At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War she went to Mexico and premiered Prohibido suicidarse en primavera with the Díaz-Collado Company.

There she married, at the age of seventeen, at the National Theater of Havana, sponsored by Alejandro Casona, with the actor Diego Hurtado Álvarez.

With La vida es sueño, he traveled to Paris and participated in the I Festival del Teatro de las Naciones, in 1954, and won the Prize for Best Interpretation.

An anecdote reveals her tremendous quality on stage:Edward Albee, author of the original text of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, saw her in Spain with Enrique Diosdado and directed by José Osuna and was so admired that he tried to convince the Metro to hire her for the film, but in the end Elizabeth Taylor took it.

In the following years a series of notable titles followed, in which Mari Carrillo displayed her great artistic ability especially in dramatic registers:The Crime of Cuenca, directed by Pilar Miró, La colmena and The Holy Innocents (film) (1984), by Mario Camus....