Antonio de la Torre and Patricia López Arnaiz star in the new movie Pilar Palomero (The girls, The maternal) about the care that those who are about to leave us deserve. In it, de la Torre plays Ramón in his last days. His daughter, Madalen, asks her mother (López Arnaiz) to take care of him even though they have been separated for years.
Who could play this character in his last days, very thin, exhausted, almost without energy, who accepts his death with an illuminating dignity? In the antipodes of this consumed man but with the necessary ability and tenacity to interpret him was one of the actors with the most vitality and verbosity in Spanish cinema: Antonio de la Torre.
The actor, who admired Pilar Palomero since he had seen The girls and The maternalI was determined to work with her. The sparkles has been presented in the San Sebastian Film Festival and opens in theaters on October 4.
Question: What is it like playing a character with so little energy when you are the complete opposite?Answer: There was a wardrobe companion in The 12 Year Old Night who told me: “Man, you change as a person with each of your characters.” It’s true that I have a lot of energy but if you take away my gasoline… Not to hit me in the chest, but when they were cutting to eat there was one person who wasn’t going to eat. I don’t need to tell you who he was.
And on a psychological level, was it hard to play Ramón?Yes, yes, yes. It was very hard. I think it’s about this. It is the grace of this job. I a lot compare your work, which was also my job for a time, with that of an actor. I always say that we both tell stories, only the actor does it in the first person and the journalist does it in the third person. If you don’t really do it, why the hell are you going to do it, right?
Are you very method-oriented as an actor?Eh… I try but I don’t always succeed (laughs). My idea at the beginning of the film was to stay in the house where my character lives and not go out all day. At first I did it. In the first scene that you can’t see me, that I’m off, I sat on the couch all morning. And it’s true that there is something that gets you going. That mood is only achieved when you sit there for four or five hours. At first I did, but at some point I said, “Holy shit, I need to get out.” But yes, I think that to do a role well you have to be a little bit of the method. You cannot tell what you do not know. And I also think that you are as an actor just as you are as a person.
What is your relationship with death? Are you afraid of dying?No. I have experienced it closely. My parents died when I was very young. My father died when I was 18 and my mother when I was 24. The only thing I worry about is my children, who are still young, they are 13 and 8, and I want to see them grow up.
At what point in your career did this character catch you?My battle now is not to lose hope. This phrase is going to sound super topical but I don’t want to become Antonio de la Torre by being Antonio de la Torre. Of The infinite trench I read a review that hurt my soul. And I have been distancing myself for some time now, I neither get up when the reviews are good nor down if they are bad. But this review… I swear I did a tremendous job not to look like Antonio de la Torre.
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