We put a face on Carlo Padial (Barcelona, 1977) not only for having starred in some of the most reflective videos on the Playground website, but also for his participation as a collaborator in ‘Late Motiv’, Buenafuente’s program. Screenwriter and restless creator behind works such as ‘Algo muy gordo’ or ‘You are my movie’, his first series premieres today at Filmin,
‘Doctor Portuondo’, which adapts the homonymous novel he wrote for Blackie Books in 2017 and in which he narrates the therapy that he himself carried out with a peculiar Cuban psychoanalyst exiled in Barcelona who is embodied by a fantastic Jorge Perugorría.
-‘Doctor Portuondo ‘is Filmin’s first original production. Has this been an added responsibility or pressure? How did the collaboration come about?
-The adaptation of the book was a proposal by them and by the producer La chica de la curva. And well, of course, it is a responsibility in a certain way, because Filmin represents the platform where you find classics, auteur cinema, festivals. All in all, the best cinema is in Filmin, so you have to come up with something that is not an absolute shame, it would be terrible to put all those masterpieces to shame. That said, once you are involved, all you want is to try to offer something as accurate as possible, the challenge when directing or writing is that there is as little distance as possible between the original idea and the result once written or filmed. In that sense we are happy.
-How has it been to bring such a personal work to the screen?
-I don’t really live it like that. What interested Carlos de Diego (co-writer) and I in the book was to extract the situations that we thought had the greatest potential for the series, and make the most of them. Beyond the autobiographical element, which does not seem so important to me, the book presents very funny situations, many paradoxes: the relationship with the patient’s ATM, his reservations to group therapy, the phantasmagoric return of his ex-girlfriend accusing him of having made her sick, etc.
– Being a work of yours, has it cost you more to delete passages?
-On the contrary, that did not cost anything. We didn’t want to treat the book with excessive reverence, not at all. Before diving into the text, Carlos and I agreed on which passages were with the most potential, and it was pretty easy. We wanted each chapter to present a very clear and powerful central situation, at least from our point of view. The schizophrenic that everyone wants to befriend, the need to entertain your therapist. They are very clear premises, almost like a sitcom. ‘Doctor Portuondo’ is quite a few things at once, but it is also a sitcom shot camera in hand, more oppressive than usual.
Nacho Sánchez and Olivia Delcán, in a still from the series.
-Often in his works he plays with metafiction. I wonder what is real and fictional about the protagonist, a character without a name, who is his alter ego.
– I suppose that in the book I put a part of me, the one that has to do more with my conflicts and with my sense of humor. Like anyone, there are other facets that I have not yet been able to explore as much. But it is clear that if you see what I do, you can get an idea of some of the things that I like: the sense of humor, the satire, the inclination towards the psychological, the breaks towards discomfort, fear, etc. In the series both Carlos de Diego and I have put many of the things that we like: it has some small psychological plays, like those of our beloved Eugene O Neill and Strindberg, it has something of the theater of the absurd from Arrabal, above all in the dialectical dances in which the characters engage. Especially the patient and the analyst, but also in Chapter 4, dedicated to a schizophrenic patient who visits the center. For his part, all the actors are very well. But Nacho makes a more credible version of myself than I can offer, he is a prodigious actor. I have learned a lot doing this project with him. Having great actors allows you to connect with the public in a much more powerful way, something that up to now I had given a little the same, or even had been reluctant to accept, despite knowing it in advance.
“Having great actors allows you to connect with the public in a much more powerful way, something that up to now I had been a bit the same, or even had been reluctant to accept, despite knowing it in advance”
– Precisely, the choice of the casting is one of the great successes. Was it very difficult to find Jorge Perugorría and Nacho Sánchez?
-Well, with Jorge Perugorría we had it clear. I think Jorge has created an absolutely unforgettable character, who has nothing to envy to so many of those mythical characters from television series, it is amazing, Portuondo exists, and it is a gift to have been able to direct a detective from the unconscious, someone who investigates his patients, to conclude that the culprit is always you, it is always us. In the case of Nacho Sanchez or Olivia Delcán, we were just looking for the best young actors we could find, and they are magnificent. They understood the project super well and added a lot. The same can be said for the rest of the cast.
