On November 23, 2017, Berlin was shot to death. It happened in what was going to be the end of The Money Heist if it had not crossed paths with Netflix and an unexpected combination of elements that made the series, originally from Antena 3, become a global hit on the platform. When it was confirmed that Netflix wanted more seasons, the first thing those in charge thought about was how to continue writing stories for Berlin, that psychopathic villain that viewers had liked so much. They decided that the best option was to recover it through flashbacks that show their past. At that moment it was clear to them that he would be his first choice if there were to be a series derived from The Money Heist. They didn't know it yet but that moment would mark the birth of the series Berlin. “First, because of the charisma of the character and because, surprisingly, the public loved him,” explains Álex Pina, co-creator of Berlin and The Money Heist.
The production that Netflix premieres on December 29, focused on the role played by Pedro Alonso, that twisted psychopath who had the lead role in the kidnapping with hostages at the Mint, moves to the character's past to, with an air of blockbuster of the nineties, in the words of those responsible, place him in a different position from that in which the public has seen him until now. “We had him do comedy, and we didn't know how it was going to turn out. We had to measure the tone. When we had him equalized, we saw that it was wonderful to make him the loser in a love triangle, to make him angry,” says Álex Pina. Because this time, while preparing a white collar robbery at an auction house, Berlin falls deeply in love. Of course, he will do it his way, with surveillance and lies involved. “He is a psychopath, but he also functions as a great dandya Spanish Great Gatsby, a sybarite, an old-fashioned hedonist,” continues Pina.
Leaving Berlin dead was never an option for the creators of The Money Heist. “He's someone who generates a lot of things when he enters a room even if it doesn't have text, and those characters are difficult to replicate. People on the street waved at him,” says Esther Martínez Lobato, co-creator of the two series. She remembers that, to resurrect him, they considered options such as saying that he had not died or doing so through a futuristic series in which Berlin was a robot. They couldn't lose a character like that. “Charismatic villains are very morbid. You know that this guy is going to entertain you because he has fewer red lines and is going to go further. It's much more fun to write to someone like that than to a correct one. In the times we live in, we take risks as creators by doing so, but what is politically correct is, as a general rule, boring. I'm sorry for the incorrectness we are going to make, but we assume that we have to entertain the public. We have a commitment to incorrectness,” adds Pina. So, do you regret having killed Berlin in that first stage of The Money Heist? “No, I wouldn't delete it, it was very epic. And thanks to that we have done this very difficult exercise of how to resurrect a dead person,” says Martínez Lobato.
The shock wave that generated around him The Money Heist is so strong that those responsible for Berlin They confess that they are afraid of how the fans of the mother series will receive their new fiction. “I am very curious,” says Esther Martínez Lobato. “The challenge was not attending a flashback, that the viewer had the feeling that it is a story in the present indicative, that Berlin is alive and these are the things that happen to him in another stage of his life that is more luminous. Now I am very curious to see how it is received by people who hope to see dark Berlin and repeat the sensations they enjoyed in The Money Heist. How long will they last, if they will believe that it is a scam or a fraud, or if they will be able to enter and enjoy the series, respect it and understand that it is another universe,” explains the screenwriter. “It is a risky decision because the fandom You always want to repeat the same sensations, and perhaps you may feel disappointed, but we wanted to build a new universe,” adds Pina.
The intention of those responsible was to separate as much as possible from The Money Heist. For this reason, both the tone and the characters (with the exception of Berlin and the inspectors Alicia Sierra (Najwa Nimri) and Raquel Murillo (Itziar Ituño)) are different. The new band is performed by Tristán Ulloa, Michelle Jenner, Begoña Vargas, Julio Peña Fernández and Joel Sánchez. In their characters, the scriptwriters looked for less density and darkness than in those of The Money Heist. “As creators and viewers we needed to make something beautiful, beautiful and comfortable. It has been very gratifying to return to white comedy,” explains Martínez Lobato.
And, of course, love. Because if something is BerlinIn addition to being the story of a robbery, it is a love story. Love from different angles: from the disturbed one of Berlin to the first love, the most carnal, the one that takes you to madness or even the other extreme, heartbreak. “In the historical moment we are in, we decided to launch this defense of love, which is what moves the world and makes you have a little hope,” Martínez Lobato justifies.
Even the setting of the story is distanced from its mother series: from the closed and claustrophobic spaces of The Money Heist It passes to the landscapes of Paris. “We came up with several robberies, several stories and several countries to take it to. I like that we did it in Paris, even though it seems cliché that love is reflected in Paris. We wanted to capture in a frame what is going on Berlin, and with the Eiffel Tower in the background it is clear,” explains Martínez Lobato. This setting also allowed them to give the series a classic aesthetic, very much in line with the landscapes of the French capital. “We look for a classicism even in the Berlin clothes themselves, which are inspired by the clothes that Jean-Paul Belmondo wore in the new wave. Classic clothes, the car is a shark, the hotels… everything exudes classicism,” continues Álex Pina.
Introduce white comedy in a character as dark as Berlin and in a universe as dense as that of The Money Heist It wasn't easy. “Many times, in comedy we tend to lower the intelligence of the characters to generate funny situations. But Berlin couldn't be too stupid in comedy and too clever in planning the robbery. This equalization was very complex, to the point that once we saw some sequences in montage, we re-shot them and changed texts and even introduced a voice in off so that people knew from the first episode what journey we were going to be on,” explains Esther Martínez Lobato. “In a tension sequence, everyone knows where the tension is. But in a comedy sequence, your pitchfork is gigantic. In each country comedy is different, it is very complicated,” concludes Pina.
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