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 four sequels (Torrente 2: Mission in Marbella, Torrente 3: El protector, Torrente 4: Lethal Crisis and Torrente 5: Operación Eurovegas) that made 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 two sequels) and The Kids Are Alright.