Asier Etxeandía

Asier Etxeandía — Biography

Born Asier Gómez Etxeandía in Bilbao, the Basque-born actor and singer trained in theatre before moving to Madrid at twenty, where he worked managing a sex shop while continuing his studies. His break came playing Beni, a gay drama-school student, in the series Un Paso Adelante, and he later took on stage work, including the Master of Ceremonies in the musical Cabaret at the suggestion of his co-star Natalia Millán. After roles in Los Serrano and Los hombres de Paco, he reached a much wider audience playing Raúl de la Riva, a fashion designer loosely modeled on Yves Saint Laurent, in Velvet, later reprising the role in its sequel, Velvet Colección. He has also pursued music, forming the duo Mastodonte with the Italian musician Enrico Barbaro. On screen he appeared in Las 13 rosas and King Conqueror, and his performances opposite Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz in Pedro Almodóvar's Pain and Glory (2019), as well as in The Bride (2015), brought him two separate Goya Award nominations.