Carmen Conesa: “I am more about lovers and loves than about couples” | Culture | EUROtoday

One, roughly modern with the interviewee, has a sure thought of ​​Carmen Conesa, though, like different actresses her age, it has been some time since she has seen her on display in main roles. A tall, slender girl within the type of a dancer, with a mane of blonde curls flying within the wind, even when there isn’t a wind. And it’s that very same picture, with the sieve of years within the voice and face, that materializes within the atrium of the Fernán Gómez theater in Madrid, the place he finalizes the rehearsals of The cherry orchardChekhov’s basic, and the place we met to talk with out dashing. Before, she provides her unretouched complexion to the photographer with out giving it a second thought, not like different youthful and fewer prestigious celebrities. You do not want it. Mesmerizes the digital camera.

Many keep in mind her as one in all The ladies of right now, a 1991 collection that solely lasted one yr on the air. Why do you suppose it occurs?

I’m flattered, after all. It was a time when this kind of collection arrived on Spanish tv. A sitcom of 25 minutes, shot on movie, at a time when collection like Reeds and dirt. With the assistance of Fernando Colomo, these ladies appeared who got here to the large metropolis eager to be actresses, and it was a breath of recent wind. I really feel it virtually autobiographical. Nuria Rocamora, my character, was a Catalan arriving in Madrid and eager to tackle the world, and I had simply arrived from spending a yr in New York, with a scholarship from the Hispanic American Committee, and I needed to gobble all of it up.

Do you place it on if you’re feeling down? The collection, I say.

No, I’ve such good reminiscences that I do not need to spoil it. For me, it’s a dream that existed. I by no means revisit something from the previous, not even these images that your cellular phone sends you if you least count on it. The previous locations us in a melancholic level that I do not like. They say that individuals with despair look an excessive amount of on the previous, and other people with nervousness, on the future. The solely factor that exists is now.

Don’t you make plans?

No, I’m speaking to you now and I’m attempting to take pleasure in this second. Life throws you round sufficient occasions to consider you possibly can management one thing.

Well, to chain one mission with one other, such as you, there should be some planning.

Well, there are occasions and occasions, however sure. I’m 65 years previous, I’m older, I’m of retirement age, however I’m not planning to retire: if they do not provide me issues, I’ll do them myself.

How do you see your self and the way do you suppose others see you?

If we did not have mirrors, we’d all simply be folks, ageless. Neither a girl, nor an previous girl, nor a grandmother, nor a mom, nor a teen. I actually like what Argentines say: the aged are “big” folks, not previous, and in addition in Catalan: this particular person is previous. It is strictly that: folks, beginning at 50, 60, 70, are on their option to changing into very previous. If your well being is with you. In that stage of life that we’re made to consider is a slide down, you’re exactly beginning a brand new life. I’m studying Longevity philosophyby Pascal Bruckner, and it is fantastic.

He has a 23-year-old daughter. What is it prefer to see your self by it?

We have so much to be taught from younger folks, from adolescents, from youngsters, who aren’t but poisoned by the world. You need to hearken to them so much. In life we ​​need to be taught as if we had been going to stay endlessly and stay as if we had been going to die tomorrow. And with younger folks we’re going to have to grasp one another, as a result of we’re going to stay a few years, we don’t legitimately need to withdraw from our place and we’re the stopper for them to occupy theirs. Experiencing this readjustment is my solely objective for the long run.

What issues nourish you as a creator?

The capacity to excite and shock me, the flexibility to make me uncomfortable, within the sense of taking me out of my consolation zone. In this job, consolation is loss of life. So, you all the time need to be uncomfortable. Discomfort provokes motion, creativity, revolution. So, when I’m fantastically nicely, I complicate my life.

Don’t you prefer to be nicely?

It’s simply that I’m all the time superb. That’s my motto. I resolve to be comfortable. Happiness is a choice.

That seems to be very good in self-help books, however then life hits you.

We could also be having a nasty time, with an sickness, a bereavement, a nasty streak, however the perspective with which you face it’s as much as you. It additionally is determined by what you perceive by happiness. For me, happiness is with the ability to eat every single day and never be chilly. So, once they ask me how I’m, I all the time say very nicely, as a result of nobody round me is sick, I’m in good well being, I’ve sufficient to eat and I’m not chilly. If you’ve got somebody who loves you, the higher, however I do not want anybody to like me, as a result of I really like lots of people. I’ve liked they usually have liked me so much, I’ve loads of love. The fortunate one is the one who loves, not the one who’s liked.

What hurts extra, leaving or being left?

It’s sophisticated. If they depart you as a result of they do not love you, it hurts so much, however it’s a must to perceive that it’s higher for him and, if you happen to actually love him, perceive that he leaves with another person or that he does not need to be with you. That is real love.

Act, dance, paint, direct. Is the artist born or made?

It’s troublesome. For instance, I play the piano and the guitar and, two years in the past, I needed to be taught to play the sax, as a result of it was a problem. You need to have one thing, something. I consider that there’s something innate in everybody, which is expertise. We all have an artist’s soul, after which there are extra expert folks and extra clumsy folks.

