Mina El Hammani

Spanish actress Mina El Hammani has already appeared in several major shows during her career, but she is perhaps currently best known for playing Nadia Shanaa, a working-class student who wins a scholarship to a private school, in the hit Spanish Netflix original series, Elite, a teen drama thriller that has made huge stars of its cast in their home country. El Hammani starred in the first three seasons and the “Short Stories” specials before returning as a guest during the fourth season. During her time with the show, it won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Spanish-Language Scripted Television Series. Since leaving the show, El Hammani has remained hard at work with recent projects including another teen drama series, El internado: Las Cumbres, which began streaming on Amazon Prime in early 2021.

El Hammani was born in Madrid but is proud of her Moroccan heritage. She came relatively late to acting, with her first major role being a recurring part in El Principe when she was 21 years old. Aimed at young adults, the series told of a love story between a Spanish Christian policeman and the Muslim sister of a Moroccan drug trafficker. The show was a huge hit with audiences and provided the ideal springboard for El Hammani’s talents. She then joined the cast of popular police drama series Servir y proteger in 2017, and the following year was cast in Elite. Like the rest of the cast, the show’s success saw her popularity rocket — she now has over 6 million followers on Instagram alone, a figure that grows with every new show she appears in.