As a good Pisces (points to her Instagram), Clara Lago adapts easily to the environment and is sensitive and empathetic, she explains. So she has, as standard, the ideal traits to embody fictional lives. She discovered it as a child, when she was already "very fanciful and made movies all the time." Since then she has molded a wide catalog of characters, some of them blockbuster, such as Tengo ganas de ti, and above all Eight Basque surnames and Eight Catalan surnames.
But this 33-year-old from Madrid channels her concerns on many fronts. The vegan cause captivated her six and a half years ago and as a result of that militancy she is now launching herself as a businesswoman with her boyfriend José Lucena and she opens the vegan restaurant La Huerta Funky Castizo, in Madrid. She also continues with the NGO Ochotumbao, which she created with her former partner, the actor Dani Rovira.
In these pages, she wears Dior models, a firm she often bets on for her red carpet poses, in those acts in which "it's time to dress like a princess." She is currently shooting in Galicia the series Clanes, for Netflix, where she plays a lawyer in a drug trafficking environment. And she has pending release Amores permitidos, by Raúl Martínez and Books
What is your strong point as an actress?
To act you must feel free. With a lot of self-judgment you have a hard time, and it doesn't work for me as a tool. What works for me is that on the one hand I am very analytical and on the other very intuitive, I let myself go. When working with emotions you feel that you are not in control. Once I was very worried about doing it well, about the technique, and a teacher told me: "You have all the necessary elements, what you need is faith." I've finally achieved a kind of internal relaxation that, even when things don't go the way I wanted, I tell myself: “Calm down, you've done the previous work and maybe now things happen that you don't understand, but you'll understand (laughs). Trust. And that lowers the pressure."
What is this moment in your life like?
Very good. Infinitely grateful to discover my vocation so soon and make a living from it, since only a small percentage make it. My personal moment, great, with my partner. This turning years... I don't know if one day I will enter the crisis of 40 or 50, but I look back and I say to myself: "Now I didn't change for Clara of 23". I am happy with what I have experienced, but today I feel in another place, at a level of maturity, of how I face and experience things. I have been doing therapy for nine years and I plan to continue, I find self-knowledge a fascinating exercise.
Approach private issues naturally. Does she feel persecuted by the press?
Well no, private issues can be news the first day and that's it. If you do not give hype, there is not much to say. I believe in the balance between naturalness and privacy. I am not going to open the doors of my privacy, but I am not going to close them en masse in the face of evidence. If I have a partner, why am I going to hide it? It's stupid. Feed the morbidity and a rare game is generated.
Faced with many tense breakups, his relationship with Dani Rovira is an example.
When someone has been important in your life and there is genuine love, ending the relationship does not mean the end of the bond. Love is an energy and it is not destroyed, it is transformed. Obviously you have to give yourself time for the wounds to heal. We share the foundation with Dani, a beautiful project in defense of disadvantaged groups, the environment, animals... We've been with her for six and a half years, like me as a vegan. We were born at the same time.
He was by his side during Dani's illness. What did she learn from the experience?
The diagnosis coincided with the beginning of the confinement. It was hard to fit in. In such a situation, you have the option of pissing off the world. But if you get stuck in victimization and in thinking about the plans that life does not let you fulfill, you miss that other experience from which you can learn. Obviously this is not useful for cases of ailments that people do not get out of... But in general it is better to say okay, life sends me there. I am going to travel this new path and not stay in the complaint, in the sterile fight. I am that I am Maria learning. I am the eternal apprentice, is my self-definition. You can get something good out of everything.
What attracted you to the vegan cause?
Before I was a responsible eater, the typical customer in the ass in a restaurant, who asks a thousand questions about whether the hake is from hook or trawl fishing. But it was while watching the documentary Causepiracy (Netflix) that she hit me in the head. It is very white, nothing bloody and it brings you closer to the subject from the data, how it impacts the environment to produce and consume meat or dairy. I connected very strongly with this and became a vegan overnight, without going through being a vegetarian.
Does it require a lot of willpower?
No, because it is an ethical-moral decision. I don't see a plate of ham and I say to myself: “Don't eat, be strong”. It is as if they told you: "If they cook it well for your dog... would it be difficult for you not to eat it?" No, of course, I would never eat it. It's an internal click. You do have to plan, because there are fewer options, but it's not that difficult. I encourage people to watch documentaries like Seaspiracy, What the health, to visit an animal sanctuary. We are not used to seeing animals as sentient beings, they have made us dissociate the meat dish from the animal. But when you see the pig or the cow in their safe environment, happy, it is something else. I do not intend to convince from criticism or insult, but from falling in love with the cause, positively.
A defect that you want to eliminate?
Impatience with those queues that do not advance, like waiting for the suitcase after a trip, and traffic jams. It's absurd and frustrating, because no matter how angry you get, it won't go faster and you'll get bad blood.
How do you manage waiting for a project in Hollywood?
I'd love to, but I'm not impatient. It is one of the great lessons on attachment to desire. It's okay to know what you want and work on it. If it happens, great, and if not, it will be that my path in life is another and it's time to learn other things.
What would your ideal party be like?
The thing is that I have always been a bit old, little to go out to parties and clubs. I've stuck the parties at friends' houses and such. A plan that I love is to meet for a vermouth and go on until 12 at night and you get into bed a little touched, but the next day you are like a rose, because you have been able to sleep. Sounds like a good plan to me.
Do you play sports, are you fit?
Yes, I really like to play sports. It is a non-negotiable habit that I managed to establish in my life, about ten years ago or so. I love it and it suits me very well.
Do you suffer from image pressure?
It doesn't bother me, really. I like to make everything a moment of enjoyment. I do have a stylist, José Herrera, who is terrific, who respects my style and is a sweetheart, and Paula Soroa, a make-up artist and friend of mine, leaves me beautiful and also when I'm with her I laugh a lot. I do not give more hype to the subject. When we go to an event we all dress up as princesses, we play that at that time. But I am not aware of what they will say, if I am the most elegant or if I put on more or less makeup. And more now, with the networks, that you can go crazy. As Woody Allen says: "I don't know what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure is wanting everyone to like you."
