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MEXICO DF – Some people know Oona Chaplin with his famous first and last name. The Granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neill Chaplin and daughter of Geraldine He is part of a dynasty synonymous with art and cinema; a family with a patriarch who helped shape the 20th century as we know it. To others, the Madrid, Spain-born actress will always be Talisa Stark, the first victim of the “Red Wedding,” one of the bloodiest and most memorable scenes in history game of Thrones and television of the last decade. However, it is likely that this will happen starting today, after the premiere of Avatar: Fire and Ashthe third part of the saga of James CameronThis is how a large part of the public thinks of Chaplin Varangthe film’s unforgettable villain.
This is a new character created through the performance capture system that the films set in the fantasy Pandora take to an astonishing level and which the actress has developed with an unknown part of her family legacy in mind.
– There is a lot of talk about your maternal family and your maternal grandfather, but this character has a connection with the land and I understand that it brings you closer to your paternal grandmother, right?
–Yes, yes. My grandmother came from the south of Chile, from an area near Temuco. She basically went to Santiago to become a lawyer. She sort of left the South and left the roots and lived her life in her own way, in the way that was right for her at the time, but the South caught my attention more and more. My grandmother was Mapuche and Aymara, but only by blood, not by culture; So I thought a lot about her, about what she had experienced, about the racism that she had suffered, and also about what her parents must have experienced and what I experienced when I visited Mapuche communities in the south of Chile, where I saw that there is a great, very dark force that is trying to destroy people’s connection to the land. And this is Varang, my character Avatar: Fire and Ash.
–You once said that you felt more Latin American than European.
–Yes, well, in the end I don’t feel anything, in the end I always go from house to house…
–Or you are a little bit of everything…
–I am a little bit of everything. The country in South and Central America also bothers me a lot. I feel very at home in Mexico.
– You said in an interview that your parents fell in love with Mexico.
–Yes, in Veracruz. That’s why I owe my life to Mexico. And although my father is Chilean, I don’t feel very at home there, but I feel rooted there. Something made me want to visit Chile back then. As a child we didn’t go because my father – the cinematographer Patricio Castilla – was exiled during the time of (Augusto) Pinochet, so there is still a return for us Trip very strong. And in the land of southern Chile, particularly in the Temuco area and further south, there is a spirit that I feel with great intensity.
–Do you know Argentina? Your mother visited us several times.
–I’ve never been there. I know, I know, it’s a great sin. I would like to go. Every time I buy a plane ticket I have to go to Chile, you know? Because that’s where they claim me. But I think it would be pretty fun to grab a horse and cross over to the other side. Maybe I will (laughs).
–You are invited.
–I would like to go to Buenos Aires. I also have a great friend in Argentina named Daniel Mañas. He is a great uncle of mine, I love him with all my heart, so I have to visit him. That’s why I said it couldn’t be that he was never there.
Chaplin was born in Spain and grew up between Switzerland and Cuba. He is the epitome of a global citizen. After learning ballet, she began studying at the age of fifteen at Gordonstoun School, a Scottish boarding school known for its famous royal students: King Charles III. of England and his father, the Duke of Edinburgh, were educated there (Luca Prodan also studied there). During his school years, Chaplin became interested in acting, although shortly before graduating he still assumed that his future career would have more to do with political science or journalism. But without being able to explain much, when it came time to go to university, she applied to the prestigious Royal School of Dramatic Arts in London (RADA), where she was accepted and graduated in 2007.
Like many of his fellow students, Chaplin’s early work was in British television series in which he played somewhat forgotten roles. She describes her work at the time as “extra glorified”. At the time, it seemed that neither his education nor his famous surname were of much use to him in the development of his career. The suspicion was confirmed when she auditioned for the role of Bond Girl A quantum of comfortbut she was only hired for one scene as a hotel receptionist visited by Daniel Craig’s 007. The role of the protagonist’s lover went to his friend and fellow student. Gemma Arterton.
However, everything changed for Oona when she joined the cast of the excellent but little-seen BBC series The hour. This experience took her straight to the desks of the most in-demand casting directors in the UK, meaning she had the opportunity to appear in the world’s most popular fiction in 2011. game of Thrones. Talisa, the tragic-romantic heroine she played in the HBO series, is almost the opposite extreme of the rage-filled, destructive character she plays in James Cameron’s film.
–How was your first day at work? Avatar?
– That first day on set, we all read the script together. The entire cast was there, we sat around a table in the middle of the studio, where we later shot part of the film. It was something very strange because I was nervous, I was scared, I wanted to say, “Well, any minute now they’re going to realize what a big mistake they’ve made and they’re going to fire me.” I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff. But when I walked into that room and everyone arrived and I started seeing how people interacted with each other, I felt Feeling a family that cannot be faked. And I am very family oriented. This atmosphere of trust, of affection, of people who know each other, who have seen each other at their best and their worst, and who love each other. Wow! I couldn’t believe it.
– That wasn’t what you imagine in the context of a blockbuster like this, was it?
-Of course, but I immediately thought: “We’ll be able to work very well here and not just among the actors, right? Also among many of the technicians. There are people who, in the eight years that have passed since that first day, have been there every time I’ve filmed again. They’re the same four cats that are still there.”
–Varang, your character in the film has a powerful stage presence. Did your training as a dancer help you master working on the performance capture system used in? Avatar?
–Yes, in my case as in that of Sigourney Weaver And Zoe Saldanawho were also dancers helped me a lot in knowing how to move my body. It’s actually a huge advantage for actors. That doesn’t mean you have to move like a dancer, but I think you just have to know what your body is doing to incorporate a figure. The better you know the body, the more it will be reflected in the role you have to play.
–What did you feel when you saw yourself as Varang on the big screen for the first time?
–I turned on the colors. It was such a strange experience… Firstly, because they made me so much more Cool of who I am in my real life and because I was very proud of the result of all the work I had done. The truth is that sometimes in the middle of filming I went a little crazy because of what I was doing on set and kept trying things for the character that were very far from my way of being. But when I saw the film I was very happy.
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