Alberto San Juan: “I am a mix between a nobody and a Norma Duval” | Culture | EUROtoday

Alberto San Juan, a journalist by coaching quite than an actor by vocation, invitations you for espresso at his home. He provides the deal with in a neighborhood within the heart of Madrid and, upon arriving, one, prejudiced, expects to search out the everyday bohemian artist’s house. Cold, chilly. He lives in a really regular house in a huge block of blocks closed to an inside patio with a swimming pool, tennis courts and a playground within the model of suburban developments. I inform him my shock and he agrees with me. “This, which could be the evolution of the corrala, of community life, is the very hell of the aspirational middle class,” he laughs. “Before, I lived in a place that you might think hit me more, but that was hell for Max and we moved here so he could come down and play.” Max is his little son, 12 years previous, who reads mendacity on the lounge couch whereas his father attends to the interview within the kitchen. In the background, a washer at full capability.

Even the critic Carlos Boyero, well-known for his calls for, has praised his function in Dinner, how does it keep?

Being given feeling is at all times good, and whether it is somebody who makes many individuals really feel very unhealthy, then even higher. And one factor occurs to me with Boyero: I’ve a whole lot of respect for him, past as a movie critic, however instead pondering determine to whom I’ve heard say very attention-grabbing issues. I additionally suppose it’s extremely arbitrary, so it is nice that you simply prefer it, however you may not have favored it.

How’s your ego going at this level?

The harm to my ego can’t be cured with different folks’s compliments. At 57, I contemplate it misplaced. I’m a combination of self-conscious and useless, great and with no resolution. My ego goes in spurts, in days, and generally in moments throughout the similar day. In childhood and adolescence I perceived myself as a shadow among the many shadows, till I found that I’ve a brilliant star inside me. I’m a mixture between a no one and a Norma Duval.

Did you’re feeling like a shadow as a result of your father, the cartoonist Maximo San Juanand his mom, the journalist Pilar Guijarro, had been they shining too shiny?

No, no, by no means. I do not know the place that inhibition comes from. Let’s see, my mother and father grew up within the post-war interval, in Castile, that is a disgrace, and so they did lots by not unleashing that blame on their youngsters and performing as a firewall between the national-Catholic plague that they had acquired and us. Although, inevitably, it was not a home the place bodily expression flowed. And I found my physique very late.

And how did you uncover it?

I felt, concurrently wanting to cover, that one thing was driving me to place myself underneath the highlight. This sounds poetic and such, however it’s simply as I inform you. There are a few years of remedy and I’ve talked about all of this lots. I reside fortunately with my defects. When I began going to theater faculty I found that I had to make use of it free of charge, transfer it nonetheless I might to precise myself. I used to be very, very skinny. There has at all times been a distinction between my face and my physique. My pal, the actress Pilar Castro, informed me: ‘You’re sizzling from the neck up,’ the bitch. So, I suppose that, exactly, from bodily repression, a singular means of shifting arose in me. That’s why I really feel like Norma Duval.

That is a really reference boomer.

I am unable to consider anybody youthful. What of boomer It gave the impression of these fats chewing gums from after we had been youngsters, bear in mind? I do not care if they are saying it to me, however what I swear I hate, it appears ageist to me and even incites hatred, is after they name you pollavieja

Have you ever been known as?

Not to the face, however I suppose, from the again, for positive. But it makes me unhappy even when it’s known as out to those that signify that idea. It appears very ugly to assault an individual as a result of they’re previous.

George Clooney has introduced, at 64 years previous, that he’s not going to do extra romantic comedies with a lot youthful {couples} and that he’s not going to kiss ladies on display screen once more. Do you perceive it?

Yes. It bothers me lots that they put me with a companion 20 years youthful. And I’ve an extended sleeve, as a result of 15 years up or down appears positive to me, however, sure, I feel we should always refuse, that Clooney does it very effectively and that I’m going to observe his path. Now, I do need to proceed kissing within the motion pictures, I have never kissed that a lot, and I’m not going to surrender sooner or later.

What whether it is his cinematographic companion, a girl, who’s 20 years older than him?

I’d like to do it there. Charlotte Rampling is coming proper now [79 años]and I will not be the one to object to it.

He has two Goya awards. Do you suppose you might be nominated within the subsequent ones?

I’ve already informed you that I’m very useless and it might give me huge pleasure. If you aren’t nominated you’ll be considerably upset. No one is bitter a couple of candy, and a Goya award is a really scrumptious candy.

