Verónica Fernández Echegaray (16 June 1983 – 24 August 2025), known professionally as Verónica Echegui (Spanish: [beˈɾonika eˈtʃeɣi]), was a Spanish actress. After making her feature film debut as the title character of the 2006 drama My Name Is Juani, she appeared in films such as My Prison Yard (2008), Six Points About Emma (2010), Kathmandu Lullaby (2012), The Cold Light of Day (2012), Family United (2013), You're Killing Me Susana (2016), The Hunter's Prayer (2017), Unknown Origins (2020), My Heart Goes Boom! (2020), The Offering (2020), Book of Love (2022), Yo no soy esa (2024), and Artificial Justice (2024).
Echegui also featured in television series such as Fortitude (2015–2017), Trust (2018), Intimacy (2022), and Love You to Death (2025).
In 2020, her short film and directorial debut Tótem Loba was released; it won the Best Short Film at the Goya Awards in 2022. She was the recipient of several accolades for acting merits, including four Goya Award nominations and two Gaudí Awards.
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Early life
Verónica Fernández Echegaray was born in Madrid on 16 June 1983. Her father is a lawyer and her mother a civil servant. She took the entrance exams for the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático, landing her television role in Paco y Veva two years after entering the school. Moving to London, she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, while working as a waitress.
Career
Echegui landed her first television work with a minor role in the series Una nueva vida, followed by an appearance in the series Paco y Veva. In 2005, she did theatre work in Tomaž Pandur's play Infierno, which was staged at the Teatro María Guerrero. For her big screen debut, Echegui starred in Bigas Luna's My Name Is Juani, portraying the title character, an 18-year-old woman who moves to Madrid to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress. After being told by her agent that Bigas Luna was looking to cast an average Jane in the role instead of an actress, Echegui attended the first casting call for the film pretending not to be an actress. Reviewing for Variety, Jonathan Holland assessed that Echegui "revels in the role of the raspy-voiced, short-skirted and irrepressibly vulgar Juani, the character who comes closest to winning viewers' hearts". Despite the film's mixed reviews, it landed her a nomination for the Goya Award for Best New Actress and launched her career.
Early roles also include her appearance in the TV movie Un difunto, seis mujeres y un taller. She went on to star in The Lesser Evil (2007) along with Carmen Maura and Roberto Álvarez as the temperamental lover of a right-wing politician. Likewise, the film 8 Dates, presented at the 2008 Málaga Film Festival, gave her the opportunity to try her hand at comedy. She also trained to acquire an Argentine accent for her role in the Basque conflict-themed film La casa de mi padre (2008), which premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
Echegui's portrayal of a "gutsy, streetwise" convict seeking redemption in the prison drama My Prison Yard (2008) won her her first nomination for the Goya Award for Best Actress.
The European Film Promotion Jury selected Echegui as one of ten up-and-coming European actors to receive the 2009 Shooting Stars Award. In 2009, she co-starred in the British comedy Bunny and the Bull as a lively Spanish waitress, her first international film appearance.
In 2012, Craig Mathieson wrote in The Age: "In Roberto Perez Toledo's romantic drama Six Points about Emma she plays a confident blind woman, while for Manuel Martín Cuenca's sparsely atmospheric Half of Oscar she is a silent, recessive sibling circling her estranged brother, and in Icíar Bollaín's Kathmandu Lullaby she displays a forthright passion as a teacher trying to help abandoned children in Nepal." She also played a part in the Madrid-set spy thriller The Cold Light of Day (2012), which received negative feedback from critics and audiences alike. She portrayed a woman in a love triangle in the ensemble comedy Family United (2013), set against the backdrop of the 2010 FIFA World Cup final.
Personal life and death
Echegui was a relative of José Echegaray and Miguel Echegaray. She was fluent in Spanish, Italian and English. After meeting in the Canary Islands during the filming of Six Points About Emma in 2010 and up until 2023, she was in a relationship with actor Álex García.
Echegui died of cancer at Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid, on 24 August 2025, at the age of 42. Several colleagues, including Sara Sálamo, Silvia Alonso, Susana Abaitua, Vicky Luengo, Dafne Fernández, Elisa Matilla, and Paco León, attended her lying in repose at the La Paz funeral home in Alcobendas.
In December 2025, she was posthumously bestowed the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts.
