The actor from Vitoria plays a Melchor eager to retire in ‘Reyes contra Santa’, an ambitious family adventure set to hit theaters at Christmas: «What am I painting in this film? What does Joe Pesci paint in ‘Home Alone’?»
Karra Elejalde (Vitoria, 1960) first appeared in a film in ‘Lauaxeta, a los cuatro vientos’, a biopic of the poet Esteban Urkiaga which at the time was the most expensive Basque production in history, despite what burned the model of a Gernika after the bombing. It was 1987 and Carlos Elejalde, as a figure in the credits, was then with the people of Hertzainak and with theater groups loading the stage into vans and placing spotlights. “I remember they gave me the part of sergeant and he threw me in a puddle, muddy my uniform, much to the horror of the costume designer, Javier Artiñano,” recalled the actor, who attended the casting along with his colleague Eloy beato. He was paid 30,000 pesetas for the part, which immediately “melted into a beautiful black-orange jacket”.
Thirty-five years later, this interpreter whose first session in a series, “Bird in a Storm,” was to play a junkie, can’t walk down the street without people turning around. This rainy night in Madrid, in late March, visits EL CORREO dressed as King Melchor in the imposing Francoist architecture of Nuevos Ministerios, who will pose as Madrid’s city council in ‘Kings against Santa’. “What am I painting in this film?” he asks as he opens a window to smoke. What is Joe Pesci painting in ‘Home Alone’? And Dustin Hoffman in ‘Hook’? And Geoffrey Rush in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’? I saw it was a family movie. I am a father, are you a father? If you have a kid, take him to the parade. And if there’s a movie about the Kings, they’re taken to the cinema to see it».
Oddly enough, Karra Elejalde never played the wise man. Not even on a horseback ride. Paco Caballero, the director of ‘Perdiendo el Este’, which will premiere ‘Amor de madre’ on Netflix on April 29, was clear that only the actor from Vitoria could embroider this permanently pissed off Melchor, who is accompanied by Gaspar (David Verdaguer ) and Baltasar (Matias Janick). Be careful, ‘Kings against Santa’, which hits theaters this Christmas, isn’t about comedy comedy, but rather adventures for children, with a careful aesthetic of fantastic cinema in the vein of Harry Potter. The film uses the great settings of Toledo, Segovia, the Canary Islands and El Escorial.
“When I read the script, I thought if we got it right, it could be the host. That’s the challenge, and I’m one of the challenges,” explains the protagonist, who describes his Melchor as “a man with a short fuse, a crank who has spent two thousand years in a disgustingly boring profession”. inside a row of buttons and tomorrow you can be CEO. But if you’re Melchor, you’ve been there all your life. Work one day all year round. I think he wants to retire.” ‘Reyes contra Santa’ also features Olentzero, the Galician Apalpador, the Cantabrian Esteru, the Asturias Anguleru and the Catalan Tió. And a Santa “who makes fun of his sleigh, which looks like a Ferrari (Mexican actor Adal Ramones),” Elejalde says with his usual vehemence. When Santa goes missing, the Three Kings are blamed and punished for delivering gifts to children around the world on December 24.
Karra likes that the film has “a thug humor, not at all sugary” and that it is aimed at children as well as parents. He remembers the first time his mistress took him to the cinema in Vitoria when he was 11 years old. «’Seven brides for seven brothers’. I was amazed. It would be in the Amaya cinemas, on Calle de Francia. Those of course no longer exist, now it’s Cortefiel or something.” The main character of “8 Basque surnames” misses in Spanish cinema more films aimed at a family audience. “I did not take my daughter to ‘Finding Nemo’ or ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and I kept drinking gin and tonics. I went in with her and I liked it.”
Few Spanish actors can boast of Karra Elejalde’s work pace. As soon as ‘Reyes contra Santa’ has finished spinning, Carol Polakoff’s ‘La voz del sol’ starts in Pamplona. He has three films awaiting release -‘Vasil’, ‘La vida padre’ and ‘Kepler Sexto B’- and just two weeks ago, Imanol Uribe’s ‘They arrive at night’ arrived in theaters, in which he plays Ignacio Ellacuría, assassinated in El Salvador in 1989 along with five other Jesuits. «I studied with Jesús Obrero in Vitoria. Electricity: official and master, that is now FP1 and FP 2. There was no more at home,” he says.
Though he barely appears on screen for a few minutes in “They Arrived at Night,” his investigation of Ellacuría reached the point where he asked Uribe what the priests would have prayed at the horrific moment they were shot by the military. “An Our Father, as a litany.” Karra Elejalde admits that there is a before and after in his career of ‘8 Basque surnames’. Fortunately, there have been later roles that are far removed from his beloved/hated Koldo, such as the Minister of Culture in the series ‘La Fortuna’ and Miguel de Unamuno in ‘While the war lasts’, both from Amenábar. “Unamuno came to take me out of Koldo a bit,” he admits.
Source: La Verdad
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