Palma on the song D'estate non vale. Nobody expected a girl from Málaga to top the sales charts in a foreign country while singing in a language she had learned through phonetics and constant repetition.

And the strategy worked.

She earned eleven platinum records in Italy before the wider Spanish public saw her as a top-tier star. This geographic detour allowed her to negotiate record deals from a position of strength that few artists of her generation have had. Her monthly listeners on digital platforms exceeded six million over several consecutive summers.

Her return to acting and the production of Bellodrama

Netflix signed her for the series Bienvenidos a Edén in 2022. In this production, she played Judith and filmed in challenging locations in Lanzarote under weather conditions that demanded considerable physical endurance. The series was distributed in more than 190 countries and helped her face become associated once again with high-budget acting.

In 2023, she released her second studio album, Bellodrama. The record debuted straight at number one on Spain's official sales charts and focused on a pop sound influenced by the 1970s. It was a personal project in which she herself oversaw the songwriting credits on nearly every track.

Mena prefers complete control over her product.

During the 2024 and 2025 tour, she performed more than sixty sold-out dates at festivals and large venues. The production cost of her live shows rose by 40% due to the complexity of the lighting structures and the hiring of a dedicated dance crew for the entire European leg. The final stop of her tour at the WiZink Center in Madrid sold out every seat in less than twenty-four hours.