Why did she not want to be with men anymore and why did acting become a game that saved her life?

Seeing her arriving at the charming balcony of the apartment where she was staying, on the border between Colegiales and Palermo, confirms what happened minutes later. Carmen Maura I would like to admit that Clarion.

“If I walk quietly down the street, many here don’t know me. I don’t look like an actress, and that’s my huge advantage. But hey, this fame thing is very good for me because I always do nice roles,” says the winner of 4 Goyas and several prestigious international awards.

The former “Chica Almodovar” starred in more than a hundred films, including some that are still remembered The woman is on the verge of a nervous breakdown (1988), Oh, Carmella! (1990) or the society (2000). Now he has come to promote the film Crazy old womanin which she stars in a stunning performance alongside Danielle Hendler, and is directed by Martin Morigi.

Crazy old woman It is a Spanish-Argentine co-production that has just been released in several Argentine theatres. It is a horror thriller, in which a game takes place between the characters that can only be described as perverted and horrific.

This “80-year-old old lady” (as Carmen Maura wryly defines herself) plays Alicia, an elderly woman suffering from senile dementia. Her daughter is traveling and is worried about taking her medication, so she asks her ex-boyfriend Pedro (played by Daniel Hendler) to do her a favor by going to take care of her at her house.

Mistaking him for a hidden lover from the past, Alicia kidnaps him and chains him up. Rather, it forces him to put himself in the shoes of his former lover, with whom they committed terrible crimes.

Carmen Maura confirms that her artistic life began when she was a child and disobeyed her mother: “I want to become an actress,” she told her. and Crazy old woman It is the first of his three films that will be shown in theaters in the coming months. At the beginning of 2026 you will Malaga Street (Best Film at the Mar del Plata Festival, and she won the Best Actress award) and will be shown later CaregiverDirected by Alex de la Iglesia.

“I had a lot of fun making it,” he says Crazy old woman. It was like a game, on the first day of filming I received very good feedback from a number of the guys who were in the team. “They were happy to work with me.”

He adds: “When I saw her, I was very surprised. I asked myself: How could I do that? I realize that I am a completely believable person, which is the most complex thing about that character.”

When asked if there is an emotional memory involved when creating evil characters like Alice in… Crazy old womanIt’s strong. “There is no emotional memory. I study the role, try to understand what the director wants, and move forward. I have a rare ability to compose characters. What I do is a very deep study of the text, of every word: ‘now’, ‘I’m going’, ‘to’, ‘the’, ‘street’… every word! I study the lyrics as in high school, I studied a list of Gothic kings (a topic in the history of education in Spain). And after that I have great ease. That the character gives me body, just like I used to play with my friends when I was young.

-But this role, Carmen…it’s terrifying.

– Look, I’ve made films in which I had to kill people, but I admit I’ve never done anything like this (laughs).

Without spoiling too much, Maura’s character makes an appearance Crazy old woman She commits rape, and although the wonderful actress has said in other reports that she is tired of talking about what happened to her when she was 30, in this context she deserves to be brought into the present.

Carmen lived alone in an apartment in Madrid, where one day an admirer appeared at her door, a soldier armed with a pistol. She opened it and that man knocked her unconscious and took the opportunity to rape her.

-In the scene between you and Hendler, did memories of that painful experience appear to you?

-I don’t understand that that experience is something that’s already in the past… I’m very optimistic and positive, and I didn’t have that memory of performing the scene either… I never resorted to my experiences, otherwise I would go crazy. I respect directors a lot, because it takes a lot of effort to be successful, so I make their film, I don’t make my film.

But the way you explain that violation…

-I have never seen an aunt rape her uncle in movies. Nor in real life, but it’s not like I go and look at every guy I fuck to see if it’s rape. I don’t know how people will take it, but I don’t care. I ran into the problem there when I started hearing the screams and screams of my partner (Daniel Hendler) who was amazing. That night I had nightmares, and it wasn’t because I thought about what had happened to me, it just didn’t occur to me.

in Malaga StreetIn one of her new films, Moura makes her first nude appearance. Yes, he is eighty years old. He explains why he accepted: “I no longer care about everything. If they had asked me to get naked five years ago, I would have said no. It is a love story and the director wanted it. The role is great so I would not have said no… The boy, the actor who acted in the scene with me, was more worried than me” (laughs).

