Verónica Echegui, ‘Fortitude,’ ‘Love You to Death’ Star, Dies at 42
- Spanish actor Veronica Echegui, known for her vitality and humor, passed away at the age of 42 after battling cancer.
Spain's Verónica Echegui, an actor of enormous vitality and contagious humor, died Aug. 24, at Madrid's 12 de Octubre hospital where she was being treated for cancer. She was 42.
Only those closest to her knew she was ill – which didn't stop her from continuing to work: her latest series, Atresplayer's "Love You to Death," bought by Apple TV+ was released as recently as February – so her death took Spain's film industry by shock.
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Like Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, but a decade and more after "Jamón, Jamón," Echegui broke out thanks to Spanish director Bigas Luna, 2006's "My Name Is Juani." Set in a big city outer-radius, the movie drew mixed reviews but "debutante Echegui revels in the role of the raspy-voiced, short-skirted and irrepressibly vulgar Juani, the character who comes closest to winning viewers' hearts," Variety noted.
"Juani" made Echegui a star in Spain, and won her the first of four Spanish Academy nominations, for new actor ("My Name is Juani," 2007), lead actress ("My Prison Yard, 2009; "Katmandu," 2012) and supporting actress ("My Heart Goes Boom," 2022). She won her first Goya, however, writing, directing and producing live action short "Totem Loba," in which a party turns to horror, a comment on genre abuse.
It was only when Echegui began to carve out an intentional career, however, that her stature as an actor began to emerge. A RADA graduate, she starred in "Bunny and the Bull", where she opposite "Great British Bake Off's" Noel Fielding. In " You're Killing Me Susana ," (2016), from Mexico's Roberto Sneider, she plays a modern-mindset writer who escapes her charming but incorrigibly retrograde Mexican husband (Gael García Bernal) to take a course in the U.S.. Echegui 's acting breathed life into "Fortitude" Seasons 1 and 2. In 2022, Echegui starred opposite Sam Claflin in "Book of Love," an Amazon Prime Video romcom, described by Variety as a "charming tale of opposites," in which Claflin plays a buttoned British novelist and Echegui his vital Mexican translator.
"Love You to Death" caught Echegui in typical fettle, delivering a characteristically energetic performance as whirlwind commitment-shy but pregnant Marta, Echegui hardly ever static when in frame, rearranging her body, or hands, using the full force of her body, forthright but vulnerable.
Echegui's death drew multiple social media reactions. "I'm heartbroken hearing the news about the magical @veronicaechegui. Fuck you cancer," wrote Claflin. "I was deeply shocked by the news of Verónica Echegui's passing, an actress with enormous talent and humility who leaves us far too young," said Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, on X/Twitter.
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