What significance do you give to your physique as a piece instrument?

That’s good, as a result of I consider it’s precisely that: an instrument, and I maintain it like a stradivarius. If you need it to sound in tune and delightful, it’s a must to tune it, maintain it, pamper it, change the strings. Nature has given me this instrument, I would like it to final so long as potential, to provide me happiness and to the folks round me, to encourage folks on stage. So, I maintain him, and I take him to the luthier: the docs, the coachesthe gymnasium, the dance lecturers. So that this instrument doesn’t deteriorate a lot, as a result of we’re all going in direction of that.

To the place? What do you discover within the stradivarius?

Every day I get up and one thing new hurts me. Today, for instance, my again harm so much, however it’s a must to be taught to say: okay, I’ve to cope with this and never let it cease me, however preserve shifting. And the pinnacle, the identical. When I haven’t got texts to be taught, as a result of I’m portray or getting ready an exhibition, I be taught poems by Miguel Hernández, Machado, and Lope de Vega, as coaching.

Like somebody who does sudoku?

I additionally do sudoku. I really like video games. And the arithmetic. Now I’m learning quantum physics, and I believe it’s associated to the world of leisure: I believe that the vitality of the viewers modifies the way in which the actors act, and the vitality of the actors modifies that of the viewers. For this purpose, amongst different issues, no two features or two audiences are the identical.

Do when you’ve got been summit on stage?

The factor is that I really feel that I’m virtually all the time on the prime, within the sense that I all the time depart with nice enthusiasm, I consider that every spectator deserves the very best efficiency, that you simply do your job to the very best of your capacity and, for me, that’s an act of professionalism and love. When they inform me if I’m drained, I all the time say that it’s more durable to go down the mine.

Self-esteem isn’t missing.

You see: I used to be the lady in my household. My dad and mom had me very previous. He was a bricklayer, however after I was born, he had arrange a small enterprise and we had been already a, shall we embrace, bourgeois household. They pampered me and supported me in all the pieces, they had been my largest followers. So, I’ve very excessive vanity. Then, the kicks of life come to you on their very own, however I carry that sustained basis that all the pieces is feasible.

In The cherry orchard she performs a Russian aristocrat who resists altering her lifestyle. How present is that archetype in these occasions of uncertainty?

The protagonists are folks accustomed to privilege who had not been educated in change. But there have all the time been adjustments. Just like now, they procrastinate adjustments, that phrase that’s used a lot now, however whose which means has been practiced all our lives.

What do you suppose defines your era of actresses and actors?

We are the witnesses of the really nice and the bridge with the younger. We have labored with genuine myths: Amparo Rivelles, Concha Velasco, María Luisa Ponte and so many others who didn’t educate anybody something, however you merely realized by respiratory the identical air as them, and that’s priceless.

And you, do you’ve got the impression of being a basic for younger folks?

No, I’m an enormous girl who is aware of about theater. I’m very ashamed to say that I’m a diva, I’ll by no means say it. What I can inform you is that I understand how to acknowledge when a youngster is nice for this; I do know the breed after I see it. There is part of the actor’s conceitedness there and, if you happen to overcome it, you possibly can be taught so much from them.

I used to be impressed that she did not ask the photographer to cover her wrinkles. Do you’re feeling, like many ladies, stress to resume the veneer of the stradivarius?

In my case, it’s extra self-pressure, maybe as a result of in theater I do not work with individuals who have roughly stretched faces. I put the stress on myself, and saying that I do not need to do it’s a choice, like that of happiness. Of course I’m beginning to have complexes, however I would like to have the ability to be pleased with my wrinkles, I’ve to like them, just like the folds of my stomach. That’s one other factor, immediately you’ve got a boyfriend and it’s a must to present them off.

That’s by no means talked about.

Neither from dryness, nor from menopause, nor from gravity. Obviously, at this age, all the pieces makes you extra ashamed. I’ve a love in Argentina, who comes every now and then, or I am going, however not a everlasting companion. I are likely to have lovers, I’ve had many companions and a husband. I’m extra into having lovers and loves than {couples}. About eight years in the past I separated from my final associate, with whom I spent 10 very comfortable years, however now I believe the very best factor is to stay aside and get collectively everytime you really feel prefer it. To stay, I want solitude. If it is with my daughter, I’m comfortable, however I believe it’s a must to develop up by yourself and put an finish to that idea of a pair for all times and having to die with it. The essential factor is to not want a person or a lady. Needing somebody isn’t good. That factor the place they inform you: “I need you.” Well no: deadly, deadly, deadly. Don’t want me. You to your life, I to mine, and we meet on the street.

A WOMAN OF TODAY

Carmen Conesa (Barcelona, ​​65 years previous), rose to fame because the co-star, together with Diana Peñalver, of Today’s ladies Today, a collection directed by Fernando Colomo within the early nineties, which remains to be profitable on the RTVE platform. Since then, his identify is a daily presence in theatrical, musical and dramatic productions. Her coaching as an actress, dancer, musician and painter provides her the instruments to defend herself in all of them. But his finest instrument, he says, is his physique.