On the other end of the phone comes a deep, direct voice Alex Garcia (La Laguna, 1981) In one of the breaks he was allowed to shoot a film that he is now recording in Rome. The canary remains silent for a few seconds after each question, as if it wants to address in detail what is being conveyed to it. And then, yes, he launches straight into the answer. Whoever takes advantage of those seconds to taste the question and modify the answer is safe.
The actor has just been fired crystal cuckoo, he stir Country is based on the novel by Javier Castillo and has now been turned into a Netflix series. An anatomy of the dynamics of Hervás, a town located in the Ambroz Valley in Extremadura, and it is in fact an anatomy of the structural violence of this society, sexual violence, tight familial relations, as well as mourning and death.
A few months ago Alex Garcia Both faced the loss of an actress who had been their partner for more than a decade Veronica Echegui. With elegant politeness, the actor asks not to be asked directly about this fact and to refer only to the topics discussed in the series.
“Fortunately I’ve been doing this for many years and can’t take all the bad stuff home with me. “All the dark characters have something bright, there is a team of 100 amazing people behind them, the viewer sees only the tip of the iceberg and the characters I play do not affect me at all in my daily life,” the actor explains after delving into all the violence of his new project. Which he came to partly because of the location in which it was filmed, between the mountains and nature. In reality, Land of wolves It’s still one of the shots I remember most fondly because it was with the horses, between the mountains…”, he comments on his first big role in 2010.
- You’ve been living outside Madrid for years, but is there a certain idealization of that rural life from an urban vision?
- Not at all, and it is unnatural to be on the asphalt and to live in houses that are sometimes prisons. The natural thing is the trees, and the sound of birds because we come from there. We can adapt to being in cities and evolve, but no. It works well with dogs, who feel free once taken into the countryside. Well, the same thing happens with humans. We have a problem if it is normal for us to live surrounded by asphalt and loud noise.
- Do we have a problem? Because the concentration in cities is increasing, although since the pandemic there has been talk of this flight to rural areas.
- There is a lot of talk about the pandemic, for better and for worse, but there has been a 360 degree shift for a lot of people when it comes to confronting work, man versus matter… We have a lot left because matter has come to stay and with great force. But the world is driven by heart and sensitivity, and I think we will realize that. I don’t know if I will have time to see him in this life.
- Is leaving matter to man a reality or a desire in a time of accelerating capitalism?
- Time will tell, but at least for now that’s the desire of many. Everyone chooses their reality and I choose to surround myself with the people in that reality. I read the press less and less, I live in the moment more and more and get closer to people. What I can contribute to this world I can contribute in the hospital with someone close to me or by being nice to anyone I meet on a movie set. It is normal and natural to feel compassion for the harm we see around us. Thank God we still feel what we see on the news, but lately I’m focusing more on the small battles I can win in my daily life. Otherwise I will be buried in complete anxiety over the impossibility of changing the world.
- Is this a necessity to separate from the world?
- No, no, whatever, but there are many worlds. The world is huge and we cannot confuse it with all the noise around us. The world has many faces. But yeah, I disconnected from the noise.
“We have a problem if it seems to us that living among asphalt and loud noise and in homes that are prisons is normal.”
- This series deals with the issue of broken children. Somehow we all are?
- I have been, and it has cost me my work to heal my childhood wounds, but not everyone has to want to heal, nor should they have the tools to do so. For me, it was important to do this because I went from wanting to understand some of my experiences to humbly accepting what was to come. This helps you understand that everyone has a past, without wanting to justify negative behavior.
- What have you understood or been able to heal about what you wanted as a child?
- I’ve learned to accept that life is perfect this way, and no matter how much pain something happens to you, the only thing that will change is how you deal with it. I have learned that resentment, anger and thirst for revenge are only experienced by those who feel them, and the rest do not realize it. In recent months and years, I’ve learned that finger-pointing and revenge have nothing to do with me.
- Well, it seems that much of the world is going in the opposite direction.
- But we can get out of there, and for that we have to do our part. I see it all around me, now I’m in Rome, which is a chaotic city, but full of wonderful people who definitely had a bad time in life. Every time someone is nice to me, it’s a way of letting me know they welcome me here.
- I already took a deep look at sexual violence in “Jauría,” the work about the La Manada trial. The same issue also intersects with this project at a time when this type of violence is being questioned.
- I like to think about what we can work on on this planet. I feel like I can see through these people what I want to heal. I believe that every person can humbly see where they can become a better person and change. This weekend my parents saw a play directed by Letizia Dolera based on a text by Cervantes (Marcella. Song by Cervantes) who already in 1600 criticized masculinity and all those behaviors. I had a conversation with my dad this weekend that I wouldn’t have had five years ago, so I always strive to keep building. There is a lot left, but on this planet we are nothing more than children and these kinds of actions make me believe and trust
“It’s natural to feel compassion for the damage we see around us, but I focus on the small battles I can win day after day.”
- Another great theme of “The Crystal Cuckoo” is sadness and death. I don’t know how I dealt with this fact.
- They didn’t prepare us for that, and that’s another part of the gift of this profession. I have played many characters who die or have to accept loss and I have learned to do this little by little through the stories I play or watch. Accepting death requires work for which we are not as prepared as we could be. However, it is amazing how resilient humans are to any situation that comes their way. For me, this was the most important thing I learned from playing my characters and from my experiences in recent years.
- Do we learn to accept it or at least talk about it?
- I can only speak for myself and I can say yes.
- In his professional life, an event occurs that shifts him from the roles of a strong man or a handsome man or both at the same time to the role of a father in fantasy.
- For me this brings me happiness only because life continues in its natural rhythm. The truth is that working with children is beautiful, and I don’t know how many times I have been a father in recent years with my characters. The idea of having a kid on set is quite an illuminating idea, they’re turning it into something else because of the respect they get now. New legislation helps with this.
- How do they help?
- Since I started as a kid, I’ve grown a lot. There’s also a lot of work left, but the spontaneity and radiance of a kid on set is what we should all be like. We must live with the maturity of what we have learned, but without losing the spontaneity and joy of the moment. in Immortal I worked with Gala Bichi (she will be her daughter in the yet-to-be-released third season) and she herself told me that all adults should have a child nearby so as not to lose their innocence, because she often heard adults complaining without even knowing why. I found it very revealing.