The two baddest couples in Spanish cinema are taking advantage of being in Seville to go out together. On a sunny and cold day at the end of January, the actors Luis Tosar and Luis Zahera meet again in the Andalusian capital to shoot the fourth commercial of Voll-Damm's Doble o res saga, The 5 steps, which was released yesterday. They greet the whole team, including the film director who is directing them again, Alberto Rodríguez (Modelo 77); the creative director, Oriol Vidal, and the Catalan actor Artur Busquets, "the nephew". Good roll in an industrial building on the banks of the Guadalquivir.
"After three announcements there is a very beautiful complicity. It's very emotional to get together every once in a while and resume the story with the same characters, with the same idea, something that is not usual in advertising", explains Tosar during a break from filming. Dressed in black, as in all the previous ads, this time he wears a ring designed for him with the name of the beer.
Both Galicians and more or less of the same age – Tosar is 51 years old; Zahera, 56 – have been friends for almost 30 years. "We have known each other for a thousand years. The first thing we did together was called O matachín, in 1996, something quite tremendous, a short film directed by Jorge Coira. That's where it all started," remembers Zahera. Tosar's memory goes back even further: "The first memory I have of Luis is in a theater in Santiago called Lasa, where a kind of collective cabaret was put on once a month and we used to pass by ... On one of those nights we met. He came to tell me that I had taken a paper from him (laughs). He approaches me and says: 'You are the one who will do the function with the Marías (María Pujalte and María Bozas). You took the character away from me, man, I wanted to do it'. And I remember thinking: 'Who the hell is this guy?' And someone told me his name was Castro." Luis Castro would become Zahera years later, when his mother died and he wanted to pay tribute to her by adopting her last name.
Then they would coincide in a series on Galician television, Mareas vivas, between 1998 and 2002. At that time the two Luises became close friends. "For a few years we worked together and outside we shared our free time with our gang. We went out a lot, went on excursions, trips, for about ten years we lived together all the time. Then we started to disperse, to have more careers, more jobs outside, we didn't agree so much anymore... And now, then, we see each other at Easter in Rams. But there are things that are rooted that remain over time; you have the same empathy, the same complicity and tranquility when you get together. Tonight we will stay with another friend of ours", explains Tosar.
"Luis and I work really well with bad characters, probably because we always play bad guys with a certain sympathy, so to speak; the real villain does not amuse anyone. The character is already factory-made to be liked, so that the villain is attractive", acknowledges Tosar. For her part, Zahera remembers a phrase from Alfred Hitchcock: a film is worth what its villain is worth. "Man, yes, the bad guys grind, but I, who always act terrible, would also like to make a movie about love, about dying." But for now, nothing.
Zahera lives between Galicia - a house is being built on the island of Arousa - and Madrid. He has four older sisters and seven nephews who always ask him how many he will kill in his next project. He is considered a privileged secondary with certain difficulties to say no. "They say that careers are built on saying no, but I'm not capable of that. I like everything, I see everything in its own way, I want to do everything. I keep saying yes to everything I can, it's just that I'm getting older and it's getting harder every time." A month ago he won his second Goya. Now he is in the theater with his monologue Chungo. When he's not working, he rests, does a lot of sports and "I'm with my friends". The last book he has read is Roberto Bolaño's novel Los detectives salvajes. "And now I will start with Pérez Reverte, who I have read very little of."
Tosar is in another mode, that of reconciling professional projects with raising the two children he has with the actress María Luisa Mayol: León, 7 years old, and Luana, three and a half years old. “I try to balance everything I can. I have to say no to something, because it is not viable, it involves a family sacrifice that I am not interested in taking on. We agree on everything at home, Lu and I talk about everything we will both do, and decide between the two of us. We try for the children to lead as normal a life as possible and we try not to alter their routines." In April, he will release the film Fatum, in which he precisely coincides with his wife playing a marriage. "At first we were very hesitant, but the story was very powerful. It was a very pleasant experience. We managed to discern very well what the characters were in our lives together, we worked very well together and we also had the added benefit of complicity".
And, after the break for the conversation, Zahera puts the patch on her eye, Tosar pulls on his black coat and they prepare to abuse the waiters.
