Ivana Baquero as Ana in Romasanta (2004): A Child Actor’s First Screen Credit

Two years before she walked into Guillermo del Toro’s labyrinth, Ivana Baquero stood in the misty forests of nineteenth-century Galicia. She played Ana, a small supporting role in Paco Plaza’s Romasanta (2004). It was one of her first two official screen credits, and she was still a child when she made it.

Readers who know the Barcelona-born actress mainly as the youngest winner of the Goya for best newcomer, awarded in 2007 for Pan’s Labyrinth, will find the start of that story here. Her path through Spanish genre cinema (Romasanta, then Fragile, The Anarchist’s Wife and The Other Daughter) began in a werewolf film built on a real criminal case.

The film around Ana

Romasanta, also released in English as Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt, is a Spanish-Italian-British horror drama. Plaza directed it from a screenplay by Elena Serra and Alberto Marini, based on a story by Alfredo Conde. It was produced by Julio Fernández and Brian Yuzna for Filmax’s Fantastic Factory label.

The story is set in 1851 and is drawn from the case of Manuel Blanco Romasanta, who claimed he was a victim of lycanthropy. Julian Sands played Romasanta and Elsa Pataky played Bárbara. John Sharian, David Gant (as Professor Philips) and Gary Piquer (as the district attorney) completed the main cast. Baquero’s Ana sits at the edge of this adult drama, as one of the village faces in a story about superstition and science.

The moments the film is remembered for

The film’s strengths were its atmosphere and its craft. Filmax released it in Spain on May 14, 2004. It earned Goya nominations for best cinematography and best special effects. Variety’s Jonathan Holland praised the cinematography and the work of Sands and Pataky, though he felt the script lacked dramatic focus.

The film’s central question is whether a man is cursed or ill, and it plays out between Sands and Gant’s rationalist professor. Ana’s part is small, and her screen time is brief. It was the kind of role through which a young performer learns how a set works, not one that carries scenes.

From a small part to Ofelia

The same year, Baquero also appeared in Rottweiler, directed by Yuzna. In 2005 she played Mandy in Jaume Balagueró’s Fragile. By the time del Toro cast her as Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth, she was 11 and had several credits to her name.

The Ofelia performance brought her the 2007 Goya for best new actress, along with a Saturn Award for best performance by a younger actor and an Imagen Award. She has said the film shaped what came after. “It really informed the career that I went on to have as a performer,” she told Forbes in 2026.

Where she is now

Baquero went on to The New Daughter (2009), her first American film, and then to television. She played Eretria in The Shannara Chronicles and Eva Villanueva in Netflix’s High Seas. More recently she appeared in Netflix’s A Widow’s Game and as Messia in the series Spartacus: House of Ashur.

In October 2026 she returned to the film that made her famous. Pan’s Labyrinth had a restored 20th-anniversary run in US theaters that ended on October 16, 2026. She appeared with del Toro and Doug Jones at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on October 1, 2026.

Romasanta was the beginning of that career. After a limited release it reached US video in November 2005 as Werewolf Hunter, and it is still the earliest place to see her on screen.

Header photo: Pedro J Pacheco / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, modified: resized and blended with an AI-generated background. The person in the header is a real photo; only the background is AI-generated.