Macarena Gómez: “If you have to roll down the stairs, I want to do it”

“Hey Siri, play Guitarricadelafuente,” orders Macarena Gómez.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
13 January 2024 Saturday 09:25
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Macarena Gómez: “If you have to roll down the stairs, I want to do it”

“Hey Siri, play Guitarricadelafuente,” orders Macarena Gómez. To the beats of the singer-songwriter, the actress stretches in the house she shares with her husband, the artist Aldo Comas. 16 km from Figueres, in Capmany, the interpreter wraps herself in a green fur coat down to her feet, grabs her cup of coffee and begins the route. “Be careful, close the door, the parrot will escape,” she warns. It looks like a set from a Tim Burton film. A dilapidated car painted in a street art style is displayed a few meters away. Behind him, a field appears with trees and furniture that reminds us of a set: a vintage car, several iron tables and even a tree house. “Now we are going to take the animals out, we always start the day like this,” she explains while she calls each one by her name. In total, two dogs, four horses, three pigs, a few peacocks, three alpacas, a llama and, recently, the parrot. “You have to let them run around here,” says Macarena.

The pandemic distanced the actress's family, from a cosmopolitan life, to lead them to start from scratch in a town. For work, during the week, she moves to Madrid. “Aldo's parents also live in this area and so we can have that family closeness. I grew up in the countryside and I want the same for my son Dante, to enjoy a childhood surrounded by nature and, above all, animals," explains Gómez while caressing one of the horses and adds: "The empathy you generate with them makes you more tolerant.”

The walk continues on the porch of the house. It is the meeting place with your partner, where they have long talks while sunbathing and letting the morning pass. “In this corner we like to sit, listen to music—there is always music in this house—and chat, chat a lot,” she admits.

The one she talks about at length is Comas and she does so with admiration. They are life partners, but they are also, for each other, faithful advisors, both in professional and stylistic matters. “To tell you the truth, I didn't pay attention to fashion until I met her, for me she has exquisite taste,” she says. Another of his style references is Teresa Helbig, who curiously was her neighbor, in this same town, for a time. “In addition to being great friends, I love her designs,” she says. Beyond these influences, Gómez has cultivated a style that is her own and although there are people who call him “eccentric”, he admits that what she seeks is “to be elegant.”

Another of her favorite spaces in the house is her husband's study: “We also spend a lot of time here, shall I show you?” The room connects with the living room of the house thanks to a window without glass. It is covered with colorful carpets and filled with Aldo's works in progress, such as a canvas in which he denounces the war in Ukraine or the sketch of the family house, with all its animals. “I like to see him paint, I think about his work and he about my films. For me, his advice when choosing projects is essential, especially now that I am starting to produce,” she says.

The interpreter is in one of the most fruitful moments of her career. During 2023, he premiered a new season of The One That Is Coming, the second season of 30 Coins and Sagrada Familia, and five films: The Boogeyman, And Everyone Will Burn, Desmadre Included—which he also ended up producing—Deep Fear and My Other John. . “Sometimes you can combine everything and other times you can't,” she clarifies. Getting organized, however, is not an easy task: “I consider myself organized within my chaos and I can perfectly reconcile my family life with work. I can do many at once, sometimes I don't sleep for a whole day, but hey, in this profession you never know when the bad times will come,” she snaps.

Her desire to express herself has led her to star in all kinds of adventures: “I don't like being given doubles. If my character has to jump down stairs, hang from a harness or shoot, I want to do it.” Hence her love of shooting. “I love making action movies and there are scenes in them where you have to shoot, so I wanted to learn how to hold a gun realistically,” she argues. In the living room, the last stop on the domestic tour, a staircase full of books stands out. Her favorite, French Suite, by Irène Némirovsky.

The best advice he received, he says, was given to him by his mother, who told him that he could achieve anything he set his mind to. In fact, that's how she defines herself as a producer: “I like to be an achiever of things and to produce very good scripts that for one reason or another stay in a drawer,” she asserts.

This indomitable drive to persevere has made her an outstanding star of Spanish cinema. “Just yesterday she was in the town square and passed the sharpener. I was recording him for a script idea and he looked at me and said: 'You're the 'Susy' from Father Courage.' I think that La que se cerca gave me popularity and with Musarañas the industry began to value me, but Padre Coraje was really key in my career,” he acknowledges.

And he adds two more names to the recipe for his success: Verónica Forqué and Álex de la Iglesia. After fulfilling his childhood dream of playing “an evil heroine,” his goal today is to make a biopic. “Now that's a challenge,” she says, her big green eyes wide open and full of sparkle.