Candela Peña admits that she is not a great expert on the world of wine, but she wants to learn. “I would be lying if I said I was a big lover, I'm not a big drinker either; I don't want to feel ashamed for saying it, but reds are a bit difficult for me, they are harsh and a little strong, I am more into whites.”
This past weekend she had the opportunity to get closer to a land that produces excellent wines, as she has been named ambassador of Ribera del Duero, a designation of origin that includes vineyards located in Castilla y León, within a strip of 115 kilometers of the Duero River basin. Along with her, actress Lola Herrera has been honored as riverside of the year.
Candela, who answered the call from La Vanguardia hours before receiving the mention, remembers an anecdote related to the wine that this land produces. “One of the things that has made me most excited in life, it may be stupid, but it was when at the Feroz awards, in which I won a prize, they gave me a bottle of wine that had my face on the label, and I thought: How nice those from Ribera del Duero are!” Above all, he thanks the DO for its support “to culture, Spanish cinema and the audiovisual industry.”
Her presence at the grape harvest festival in Aranda de Duero, which has celebrated its sixth edition, has also served the actress to disconnect, if possible, from the interpretation in which she is currently immersed: the role of Rosario Porto. These days the series The Asunta Case is filming in Santiago de Compostela about the crime of Asunta Basterra, the 12-year-old Galician girl murdered by her own parents. Candela has gotten into her mother's shoes. She is accompanied by Tristán Ulloa, in the role of her father, Alfonso Basterra. Regarding how the experience is turning out for him, he categorically says: “It is a job that is being very complicated; “I have not finished inhabiting that person and I cannot speak about him.”
A few months ago, during the pre-production of the series, an image of Candela characterized as Rosario Porto was released. “At that moment I was not even similar to her, I was still very far away; The characterists had not yet defined her character and people were already very impressed; Well that was only 20% of what it is now! Now I am much sharper,” she warns. The result can be seen on Netflix next year.
When he finishes filming in Santiago, he will begin a tour with the play Contracciones, together with Pilar Castro, which will begin on October 13 and 14 in Palma de Mallorca and is expected to last until April 2024.
If she had not been an actress, she has no idea what would have become of her. As a child, she grew up in her parents' bar in Gavà. “A bar that was attached to the only cinema in town. In my house there was no television or telephone; So until I was old enough to work, because it bothered me, they put me in the movies.” She has good memories of that time: “The bar was like a theater, the customers were the audience, and I also learned a lot from all the people who passed by there. A girl at home with her parents has not been lucky enough to meet as many people as varied as the daughter of some hoteliers,” she explains.
Regarding the label that has often been attached to her as “vindictive” for some of her speeches and way of speaking, she assures that it is not. “I get the feeling that there are professions that take away your citizenship, I am an actress but I am a citizen, the only thing I do is talk about the difficulty of earning a living many times, about the difficulties of a single mother in depending on what industries, "to reconcile being a woman with a physique that is not in the canon in an industry that relies heavily on externals, but I am not demanding anything."
She regrets reading information or headlines that do not correspond to what she has said. “I am an easy target for many things. To journalists, I tell them, 'do not write what you fantasize the other person is, but what they really tell you,' insists the artist, 48 years old, who is not 50 as she herself has read in many places. “No matter how much a lie is repeated, it will never be true.”