What do you’re feeling as we speak once you see your picture as presenter of the 2003 Goya along with your Goya T-shirt? ‘No to warfare’ with Willy Toledo?

Joy to see myself with a brother of life on a type of uncommon events of fashionable democratic celebration.

What would you place in your shirt should you offered them in February 2026?

Beware: filmmakers, tomorrow, we might be filming once more The triumph of the need.

I’ll must Google it. And many readers, too.

Better, so that they get curious, have a look at it and are amazed by it.

What has the group been for you? animal homewith which it began?

My faculty of interpretation and life. We lived and labored collectively constantly for 15 years, and naturally there have been fights, however no painful breakups. We see one another, we care about one another and we nonetheless love one another lots. From time to time, we encourage ourselves to provide indicators of life if somebody is silent for too lengthy.

What is the worst factor that has occurred to you?

Fuck. Well, look, no losses, as a result of my father died at an age when it was pure to die. In adolescence, having stopped residing a love that I didn’t dare to reside, after which, having completed a whole lot of hurt to a few folks all through my life. And that weighs closely on me.

Have you requested for forgiveness?

As far as doable, sure, as a result of there are issues that aren’t completely doable.

Concha VelascoAt the top of his life, he stated that he wished to apologize to everybody as a result of he wished to refill till his funeral.

How great, Concha. Do you already know that I as soon as proposed to him to have a affair in an elevator?

What are you telling me?

Yes, we met in a film, within the early 2000s, we noticed one another lots in make-up and we related lots over our humorousness. We laughed lots collectively and I, between jokes and reality, felt the arrogance to inform him what I wished and counsel that we hook up. She, calmly, with out getting the slightest upset, answered me: “At this point, either Sean Connery proposes it to me or I pass.” How massive.

The different day I noticed Dinner in a, as an example, conservative neighborhood, and the general public laughed lots listening to him say “Up with Spain!” What do you counsel?

Dinnerother than different values, it’s a very well timed and academic movie. It is a glance, I feel rigorous, on the instant post-war interval, that darkish second within the historical past of Spain, however handled with humor and that makes it simpler for every type of individuals to see it. So, I like when folks snort. And additionally that they snort at me once I say “Up with Spain!”

How a lot did it price you to say it?

Zero, as a result of I’ve the conviction of the character, Genaro. And Genaro says it to attempt to save his life. And if it involves that, you say no matter you might want to.

In different phrases, should you die for one thing, nothing.

The solely factor I’d attempt to not do to save lots of my life is sacrifice another person’s. And relying on the particular person, I additionally inform you. Seriously: I’d solely give my life for my youngsters. And I’m telling you now that I’m not able to have to provide it.

Do you bear in mind any errors throughout your time as a journalist?

Many. I’ll simply inform you one. So, I used to be very younger, my life was a catastrophe, they despatched me to cowl a trial, I went straight from somebody’s home and left a plastic bag with soiled garments on the steps of the National Court. They known as the bomb squad. The reality is that, as a journalist, I had no nostril or reflexes for day by day information. But journalism has helped me change into an actor. It has a beautiful factor, which is that it places you in touch with very completely different worlds and folks and languages ​​and that, for anybody who’s fascinated with life, and displaying it, is thrilling.

Has it been eaten some hoax, as journalist as he’s?

I do not bear in mind. But, look, there I imagine that the idea of polarization is deceptive, as a result of it appears to refer to 2 equal components, once I imagine that there’s one half that’s making a fictitious actuality in response to which the evils we endure are brought on by Africans, feminists, trans or social communists, and one other that, defending no matter discourse, doesn’t distort actuality. It’s not the identical.

Imagine that there are elections, the PP wins and Santiago Abascal He is vp. What are you doing?

Keep residing, what am I going to do? As I wish to say, I like Spain. It’s not a joke. It is the nation the place I grew up and the place my reminiscences, my affections and my loves are. So why am I going into exile? Since you had informed me a second in the past that we had been ending up, I used to be going to inform you that I used to be joyful to not have talked about politics.

Are you uninterested in doing it?

Well, I’m alert as a result of I imagine that, actually, human beings haven’t recognized a full democratic expertise, however the partial democracy that we’ve got had is being displaced at nice velocity by an authoritarian undertaking that scares me very a lot. So, I’m not drained, however I’m alert and stressed. And, on condition that, I imagine that the one risk of survival is to kind a neighborhood and deal with one another.

Even if it is on this aspirational corrala?

Even whether it is on this cityha ha ha.