50 Fun Facts About El Internado

Which future Hollywood star played the student Carolina in El Internado after moving to Madrid at 18?

Ana de Armas won her first film role at 16 in Cuba, and a director who watched her in the series later asked her to audition in Los Angeles.

According to the title of El Internado's very first episode, what do monsters not do?

Tickle is the missing verb in 'Los monstruos no hacen cosquillas', the episode in which Marcos and Paula arrive and a teacher who has learned the truth tries to warn two pupils.

How did the parents of Marcos and Paula Novoa vanish before the siblings arrive in El Internado?

Lost at sea is how the Novoa parents disappear, and headmaster Héctor de la Vega takes custody of both children as their guardian.

From what kind of institution has María escaped just before she takes the cleaning job in El Internado?

A psychiatric hospital is where María had been confined; when police come looking for her, housekeeper Jacinta offers to stay silent if she leaves for good.

What kind of creature does little Paula Novoa say she has befriended in the first season of El Internado?

A gnome is what Paula calls him, yet her drawing of the figure looks unpleasantly familiar to Fermín, a sign that her friend is real.

The founders of the secret project beneath the school in El Internado once served which regime?

Nazi Germany is the founders' past: eight of them once met in a hidden room under the hermitage, and the last survivors are arrested in the finale.

Which future star of Money Heist had an early television role as Manuela Portillo in El Internado?

Úrsula Corberó played Manuela Portillo in 2008, the year she began Física o Química, and found worldwide fame as Tokyo in Money Heist from 2017.

Which streaming service launched El Internado: Las Cumbres, the reboot about troubled teenagers, in 2021?

Prime Video released it on 19 February 2021; filming had been halted by the Covid-19 lockdown in early 2020 and resumed that summer.

Which Spanish network first broadcast all seven seasons of El Internado between 2007 and 2010?

Antena 3 showed all 71 episodes, ending on 13 October 2010; in 2017 the same channel became the first home of Money Heist.

What traps staff and pupils inside the school for the whole final season of El Internado?

An army quarantine seals the grounds after a lethal virus spreads, and the colonel in command proves to be one of the secret project's founders.

Where does the teacher Alfonso ask two pupils to meet him at night in El Internado's opening episode?

The cemetery beside the school is the meeting place, but Alfonso never arrives: he has been seized and left to die in the tunnels below.

What was the school building in El Internado back when five children vanished from it?

An orphanage stood there, and a journalist tells the students that its five children disappeared back in the 1970s.

What grisly find do the students make in the attic reached through Alfonso's wardrobe in El Internado?

Eyes in formaldehyde sit among old photographs and newspapers in the attic, which is why the third episode is titled 'Ojos que no ven'.

In El Internado's first season, María combs the pupils' medical files for which clue to her son?

A rare blood type is what María's son has, so the files could settle which boy he is; he turns out to be Iván, the rich bully of the class.

Whose dismembered body does Héctor find in the lake in the fifth episode of El Internado?

Ricardo Montoya's body turns up in pieces, and the students realise their only proof of the five children's deaths has gone.

Which young pupil falls into a well during a teacher's forest outing in El Internado's first season?

Evelyn hurts her arm in the fall, and her mother demands that Amelia, the teacher in charge, be dismissed at once.

Which saint's night gives El Internado's first-season finale its title and its school-wide dinner?

Saint Isabel is honoured with a dinner where pupils and staff share one table, and María has to organise it while the housekeeper is away.

Which of the student investigators becomes the first main character killed off in El Internado?

Cayetano's body is found as the second season opens, and he later returns as a ghost seen by a classmate; Fernando Tielve of The Devil's Backbone played him.

El Internado is also known by a longer title that adds which name of the school?

Laguna Negra means 'black lagoon', and the dark lake beside the school gives up a body late in the first season.

What job does Fermín hold at the school in El Internado as cover for a secret mission?

The cook is only Fermín's cover: he reports to a hidden boss, and in season two he has to get rid of a contact found shot dead in a car.

Which actor, later the lead of Gran Hotel, played wealthy rebel Iván Noiret in El Internado?

Yon González won an ACE Award as best new actor for the part and was nominated for a Golden Nymph at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival.

Which actress joined El Internado in its second season as Julia Medina, the pupil who later sees ghosts?

Blanca Suárez made her screen debut as Julia and stayed until the finale, and the part earned her a Fotogramas de Plata award.

Which Goya-nominated star of The Blind Sunflowers played newcomer Marcos Novoa in El Internado?

Martiño Rivas, son of the writer Manuel Rivas, was nominated for the Goya for best new actor while the series was still on air.

Which star of Aquí no hay quien viva played headmaster Héctor de la Vega in El Internado?

Luis Merlo, the son of two actors, was named best television actor at the Islantilla festival in 2008 for playing Héctor.

Which veteran actress, loved as Sole in 7 Vidas, played the housekeeper Jacinta in El Internado?

