Barcelona, 1980. Pub Sausalito. Teodora Lamadrid street. A cloud of smoke fills the room. The audience has a few drinks. Eugenio comes out from behind a curtain. He sits on a stool. Light a cigarette. And he says: “You know the one he gave... he is a guy who goes to the perfumery and asks: do they have shampoo? For oily hair or for dry hair? Don't you have for dirty hair? The audience laughs. Applause.
Sant Pere de Ribes, 2023. Old Casino. The basement recreates the missing Sausalito room. The audience pretends to have a few drinks. David Verdaguer, characterized as Eugenio, comes out from behind a curtain. Light a cigarette. And he says: “You know what he gave... He is a man who goes to the doctor. I have bad news. He has two months to live. Could it be July and August? The audience laughs. Applause. A voice says “cut”.
David Trueba shoots They Know That, a film about the life of the well-known comedian Eugenio. Rather, a film about part of Eugenio's life, because "I am not a biographer, I am a creator of fiction and my job is to find the moment when a person's life clicks", explains the filmmaker during a break of the filming that he takes advantage of to attend to some media.
Trueba was offered this story and he only accepted it when he was very clear at what moment that click had occurred in the comedian's life: “Eugenio sang a duet with his wife, Conchita. One day she had to leave urgently to attend to her mother, who was ill. He saw that he could not lift the show alone and began to tell jokes. He had that sad pose that made him very funny. His was a hit by accident. He began to explain the acudits of him in various rooms. The word of mouth of him made the public come to see him. One day they called him for One, two, three... he answered again. The next morning at the station, he was already famous.
"It was the triumph in an unexpected field that interested me in this story, because it is one of those fragments of the life of a person who has something universal," says Trueba, who has written the script four hands with Albert Espinosa and with the advice of "Gerard, Eugenio's son, whose help has been essential to recreate the costumes, the jewelry that Eugenio wore, who in his youth had worked in a jewelry workshop, and some of his jokes."
There was no doubt that Verdaguer would be the ideal Eugenio "because he is Catalan, very natural and has the essential comic rhythm for the role". The actor knew Eugenio "from the cassettes my grandfather had and from the end-of-year television shows," he recalls. It was not difficult for him to get into the role because he followed Trueba's advice. "He told me, this is not Polònia nor are you Carlos Latre, you have to take the energy of the character and he's done". He has done so, although he has also had a little help from makeup: "The beard and hair are mine, but the nose is fake and it takes about an hour and a half every morning to put it on," the actor acknowledges.
Verdaguer also has the complicity of Carolina Yuste, who plays Conchita, Eugenio's wife. For the actress, getting into the role has meant "a tribute to my mother and my grandmother who were in the shadow of men and promoted them." “I have put my heart into the character and I have not had to do much because Conchita is someone real, who existed and hers, her son, Gerard of hers, and other people who knew her helped me understand her,” says Yuste.
But hers is not an easy role, because Conchita died very young, at the age of 39, a victim of breast cancer. "They put a prosthesis on my breast and, although I knew it wasn't happening to me, the presence of the disease removed a lot of things from me," adds the actress, who had already learned Catalan during a stay in Barcelona to shoot a series and he is now fluent in it for this new role.
Conchita's illness and Eugenio's widowhood with two small children make Saben aquell a film with dramatic elements that goes beyond the comedy that many might expect. The public will see it shortly because Trueba expects to finish filming in two weeks and have the film ready for its premiere in November.
