“I get Stockholm syndrome with my characters”

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The actress stars in ‘La jefa’, where she plays an amazing fashion designer who offers her apprentice a deal to keep the child she is carrying

The role that Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (Roma, 53 years) takes on in ‘La jefa’ is not easy. The first film from Fran Torres, a seasoned director in the advertising world, hits billboards this Friday, touching on a subject as dark and disturbing as it is appealing: wombs for hire. The actress plays Beatriz, a highly successful fashion designer, who offers Sofía, her new apprentice, a deal: to keep the child she bears, in exchange for the promise of a solid professional career in the future.

-How did this paper get into your hands?

– Through my desk. It’s a proposal made directly by Fran Torres, the film’s director, and the producers. The script comes, I read it and it seems to me that there is very powerful material and I sit down to talk to Fran, who I don’t know because it is his first movie. I saw some of his material as an advertising director, who has a distinguished career, and had also directed two very powerful short films with very interesting acting. When I talk to him, I realize that the material in ‘The Boss’ is very good material for developing a character story and that Fran has the sensitivity and the ability to pilot that ship. And there we decided that for the making of this film, a small production that will be shot in four weeks, it is absolutely necessary to have enough rehearsal period, which was almost a month, to work very thoroughly, making the characters, improvisations , try, delete, set up, modify that script that took on another dimension until the genre was in the service of this story of characters and not vice versa, a story of characters in the service of a genre .

-It’s, as you say, basically a story with two characters and a location… Isn’t it harder to maintain the intensity of the story with so little braiding?

-It was not because of the exhaustive previous work and because a creative bubble has formed between Fran, Cumelén (Sofía) and me, where Fran has created a work environment that you might think would become catastrophic as time ran out for us on top of that because it was a small production and exposed to a thousand ups and downs, where it always made us feel like we had all the time in the world and that we were the only thing that mattered. From there it was possible to create the necessary atmosphere to tell this story that would otherwise have been impossible.

-How do you prepare for a role with so many records? It goes from the question, but also sweetness, from the mentor, to the desperation to fulfill a wish.

-Well you’re there with the speleologist flashlight trying to enter the cave and light up every nook and cranny for that soul, that dark side and those motivations and the reasons that lead to it being the way it is and acting as it is understandable does. And there you discover a deep wound, which is already clear from the script, and that wound is the gold from which everything else comes.

-And finally you understand their characters?

-Yes, so much so that I get Stockholm syndrome with them. In other words, I have Stockholm syndrome with Beatriz, I had it with Medea, who killed her children; with Nora, who abandoned her own… With all of them. In the end, I understand them so well that I can even justify them and I have to take it easy (laughs).

-The film, especially when it comes to the character of Sofía, also reflects a reality that is that of the woman who at a certain moment has to choose to continue in her professional career or to put it aside and have a son.

Unfortunately this is still the case. The tape evokes the moral dilemma she is in: deciding whether to have that child or not. And suddenly she’s faced with a seemingly very profitable deal and she thinks she can take it easy. Well, the two believe they can enter those waters and get out unscathed and the truth is the reality shows them that they can’t, that the thing is out of their control. They are two women who believe that they have their destiny in their own hands and are very powerful. In reality one is the reflection of the other, the two look at each other in the same mirror and Beatriz sees herself reflected in that young Sofia and Sofia would like to be just like Beatriz. This symbiotic relationship leads them to believe that what they are about to do can seemingly be done peacefully and the reality shows that it cannot.

-The film touches on a controversial and topical issue, namely that of wombs for hire. What is your opinion about this? Did it change during the film’s development?

-No, the movie didn’t make me change my mind, it just keeps raising questions, what has happened to me since I became aware of this situation. I know people around me who have had children this way and at the same time it creates an ethical problem for me because they are women in need; once again the female body in the service of someone who can afford it… I have many questions and few answers.

– Do you think a movie like this can change the mind of those who see it?

I don’t think that’s the point of the movie. The film brings out things that are in the air, that happen to us as a society, and puts them in a plot where two people go through a series of circumstances and things that affect them and decisions they make with the cards they think they are in. deck, but beyond that, how it changes the viewer who sees the movie, I think that goes beyond the intentions of the movie.

It was often said that there were no adult characters in the cinema, that when a woman turns forty, her career is over. Do you think it is changing?

-Yes, luckily. From a few years to this part things have changed, although not enough yet, but I think we are on the right track and this movie is an example, without going any further. I think this is also a result of the proliferation of series, of platforms, of the fact that for years we’ve been looking at fiction coming to us from other countries and they are ahead of us in this regard, with powerful, complex female characters of all kinds age for a longer time and, luckily, we take note and example.

-Do you see any contraindication to the explosion of platforms and content?

-Yes of course. The theme of the algorithm, of making products like churros, of fast and easy consumption and in which the authors are no longer authors, but products of such a platform. What we’re doing has to be done somewhere else, right? I’m not saying that there isn’t a commercial vocation, of course there must be, but I’m saying that a director owns his work and the story he tells. If not, they also become like fast food chains and that disrupts the creative world.

Despite everything, the benefits will be greater, right?

-At the moment they provide a lot of work and the greater the number of cases, the greater the chance that interesting productions will arise, although there is a large percentage that are not.

-He’s been working for many years. Is there a moment when this uncertainty in which the actor lives ends?

-Never. Do not.

-How is that arranged?

-As you can, with a lot of fear and with that permanent feeling of insecurity and basically from day to day life.

-Are you often told no in your profession?

-They’ve said no to me now and then, but luckily they’ve said yes to me more often (laughs). I’ve been very lucky.

– Did you mind not taking the Goya?

-The truth is everyone convinced me I’d take it, even the media polls, and of course it was a downturn, but it’s part of the game. I was very clear that my fellow nominees deserved it as much or more than I did, it wasn’t about one job being better than another, it seemed like the fact that I was never nominated weighed heavily, and all the world convinced me that it would and if it doesn’t happen… Now I’ve learned to go without expectations, like going to the Platinums on Sunday (laughs).

-How was working with Almodóvar?

-Fantastic. Was a present. The truth is that all the actors and actresses in this country and in much of the world have once fantasized about working with Pedro and suddenly with a character like Teresa who is a hottie it is one of these iconic characters from Pedro’s filmography , who has such a strong and special entity, weight and personality… It was fantastic.

-A few weeks ago Maribel Verdú explained in a television program that people in power in the Spanish film industry had pushed her away by refusing certain things. Have you experienced anything similar?

-Do you know what’s going on? I have not experienced any traumatic situations in which I have been placed. I’ve experienced them in life, not in my profession, as a woman, in the cinema, as a child, someone got hold of me and the only thing that came to mind was to change seats… Does it happen? me now or it happens to my daughter and I assure you that the marimorena is armed because that of tolerating things has already changed, I would not experience certain things again. It has undoubtedly happened to me many times in life. And in the trade I have had the feeling that I have to walk carefully, with my back, but there have been no situations of abuse. In my case there were none.

Source: La Verdad

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