Amparo Baró won the TP de Oro for best actress as Jacinta, and in December 2007 Spain awarded her its Gold Medal for Merit in Work.

Which of the original friends is unmasked as the traitor who killed Carolina in El Internado?

Roque is exposed in the final season, after Carolina was killed for working out his secret, and he dies soon afterwards.

Fermín learns in El Internado that his father killed three founders of which secret project?

Project Gemini also blackmails the teacher Amelia: her brother was injected with a virus and promised the cure only if she helped.

Which animals does the badly burned Camilo train in the forest for his revenge in El Internado?

Wolves obey Camilo in season six, when the children think a wild animal is raiding the kitchen; it is really him, alive after the fire.

Headmaster Héctor de la Vega is finally revealed as which relative of Marcos and Paula in El Internado?

Their uncle is the truth: Héctor was born Samuel Espí, brother of the children's mother, who had been living as Sandra Pazos.

Who takes over as head of the school when Héctor resigns in El Internado's second season?

Elsa accepts the post on a condition from the parents that Héctor never hears about: she must expel the students he resigned to protect.

Which actress, once Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret, played the strict head of studies in El Internado?

Natalia Millán appears in 70 of the 71 episodes, and during the run she also judged Tienes Talento, Spain's version of Britain's Got Talent.

Which Barcelona-born actress and presenter played María Almagro, the cleaner with a secret, in El Internado?

Marta Torné worked at several radio stations before the series made her a star, and the part won her a Glamour award for best newcomer.

Which Swiss rapper, a croupier in the Bond film Casino Royale, played Jacques Noiret in El Internado?

Carlos Leal co-founded the hip-hop group Sens Unik in Lausanne, and his Noiret is exposed as a killer at the end of season three.

Which singer, the real mother of Elena Furiase, played her character's mother in El Internado's first episode?

Lolita Flores made a guest appearance as the mother of Vicky, the role that won her daughter a youth award for best actress in 2007.

Which subject does the new teacher Mateo Tabuenca arrive to teach in El Internado's second season?

Maths is Mateo's subject, and two pupils soon suspect him over the disappearance of a girl from Vicky's neighbourhood.

What job first brings Toni, Iván's biological father, to the school in El Internado's fourth season?

Sweeping a chimney in the kitchen is the errand that gets Toni through the door, and he then stays on as the school's technical repairman.

What strange gift does history teacher Rebeca Benarroch bring to El Internado in its fifth season?

Seeing darkness by touch means Rebeca glimpses the worst in anyone she handles, which is how she watches Martín kill Don Joaquín.

Which illness forces Jacques Noiret's hidden son to live shut away from sunlight in El Internado?

Gunther disease means daylight could kill the boy, so the son Noiret had with the school doctor Lucía is kept in a room shielded from the sun.

Which artwork does Fermín's boss believe he has stolen for himself in El Internado's third season?

The Epiphany Triptych is why the boss sends Nora to the school, posing as a history teacher, to keep watch on Fermín.

Which name does the murdered pupil leave as a clue on his mobile phone in El Internado's second season?

Irene is the name he recorded minutes before his death, yet Iván wants to drop the search, sure that their prying got his friend killed.

Marcos and Paula Novoa, the newly arrived siblings of El Internado, come from which region of Spain?

Galicia is home for the Novoa siblings, and the actor who plays Marcos was born there too, in the town of Vimianzo.

Which season of El Internado drew the largest average audience in Spain, about four million viewers?

The first season averaged 4.08 million viewers and a 23.8% share across just six episodes, a mark no later season matched.

Which country's channel M6 aired a short-lived ten-episode remake of El Internado in 2009?

France called its version L'Internat and set it at a school in a forest in Essonne, but weak ratings ended it after one season.

Which country began airing its own version of El Internado on the channel STS in April 2011?

Russia's version went through the working titles 'Boarding School' and 'Forest' before it premiered as Zakrytaya Shkola, 'Closed School'.

For which handheld console did Virgin Play release a game based on El Internado in spring 2009?

Nintendo DS owners got a game covering the first four seasons, sold with a map, a poster and a pendant bearing the series logo.

The exterior of the school in El Internado is really a campus of which university near Madrid?

Nebrija University owns the campus at Hoyo de Manzanares where the exteriors were shot, and it is still known for the series.

Which production company made El Internado, as well as El Barco and Vis a vis?

Globomedia also made Los hombres de Paco and Águila Roja, and its chairman was one of the four creators of the school mystery.

The reboot El Internado: Las Cumbres places its strict school inside what kind of ancient building?

A monastery cut off from the world is the setting, with some exteriors filmed at the Monastery of Irache in Navarre.

In the reboot's first episode, what have El Internado's Iván and Julia made about their school years?

A book tells their story, and it is dedicated to their daughter Carol, named in honour of their murdered classmate Carolina.

Which subject does Hugo Alonso, later exposed as an Ottox shareholder, arrive to teach in El Internado?

Physical education is Hugo's cover in season five, and a season later he has to face his own twin brother inside the school.