He rushes into the hotel lobby, wearing shorts, a white linen shirt and a backpack on his shoulder. Very thin and with a beard, it is difficult to recognize the chameleonic actor from Malaga. He has lost 16 kilos due to the demands of his current filming, Pilar Palomero's third film. He arrives “with high endorphins and full energy” after running for an hour.
He apologizes for the deadline for the photos and the interview, but then he reconciles as a father: “I'm going to pick up the children when I leave class,” he explains. Married to Rosario Charneco and father of two children, Martina (12) and Daniel (7), he is as elusive personally as he is politically committed: he closed Sumar's list for Málaga in the last elections.
Before each question, he fixes his blue eyes with that crucial look in many of his roles: the murderer with a double life in Caníbal; the mole hiding at home for thirty years for fear of Franco's reprisal in The Infinite Trench, or the influential corrupt politician in The Kingdom.
And now, in the shoes of a Chilean miner in The Film Accountant, by Danish director Lone Scherfig (An Education). Family and social portrait and tribute to cinema through a young woman who passionately narrates the films to those who cannot see them in the room. “I was attracted to the script, that love of cinema that it exudes, in addition to working with Scherfig and filming in the Atacama Desert. It seemed like an adventure that I wanted to live.”
Cordial and talkative, he changes clothes at the hotel and we go out to take some photos next to the Giralda and in the Santa Cruz neighborhood.
Why do you live in Seville?
I came to work in '98. And here I met my wife. I travel a lot, I actually feel like a tourist in her own city. I have an apartment in Madrid and I come and go. In fact, at the time we had that debate, but Rosario told me: and when you go to film in Australia, what? She said it like a boutade, but then I got a movie there, you see!
He was born and raised in Malaga...
Yes, he was the typical kid who played soccer in the street. My mother looked out the window and called me: “Antonio Jesus, let's eat!” That's my name, I don't use it out of atheism and simplicity. Yes, I am a kid from the neighborhood, neighborhood. My father worked outside, and my mother was a housewife. Now it's different, we both work. Well, mine is peculiar. I'm kind of a truck temp. Now I'm going to film in Tortosa and I won't return until almost a month later.
When you immerse yourself in a shoot, is it difficult to disconnect?
Well, you think a lot about the movie, but you're not so crazy that you don't know how to disconnect. With The Infinite Trench, which was total immersion, and was filmed near here, sometimes my children even came to see me.
On the street, their responses mix with the ringing of the cathedral bells and the hooves of the horses that lead visitors. Seville is boiling with tourism and heat, autumn has just begun. We resumed the talk at the hotel. “This is a beautiful city. I live near the train station, it's good for me to get back and forth. In the center now there is a lot of gentrification, before there were mythical places where you saw the rocker Silvio and Sacramento, a la Anselma: 'Come on... Americans, we have to consume!' (he imitates raising his voice). Today it is more decaffeinated and full of visitors. There are days when passing by the cathedral is like passing through the Bernabeu exit,” he describes.
He has lost 16 kilos due to the demands of the new filming. How has she done it?
Shutting his mouth (laughs). No, with diet, without dinner and with sport. The truth is that I am in shape for my 55 years. I have run two marathons, one after filming The Kingdom; So I had my ideal weight, 72 kilos. It's just that I have gone through all the weights!
He won 15 for The Infinite Trench and 33 for Gordos. He must have been tough.
Well, at first I had a great time. I went to New York and stuffed myself with food. She was of a different age. Although always with the help of an endocrinologist, of course, Antonio Escribano, who supervises me. Because it is not a question of having the film dedicated to you posthumously. In my normal life I love to eat and drink, but I am an actor and I am disciplined.
Thirty years of career, although before that he was a journalist. Did you expect it?
No way! As a child I already felt that this was my thing. I joined the Teatro Arlequín company, when I was 11 years old. I saw a performance and thought: this is the bomb! I was fascinated by it, but my friends got into my head and I ended up leaving it. Kid stuff.
And he studied journalism.
He listened to the radio, imitated José María García. Deep down, he wanted to be a sports journalist, but as an actor. He was a strange calling. Then I went to study in Madrid, I met Alberto San Juan and he pushed me to be an actor. He is like my brother. I want it in a way that is difficult to explain in an interview. I have so much to thank you for!
Do you recognize yourself in the passion for cinema that The Movie Teller portrays?
Yes, I remember very nice moments of going to a double session with my mother, watching Ben-Hur... Cinema as something mythical. But to be honest, my vocation awakened more through acting than from watching a film. It was a broth that was brewed in adulthood, with Alberto, and then it was definitive to sign up for Cristina Rota's school. In '93 I did my first paid job as an actor. I remember with frustration when I was a journalist at Canal Sur but I felt that interpreting was my thing. I think I'm a better actor than a journalist.
Do you believe in destiny?
No, I believe in will. It's my favorite word. In determination and free will. But self-knowledge is essential. Do not confuse will with meritocracy, which is a lie, because there are preconditions that bias it. I am the son of a clerk and an almost illiterate housewife and it has taken me more effort than others to get here, with all due respect. It's almost miraculous that you're interviewing me in a hotel for an international film. I never imagined it. In the nineties I went through a time of great insecurity, almost stormy I would say, melancholic, sad, hopeless. I started to write papers like: “worker 3”, “taxi driver 4” and I thought: “Man, I'm going to spend my whole life like this.”
How did you overcome those moments?