He adds: “I played the role of a prostitute (in the film). scrappublished in 1991). The good thing is that I have what many call a “poor body”… They can dress me in anything: they put a blanket on me and I am poor; Or they dress me up as I played Anne of Austria, the mother of Louis XIV. I was a queen, and suddenly, I saw a group of soldiers behind me, who obeyed me…

I remember a scene in a huge bullring, full of people, I went into my box and made this gesture (hand waving) and everyone sat down. There’s a moment when you believe it!

Carmen Maura went through two very complicated marriages: with a lawyer with whom she had two children and a legal battle over them, and then another relationship in which she felt “financially cheated.” “I wish I had a better eye when choosing men,” he admits.

-Would you allow yourself to fall in love again?

-Because I don’t want to bring a man into the house. I served really well, and I had those bad relationships, but then there were a lot of them. Imagine in the 80s, everything was crazy. Nowadays, I can have sex like I did in that last movie, but in real life… impossible!

Mora’s family consists of her two children: Pablo (56), a computer scientist, and Carmen (58), a lawyer and economist. And also to his granddaughter Carla (22 years old). “I have a good relationship with them, they respect me, they know me, they know that I really like to be alone, and they can’t come to my house without telling me. Once my daughter comes home for three days, I feel really exhausted. I could have been a hermit, I like solitude. In our work, you’re surrounded by people all the time, and that’s why.”

Moura has an apartment in Paris, although lately she prefers to stay at her home in Madrid. He says he exercises with weights to feel strong while filming (“I don’t like using double weights, because they don’t look good,” he explains).

He adds: “At home, I do everything slowly, because if you fall, you break. I don’t give much importance to aesthetics. During filming, I see that all the actresses ask for a mirror… I never look at myself, and in life, I’m very similar to that. I have never done any lifting for anything and I don’t plan to do so. I haven’t been to beauty salons for years. They leave me with creams and homemade skin cleansers.”

-Will you work with Pedro Almodovar again?

-That’s it. I don’t think any of us would want to work together again.

My relationship with him was wonderful. Which I knew him in The woman is on the verge of a nervous breakdown It was someone else. When we started, we didn’t do anything, and for me, those first films we made were the best school.

Despite the time that had to be respected to finish the note, Carmen Maura would spend hours chatting. He enjoys it and explains: “From afar, I always see Argentina with affection, but when I’m here, I go to buy some croissants… and they ask me 13,000 pesos. It seems crazy to me! I don’t know how you can live like this. You’ll have to take a whole bunch of bills to the supermarket… Well, I pay with a card and that’s it. But I see that there are many people who are having a bad time.”

Many people consider you a living legend. Wim Wenders himself says that you are the “Queen of European Cinema.” Did the prestige burden you to this extent?

– I don’t really like to be known, when I decided to become an actress I never thought about it… so I take all this a little “separately”… as if everything that happens in my career is none of my business. I don’t agree with that, and I don’t care much about it.

-Do you feel that you are leaving a legacy for new generations of actors?

– I have a character: I am very obsessed with nature. But I honestly believe that being an actor has nothing to do with being a painter, musician or writer. When the actors see us as geniuses, I say, “Wow!” I consider us artists, but come on, I can’t compare what I do to painting a beautiful painting, writing a beautiful book, or conducting an orchestra.

-Would you be so happy if you didn’t act anymore?

Acting was a gift from my guardian angel because otherwise, with everything that happened to me, I would have gone crazy. I always felt like I was helped: I was in the right place, at the right time, like when I started with Almodovar and everyone told me I was wrong. It’s just that I never took this profession seriously. It’s just a game.