A couple for more than a decade and parents of Juna (7 years old) and Jael (4), Aina Clotet (Barcelona, 1982) and Marcel Borràs (Olot, 1989) also coincide in their passion for acting. She, daughter of Dr. Bonaventura Clotet, discovered the profession by chance, at the age of 11, and then studied Audiovisual Communication. He inherited his parents' love for the theater (amateur actors) and both continue to be seduced by that “space of freedom” that his profession gives and at the same time they share a creative vocation beyond acting.
Marcel in the theater, generating provocative works with his colleague Nau Albet. And Aina behind the camera: she directed the short film Tiger and now premieres her big challenge, This is not Sweden/Esto no es Suecia, a European co-production created by her, Valentina Viso and Dani González, co-directed with filmmaker Mar Coll and also starring she and Borràs. They claim that "they are not like the couple in the series", although they are self-parody in a certain way in it, from the Barcelona mountain neighborhood where they live, Vallvidrera, with the city at their feet.
Clotet (The Body on Fire, Iron) and Borràs (The Immortal, Uncertain Glory) play a well-intentioned but clumsy couple when approaching the upbringing of their two children. As if that were not enough, a dramatic trigger triggers the fear of the protagonists. Awarded the Prix Europa for the best television fiction of 2023, the series arrives on TV3 in prime time and on the 3Cat and RTVE play platforms.
Does the idea come from your own overwhelm as a mother?
Aina: More about the desire to add humor and explore topics that made us curious. They invited us to parent therapy in the neighborhood, with an expert in respectful parenting. That was actually the seed of the project.
What is that main couple like?
Marcel: Sam is a person with fears, suffering, anguished. His partner, Mariana, is very powerful and drags him wherever she wants. He tricks himself into doing whatever she says. He accepts the change of roles, stops working to take care of the children. He represents that masculinity between two waters, that of his father's generation and his own, at the other extreme, but he does not have the tools for it. His role in the series is the one that women have traditionally had, with that invisibility that many mothers suffer, and he feels lost.
A: Mariana comes from a family from which she has received little love and attention, and having children imposes a hyper-demand: to be the best mother and be close to her daughter, although she does not really understand her, she does not listen to her. Children ask you for a present, here and now. And the parents are in the future, in doing, in producing. Now a lot of power is given to the son. It's a generational thing. It is that type of parenting that kneels before the child: he is the king and parents do not know how to set limits.
Did you do therapy in your real life?
A: Yes, and we loved it. One of our therapists, Elisenda Pascual, plays the expert in the series who proposes strategies to parents at the beginning of each chapter. It is super interesting to question yourself about something as essential as educating and learning from it.
M: It's just that we studied to be the best engineers and instead one day we decided to be parents, because the desire arises, because we fell in love, and at the moment we are responsible for a person. It's very heavy.
They have thought a lot about education. What is your conclusion?
A: I feel zero qualified to give advice. But the series suggests listening, flowing. Children need time.
M: Yes, be present, detect what they need here and now.
A: How you look at your children is key, not from the demand of how things should be but how they are for them. Often you are paying attention to what the therapist advises you and instead you have your child there in front of you and you do not listen to him. We are wrong in this permanent escape, in this society that is increasingly full of stimuli, so crazy.
M: Before, parenting was shared as a family; The company, the tribe, is necessary in a society that is more individualistic than ever.
Will being parents dynamite the couple?
A: It's a vital bomb, in general. You question everything, you rewrite yourself.
M: And also for the couple, of course. When you start living together you make pacts, but when you become parents those pacts multiply.
What type of parents are they?
A: I, for example, have surprised myself by being less suffering than I imagined. I don't feel like a helicopter mother at all.
M: What I experience the most is guilt when I'm filming out there, because it's not a job with a schedule, for a while you disappear.
A: This year has been very beast: him, with the theater and the filming of three series. And I, with this one, I star, I produce, I direct. It was super contradictory, because the idea was born out of love for my children, but then I had this struggle of feeling guilty for enjoying work.
M: To compensate, we will now take a trip with them. My relationship with fatherhood has evolved. In my daughter's first year I told my friends: “Being a father is incredible, a rush of love, and it doesn't change life that much…”.
A: Of course, because you were still working, I was the one who was at home.
M: Now, if a friend asks me about it, I tell them: “Think about it carefully, it is a very important step, value the life you have now.”
A: It is the greatest act of generosity, of continuous renunciation, with work you already spend your personal time and you have no time left to dedicate to other plans.
How did the vocation arise?
A: It came about by chance, at the age of 11, accompanying my father to TV3, they suggested that I do the series Estació d'enllac. I discovered that I liked it and started studying theater and then audiovisual communication. I would have liked medicine too. I would like to have more lives to try different things...
M: My father worked as a clown, my mother was a social worker and storyteller in libraries. They did amateur theater. As a child they signed me up for classes and a world opened up to me. A director chose me when I was 13 for a play and I already began to connect with that world. I remember feeling like it was a place of freedom, where I could express myself. He inoculated me with the virus of collective creation, that's what freaks me out the most. If I were born again I would do the same.
What are you most proud of in your careers?
M: My theatrical relationship with Nao Albet; We have already had ten works (Democracy, Mammon...) since 2007. A super magical experience. Now we're going on tour with the last one.
A: I am very passionate and I have been very happy with many projects, but I would choose to create my own stories because you grow a lot personally. Now I am writing the script for my first film as a director. I can't advance much, except that it deals with the destruction of romantic love.
How do you manage egos at home?
A: I think I have been with Marcel for many years because he is not just an actor, a profession that is fundamentally fragile, always pending the external gaze. He also generates his projects, he has been a theater director for a long time and we connect more in this creative facet than in the insecurities of being an actor.
M: Egos appear sometimes, at the most unexpected moments. As in any relationship, sometimes one needs something and the other doesn't know how to give it to them. But we help each other a lot.
What is your best virtue?
A: I think knowing how to relativize. (Marcel laughs when he hears it...). We are very intense, but we add a sense of humor. In moments of great stress I get fits of laughter.
M: Good question. I do therapy and I should know the answer... I would say balance. This year I have had moments of turmoil, I could have crashed, but I have handled it well.
Does insecurity appear then?
M: No, I'm not insecure.
A: It's super safe. I do doubt, although that doesn't stop me.
How do you define this vital stage?
M: Tsunami...
A: I was going to say the same thing! I've been under a giant wave for months and I'm sticking my head out, breathing a little.
M: But it is a freshwater tsunami, because there are moments when you enjoy it. We have survived well. Like Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in The Impossible.