With time, therapy and a lot of will. He saw me at 30 years old and thought: “If I haven't made it yet...”. If a godfather appears to me and tells me: “Dude, you're going to win a Goya, and you're going to work with Almodóvar,” I'm hallucinating. I am proud of having learned to control anxiety, to accept myself as I am. I think that, in a natural way, you prepare yourself for death. Look, I'm doing well professionally, my children go to a public school, I live in an apartment, I no longer fear for my future. Plus, the older you are, the less time you have left, the less you have to lose.
Was it difficult for you to accept yourself?
A lot. She needed to be liked. Maybe that's why I wanted to be an actor or journalist, because of something narcissistic or insecure, to get the pat. I remember waking up in hotels crying because of certain reviews. I have learned to distance myself. That doesn't stop me from suffering again if they give birth. But not like before.
With his status…
On the contrary, more pressure, they measure you based on that supposed level you have reached. With Azuloscurocasinegro, the film that changed my career, there were those who believed that I was not even an actor. Now it is the opposite. As I read on Twitter, which made me laugh: “Legend has it that there was a time when Spanish films were made and Antonio de la Torre did not appear in it.”
Are you worried that more nominations won't come?
Anyway, what worries me is not knowing how to get off the stage. This has to end. I had a kind of mini-crisis after The Kingdom, with so many awards and at a key age, 50 years old. So you think: what now? Well, keep doing interesting projects and continue enjoying life. I think about it and I tell myself: it has been 12 glorious years, between Goya and Goya. This is going to end.
I don't know if he's heading towards Hollywood...
I have done some roles in loose things in English. It doesn't depend on me... let's say I speak English and if a job comes up, I'll be delighted but this is not what you want. It's what is possible. We have to be realist.
After 30 years, do you have more security but less enthusiasm?
Yes, it's probably like that. Well, I guess I haven't lost my hunger, huh. In fact now I'm quite hungry, literally (laughs). No, seriously, you do experience it differently. But I maintain the passion for interpreting.
How do you feel at this vital stage?
I feel like I'm finally a man. In every sense. According to my age. I'm embarrassed to talk about myself, but in order not to be rude I would tell you that when I was younger I needed to demonstrate, now I don't need it.
Personally fulfilled?
I think that first you must realize yourself and then be more capable of loving and building the family or love project that you want. I would say that to settle the personal issue. That's the theory, in practice I have no fucking idea. You have to fight every day with your contradictions.
What has he freed himself from?
Of fears, anxieties, insecurities, the need to prove.
What defines you?
I don't like labels, out of modesty. Saying I am sensitive, loving, seems ridiculous to me, unless someone tells you so. More than defining yourself, you must know what you want to be and say what you feel without hurting others. I don't think I have many things to say. I have gotten used to being interviewed and sending messages, but the important thing is the causes, not the people.
What virtue helps you in your career?
Depending on who you are as a person, you are as an actor. An actor must have humility, curiosity, enthusiasm, the ability to learn, not judge, empathize. Enter the ideology of the other. Mine is public, I have positioned myself politically, in the last elections I agreed to close the Sumar list for Málaga. I thought it was necessary. By the way, I really liked the results in Catalonia and Euskadi.
Do you understand independence?
I understand the identity. I have harmonized my condition as a Malaga, Andalusian and Spanish person. But by traveling and learning, I have understood that feeling. I believe that people should be satisfied with their identity, but I think that someone on the left should be more internationalist than nationalist. It is a topic that must be explained well.
What do you ask the Government?
Measures to improve people's lives. I am equally interested in an Andalusian, Catalan, Basque, Moroccan, Chinese or Mauritanian worker. A single life is infinitely more valuable than any border, nation or flag. And the life of the planet, therefore.
Are we too submissive?
Well, there are people who fight and battles that are won. As a saying that I love says: “Whoever wants something always finds a way, whoever doesn't want it always finds an excuse.”
We have to continue complaining.
Clear. He says a beautiful phrase from Máximo, Alberto's father, the closest thing to a father that I had in Madrid: "If you believe that a better world is possible, do not wait for it to arrive, behave as if it already existed." My father died when I was 18 years old and I studied Journalism thanks to a scholarship. This year I was named an illustrious student of the Complutense by vote (Ayuso was chosen by hand). And in my speech I talked about freedom and homeland. To be free you need training. The State who does not need it is the rich.
Pedro Sánchez... does he give you confidence?
Not especially. It seems like a lesser evil to me. He has demonstrated resilience and political boldness, but I have reservations about his left-wing ideology. I voted for Sumar, which seems more realistic to me to create conditions of education, public health and decent housing, to which every human being has the right.
How would you approach immigration?
It's not that complicated, it's a matter of sharing. Address global conflicts in a global way. People come here not for pleasure but because they want a better life.
He is critical of current journalism.
In writing class I already learned that objectivity is impossible. But the biggest problem is how capital takes over freedom of information. I am concerned, for example, about the emergence of the Saudi fund in Telefónica, a dictatorship capable of murdering dissident journalists; proof of the madness of capitalism.
Do you choose roles for their message?
No, otherwise I would only make political films. But there are stories that I am passionate about, like The 12 Years Old Night, where I played Pepe Mujica and soaked up his speeches.
Who wouldn't I give a voice to?
There is no one I wouldn't want to look in the eyes and ask: why...?
What can't you stand from others?
The arrogance, the violence, the hatred.
What value brings you closest to someone?
What I admire most is kindness.
Is this what you pass on to your children?
Hopefully. What I always repeat to them is that no matter what happens, I will love them.
