The role that Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (Roma, 53 years old) takes on in ‘La jefa’ is not easy. The first film by Fran Torres, a seasoned director in the world of advertising, arrives on the billboard this Friday and touches on a subject that is as dark and disturbing as it is attractive: wombs for rent. The actress plays Beatriz, a highly successful fashion designer, who offers Sofía, her new apprentice, a deal: to keep the child she is carrying, in exchange for the promise of a solid professional career in the future.
-How did this paper come into your hands?
-Through my agency. It is a proposal made directly by Fran Torres, the film’s director, and his producers. The script arrives, I read it and it seems to me that there is very powerful material there and I sit down to chat with Fran, whom I don’t know because it is his first film. I saw some of his material as an advertising director, who has an impressive career, and he had also directed two very powerful short films with very interesting acting work. Talking with him, I realize that the material in ‘The Boss’ is very good material to develop a character story and that Fran has the sensitivity and ability to drive that ship. And there we decided that in order to make this film, which is a small production, which will be shot in four weeks, it is absolutely essential to have a sufficient rehearsal period, which was almost a month, to work very thoroughly, investigate the characters, make improvisations, try, remove, put on, modify that script that was taking on another dimension until the genre was at the service of this story of characters and not the other way around, a story of characters at the service of a genre.
-It is, as you say, a story basically with two characters and a location… With so few wickers, isn’t it more difficult to maintain the intensity of the story?
-It was not because of the exhaustive previous work and because a creative bubble was created between Fran, Cumelén (Sofía) and me, in which Fran achieved a work environment, which one might think would end up being catastrophic because time was running out on us on top of that because it was a small production and exposed to a thousand ups and downs, in which it always made us feel that we had all the time in the world and that the only important thing was us. From there, it was possible to create that necessary atmosphere to tell this story that otherwise would have been impossible.
-How does one prepare for a role with so many records? It goes from the demand, but also sweetness, of the mentor, to the desperation to fulfill a wish.
-Well, you’re there with the speleologist flashlight, trying to enter the cave and illuminate all the nooks and crannies to understand that soul, that dark side and those motivations and the reasons that lead it to be as it is and act as it does. And there you discover a deep wound, which is already obvious from the script, and that wound is the gold from which everything else is generated.
-And one ends up understanding their characters?
-Yes, so much so that I get to have Stockholm syndrome with them. In other words, I have Stockholm syndrome with Beatriz, I had it with Medea, who murdered her children; with Nora, who abandoned her own… With all of them. I end up understanding them so much that I can even justify them and there I have to slow down a bit (laughs).
-The film, especially when dealing with the character of Sofía, also reflects a reality that is that of the woman who, at a certain moment, has to choose to advance in her professional career or put it aside and have a son.
Unfortunately, this is still the case. The tape raises that moral dilemma in which she finds herself: deciding if she has that child or not. And she suddenly finds herself with an apparently very advantageous deal and in which she believes that she can handle herself calmly. Well, the two believe that they can enter those waters and come out unscathed and the truth is that reality shows them that it is not, that the thing is beyond their control. They are two women who believe they control their destinies very much and are very powerful. In reality, one is the reflection of the other, the two look at each other in the same mirror and Beatriz sees herself reflected in that young Sofía and Sofía would like to be like Beatriz. This symbiotic relationship makes them believe that apparently what they are going to carry out can be done calmly and reality shows them that it is not.
Cumelén Sanz, as Sofía, in the foreground; behind, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón.
-The film touches on a controversial and topical issue that is that of wombs for rent. What is your opinion about this? Has it changed during the development of the film?
-No, the film hasn’t made me change my mind, it just keeps generating questions, which is what has happened to me since I became aware of this situation. I know people around me who have had children in this way and at the same time it creates an ethical problem for me because they are women in need; once again the woman’s body at the service of someone who can pay for it… I have many questions and few answers.
– Do you think that a film like this can change the opinion of those who see it?
I don’t think that’s the intention of the film at all. The film is raising things that are up in the air, that happen to us as a society, and places them in a plot in which two human beings are going through a series of circumstances and things that influence them and decisions they make with the cards they they think they have in the deck, but beyond that, how it modifies the viewer who sees the film, I think that goes beyond the intentions of the film.
-It was often said that there were no mature characters in the cinema, that once a woman turns forty her career is over. Do you think she’s changing?
-Yes, fortunately yes. From a few years to this part, things have been changing, although not enough yet, but I think we are on the right track and this film is an example, without going any further. I think this has also been the result of the proliferation of series, of platforms, of the fact that we have been watching fiction that comes to us from other countries for many years and that they are ahead of us in this regard, with powerful, complex female characters of all kinds. ages for a longer time and, fortunately, we are taking note and example.
-Do you see any contraindication to the explosion of platforms and content?
-Yes, of course. The theme of the algorithm, of making products like churros, of fast, easy consumption and in which the authors are no longer authors, but are products of such a platform. What we do must happen elsewhere, right? I’m not telling you that there is no commercial vocation, it has to exist, of course, but that a director owns his work and the story he is telling. If not, they also become like fast-food chains and that distorts the creative world.
-In spite of everything, the benefits will be more, right?
-At the moment, they provide a lot of work and the greater the number of things, the more likely that interesting productions will emerge, although there is a large percentage that is not.
-He has been working for many years. Is there a moment in which this uncertainty in which the actor lives ends?
-Never. Do not.
-How is that managed?
-As you can, with a lot of anxiety and with that permanent feeling of uncertainty and of living quite day to day, actually.
-Have you been told many times no in your profession?
-They have told me no on occasions, but fortunately they have told me more times yes (laughs). I ‘ve been very lucky.
-Did it annoy you a lot not to take the Goya?
-The truth is that everyone had convinced me that I was going to take him, even the media polls, and of course it was a downturn, but it is part of the game. I was very clear that my fellow nominees deserved it as much or more than me, it was not a matter of one job being better than another, but that it seemed that the fact that I had never been nominated weighed heavily, and all the The world convinced me that this was going to be the case and when it doesn’t happen… Now I’ve learned that I should go with zero expectations, like going to the Platinums on Sunday (laughs).
-How was working with Almodóvar?
-Fabulous. Was a present. The truth is that all the actors and actresses in this country and in much of the world have ever fantasized about working with Pedro and suddenly it’s with a character like Teresa, who is a hottie, one of these iconic characters from Pedro’s filmography, which has such a strong and special entity, weight and personality… It has been fabulous.
-A few weeks ago, Maribel Verdú explained on a television program that by refusing to do certain things, people with power in the Spanish film industry had pushed her away. Have you experienced something similar?
-Do you know what’s going on? I have not lived through traumatic situations in which I have been placed. I’ve experienced them in life, not in my profession, as a woman, in the cinema, as a child, someone got their hands on me and the only thing that occurred to me was to change my seat… Is it happening to me now or is it happening to me daughter and I assure you that the marimorena is armed because that of tolerating things has already changed, I would no longer go through certain things. In life it has happened to me, without a doubt, many times. And in the profession I have had this feeling of having to tread carefully, with my back, but there have been no situations of abuse. In my case, there have not been.
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