Santiago Segura

Santiago Segura Silva (born 17 July 1965) is a Spanish filmmaker and actor. He also worked to a lesser extent as a television presenter, voice actor and comic book writer, as well as being a collector of original comic books.

At 12, he began making films with a Super-8 camera, and, after a recommendation from Fernando Trueba, began to make films in 35 mm, funded by his appearances in TV game shows.

He earned early recognition for his performance as a metalhead in 1995 film The Day of the Beast (billed as a "satanic comedy"), which won him the Goya Award for Best New Actor.

Great success would come with his directorial feature debut, 1998 dark action comedy and box-office hit Torrente, the Dumb Arm of the Law, in which he stars as José Luis Torrente, a racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and fascist former police cop. The film, that won Segura the Goya Award for Best New Director, was followed by a film series of five sequels: Torrente 2: Mission in Marbella (2001), Torrente 3: el protector (2005), Torrente 4: Lethal Crisis (2011), Torrente 5: Operación Eurovegas (2014), and Torrente for President (2026), that made it the highest-grossing Spanish film series.

He then went on to direct films with a lighter tone, likewise churning domestic box-office hits with children comedies such as Father There Is Only One (and its film series of four sequels) and The Kids Are Alright (and its sequel).