Angie Cepeda

The Rise of the Colombian

Angélica María Cepeda Jiménez was born in Magangué in 1974 and grew up in Barranquilla, far from the spotlight of the major film capitals. Her breakthrough on Colombian television in the mid-nineties was explosive, thanks to Las Juanas. But the real break from the traditional telenovela mold came in 1999, under the direction of Francisco Lombardi.

In that adaptation of Pantaleón y las visitadoras, she played La Colombiana. The role demanded a mix of vulnerability and physical strength that broke through the borders of the Latin American market. The film earned a Goya nomination and put her name on the radar of casting directors in Madrid.

The industry stopped seeing her as just a pretty face.

Peruvian cinema gave her prestige, but Spain offered her continuity. In 2002 she starred in El luto de la Amazonía, and shortly after she moved to Madrid to look for projects that moved away from easy exoticism. At that time, Spanish cinema was looking for faces with magnetism for thrillers and urban dramas.

A Refuge in Spanish Fiction

After several years alternating jobs in Italy and Argentina, she landed on national television with a role that fixed her in the public imagination. Between 2010 and 2012, she played Jimena Castillo in Los protegidos. The series reached audience shares above 15% during prime time and allowed her to work in the family science fiction genre.

And it worked.

But Cepeda didn't stay confined to the parlor of that fictional household. In 2011, she appeared in the miniseries 20-N: Franco's Last Days, playing Chumina. It was a smart move to step away from mother or romantic-heroine roles and enter the territory of Spanish historical drama.

Before shooting El mal ajeno in 2010, she had already shared the billing with Javier Bardem in the international production Love in the Time of Cholera. Although the film had a lukewarm box office reception, it helped her build a bridge to the American industry. In that 2007 production, she worked under the direction of Mike Newell.

Maturity Between Drama and Science Fiction

Voice work became a key part of her career in its more mature phase. In 2021, she lent her voice to Julieta Madrigal in the Disney film Encanto. The project won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and allowed her vocal performance to reach a global audience without her having to be physically in front of the camera.

In 2022, she returned to Colombian cinema with Rebelión. This biographical film about musician Joe Arroyo returned her to adult drama, with her playing Adela Martelo. Filming took place mainly in Bogotá and explored the shadows of artistic creation in the 1970s.

Her ability to handle silence is her greatest weapon.

In 2024, she joined the cast of the second season of the series Halo, produced by Amblin Television and streaming on Paramount+. In this science fiction project, she plays Violetta Franco and shares scenes with Joseph Morgan. The production had an estimated budget of 10 million dollars per episode during its technical development in Hungary and Iceland.