The actresses Colombians Laura Londoño (Gaviota), Carmen Villalobos (Lucía) and Mabel Moreno (Lucrecia) announced the premiere of the remake of ‘Café con aroma de mujer’ by the signal of Telemundo as of January 9. La República spoke with them via Zoom about this story, which has already become a classic of its kind.
— Knowing the success of the first version in 1994 starring Guy Ecker and Margarita Rosa de Francisco, what did you feel when you heard this offer for a fourth version?
— Carmen: Excitement, anxiety, everything! Really, a lot of adrenaline. I have to say it and I repeat it: it was my first antagonist and he said: “What a responsibility! What a thrill! What happiness to have the opportunity to do something completely different from what I had been doing in my career. Obviously, there will always be comparisons, but in this case we were not afraid of comparisons because we knew what a divine jewel we had in our hands.
— Laura: Fear to the max! I am going to tell you that for me that call filled me with feelings of gratitude and I felt honored. And that gratitude… generally one feels for other people, of course, with the channel, for calling me, for taking me into account. And I especially felt it with me. That gratitude of recognizing me, of saying: “Thank you for not having thrown in the towel so many times, thank you for insisting, persisting, for continuing to search for how to fulfill those dreams.” I felt honored.
— Mabel: I was afraid, absolutely afraid, terrifying of facing a soap opera that I also remembered a lot and that was well done, but it was a beautiful fear, which invites you to do things well. I think the most beautiful thing about this project was having done it from scratch, having that possibility of creating the characters from where we wanted to do it and not imitating something that was already well done, which was almost untouchable.
— Is it true that they were forbidden to see it?
— Carmen: To me, for example, they told me: “Carmen, did you see the original?” I told my producer no and asked if I had to see it. She told me: “No, don’t worry”. It is better that you do not see it, we want to create the characters from scratch. We want each actor to print his stamp.
—Mabel: I did forbid myself. I told myself: “You’re not going to see it, you’re not going to see it!” (She laughs). Because I was really scared to take something that was so well done and look at it again and say: “And now, what are you going to do?” It’s better to start from scratch and create a character from instinct, from working on a script, with the director and colleagues. In fact, I saw it again when we finished filming our version, but I did forbid it.
— What do they keep from their character?
—Laura: With that ability to move on, not to care about the circumstances, no matter what they say. You just have to follow the heart, the dreams. Those dreams that can help us grow. And chase dreams and if necessary fly like a Seagull.
— Mabel: I think what I liked the most is the ability to forgive. She, I think, had an ending that put her in a very beautiful place and the ability to say: “It doesn’t matter what happened. There is nothing more free than to forgive. And nobility is something that I value very much and she left me that lesson, a woman with values that she decided to forgive and move on. I stay whit that.
— Carmen: Lucía was a quite human villain, although it sounds strange. Although we all have different processes, there are straight paths, others more curved. I really liked that in the end she realized what she was worth as a woman, what she was worth as a person. It was very nice to give that twist to the character. It’s very nice to know that some people need to hit rock bottom to wake up. And that’s what happened to Lucia.
#womanfragranced #coffee