Paula Usero, the girl from the Famosa dolls turned into a worldwide phenomenon with 'Luimelia'

The Valencian is nominated for the Goya for best revelation actress for 'Rosa's Wedding', a film directed by Icíar Bollaín.

By Nuria Hernandez

The 2021 Goya Awards will be held on March 6, a ceremony that will not be like the previous 34. For the first time in its history, the celebration of Spanish cinema will take place in Malaga and the nominees will not be present at the Teatro del Soho CaixaBank together with Antonio Banderas and María Casado, the presenters of the gala, but will wait to hear their name from home and will collect the prize electronically. For four actresses this will be their first time and without a doubt the nerves will go beyond the screen. The nominees for Best New Actress are Jone Laspiur (Ane), Milena Smit (You Will Not Kill), Griselda Siciliani (Sentimental) and Paula Usero (Rosa's Wedding). The latter has seen how her career has taken a great leap in recent months thanks to the television phenomenon Luimelia, which has swept half the world.

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Valencia is the land where this actress was born 29 years ago. Although as a child she did not dream of working on a film set, from a very young age her parents saw something in her and enrolled her in theater classes. "They put me in drama school to keep me quiet," she joked in an interview on Cadena Ser. The self-confidence and friendliness she gave off led her to become the image of one of the best-known toy brands: Famosa dolls . Paula, only 7 years old, was the face of illusion for millions of children and her face and her voice went around Spain thanks to the brand's television commercials. In addition, in those years she participated in other campaigns such as one for Arroz la Fallera and she paraded for clothing brands such as Sabelma or Zenobia.

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From politics to the stage

Already then, the bug of her interpretation had 'bitten' her. But like many actors, Paula began to study a career that had nothing to do with acting. She enrolled in Political Science at the University of Valencia and while she was studying she began to participate in some short films made by friends who did Audiovisual Communication. It was in 2012 when she decided to change the world of politics for the classrooms of the Higher School of Dramatic Art (ESAD) of Valencia, where she carried out a Degree in Textual Interpretation.

After four years, she packed her bags and headed to Madrid to break out of that shell and the security that being in her city gave her. She had already participated in several plays such as Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, directed by Vicente Genovés; Mar i cel, by Ángel Guimerà, directed by Pilar Silla; Isabella's room by Jan Lawers, by Rafael Ricart or Crazy, crazy, crazy, by Alberto Monrabal. And she continued to train with different fencing courses, acrobatic techniques, free verse from Shakespeare and characterization.

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Her first great opportunity after many castings and many 'noes' was given to her by Icíar Bollaín. Paula participated in the film El Olivo, starring Anna Castillo (who won the Goya for best revelation actress) and Javier Gutiérrez (who was nominated for a Goya). Curiously, Paula could win her first Goya award this year thanks to her role as Lidia in La boda de Rosa, also directed by Bollaín (nominated for best direction) and starring Candela Peña (nominated for best actress).

But after El Olivo, Paula Usero made the leap to the small screen, something that served to make herself known to the general public. It was after two tests when she was called to be part of Velvet Collection, the spin off of the original Antena 3 series whose main actors were Paula Echevarría and Miguel Ángel Silvestre. She felt at home there and established a great relationship with her filming partners.

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The worldwide success of Luimelia

At the end of that same 2017, Paula was signed for the sixth season of the desktop series Amar es para siempre. In fiction, she gave life to Luisita Gómez, daughter of Manolita and Marcelino, owners of the bar in the Plaza de los Frutos. There she cut her teeth as an actress with twelve-hour workdays and a choral cast that meant an accelerated master's degree for her. During the following season, her role took on a major role thanks to her romantic plot with Amelia (played by Carol Rovira). The relationship between Luisita and Amelia, two women who live a love story in post-Franco Madrid at the end of the 70s, gave rise to Luimelia (the union of the two names) and the two actresses became a reference for the LGTB collective for giving visibility to their love story in the series.

During the following years, Paula appeared in an episode of Justo Before Christ and in the Generation Nylon campaign alongside Belinda Washington and Bely Basarte. In 2019, together with her partner Carol Rovira, she received the Andalesgai award for visibility. The success of the couple from Amar es para siempre was such that the two actresses received messages and letters from young people from Japan, the Philippines or Mexico. The network was not going to let the opportunity pass and on February 14, 2020, #Luimelia was released (the use of a hash mark is a nod to the great support they had received on social networks), a spin-off for Atresplayer with chapters of just ten minutes with Paula and Carol playing Luisita and Amelia but in a different context from the other series since both live today and tell their story from scratch.

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“I never get the idea that this could have happened to Carol and me. Looking at it from a distance, it's amazing. It is something that I still freak out to this day. It is very strong. I recently went on vacation to a lost town in the north and they just stopped me on the street there. It is incredible that it can reach so many places, it is incredible that the fans of Amar have seen Luimelia and it is incredible that young people have put Luimelia to the older people in their family and they have liked it and want more”, said Usero in Ecoteuve. And they swept back, so much so that the second season arrived in August and the third in January of this year (it has already been announced that there will be a fourth installment).

Paula Usero's passion for art has also led her to create Las sisters of quality, a musical project together with fellow actress María Caballero, and in a few weeks she will premiere La cocinera de Castamar on Atresplayer Premium, a series starring Michelle Jenner, Roberto Enriquez and Hugo Silva.

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Her loyal companions: her two cats

When a day of filming ends, for Paula Usero the best thing is to get home and meet her two cats Pepi and Molly (they even have a profile on Instagram). She declares herself an animal lover and she also has a dog, a small Yorkshire named Pluto but who lives in Valencia with her family since, due to her work, she could not serve him as she deserves. In addition to animals, the actress is interested in ecology and one of her dreams, if she were not dedicated to acting, would be to set up an agritourism near the sea in which everything was organic and "where the best breakfasts in the world were served" , counted in Cinemanía.

Among her hobbies are traveling with her brother Gonzalo, whom she adores, and diving. She confesses that the worst thing about her job is getting up early and that as a child she watched the movie Matilda over and over again and one of her 'fetish' series is Gossip Girl. For her, the best place to get lost is the Valencian Albufera and she knows all the tricks to make a good paella typical of her land, since she also likes to cook when she has free time.