– Nacho’s thing is spectacular because it blends in with you without falling into caricature.
-The resemblance was something that arose in the rehearsal process, Nacho wanted to take some things from me, some hobbies, my way of dressing, it seemed good to me. But we could have opted for the opposite and nothing would have changed. The important thing for me was what the patient represented, he is almost a generational archetype, a person full of doubts and small fears, the desire to be someone special and being so self-conscious. In the series, the patient’s gaze on the outside is totally surreal, he looks over his shoulder all the time, that is a wonderful detail that is very present in the interpretation of Nacho Sanchez. What Nacho does in this series is a prodigy, he is the best young Spanish actor I know, and I feel very privileged to have been able to do this with him.
– At some point in the project did you consider giving life to the protagonist?
-No, not at any time.
-Precisely, part of the protagonist’s neuroses have to do with that need to pretend something that is not. Is posturing one of the great evils of our time?
-I thought the word posture was no longer used, I assumed that I had gone to the same dump as the word metrosexual or fofisano (laughs). But yes. The series can be seen as a satire on the neuroses of a hyperconscious generation. I agree. It is the culture we live in. The Century of Individualism, as Adam Curtis used to say.
-Where does this need to be analyzed that crosses the screen come from? Part of the insecurity? Of that impostor syndrome that we all hide?
-For me, psychoanalysis was something that suited me, the fact that it gives so much power to the word, as I am someone who writes, I found it very interesting. In general, I think that Spain looks with distrust at everything that involves intelligence. That is why most comedians, for example, pretend to be fools, when they are the smartest in the room. It is something that I have never understood, but it is cultural. We appreciate people for being simple, easygoing, these horrible things, but I don’t want my artists to be that, I want them to blow my mind with their ideas, I don’t care if they are Kanye West type megalomaniacs later. I don’t see what’s wrong with it. But here everything that exudes intelligence is viewed with distrust. This is what happens with psychoanalysis.
“Spain looks with distrust at everything that involves intelligence. That is why most comedians, for example, pretend to be fools, when they are the smartest in the room. It is something that I have never understood, but it is cultural »
-Now that it seems that mental health seems to be at the center of the discussion, do we all need therapy?
-I think that many people who are dedicated to creative things, although I suppose it has happened to everyone, we have been forced to look inside ourselves and evaluate what we were doing, especially when going through a pandemic, and the feeling of permanent uncertainty that everyone around me has. This series is my answer, especially in the last chapter. It is an ideal series for this moment. Mental health is going to be the big issue in the coming years, as much as the climate emergency or the financial crisis. And this series talks about that. What is it to be a healthy person? According to psychoanalysis, he is a person who is capable of telling his story. But the series shows that this is not as easy as it seems. Everything that is told is under suspicion, at least that is what remains after seeing it.
-Undoubtedly, any production of your hand is watered with humor, but it is a very personal humor. Do you consider yourself an atypical humorist?
-Well, it depends on who you compare me to. In general, I feel like an outsider in everything I do. I don’t feel like a humorist in the conventional monologue sense, I don’t feel quite right among writers, nor do I feel like I’m part of the cinema, I don’t care a bit. I am someone who really likes cinema, humor, documentaries, books, and I dedicate myself to generating all that without stopping to think about being part of any of those circles. What I really like is doing all those things, and it starts from a very genuine curiosity, to see things from the inside. What I like the most about TV, for example, is seeing how they do it, how they experience that, how it works, regardless of whether I’m involved there. Once I see how it works, sometimes I lose interest a bit, and when that happens I go back to my mousetrap, to keep pointing or writing things that make me go outside again. I think what I’m really connected to, even hooked on, is the process of pointing something out on my mobile or wherever, and then filming it, or publishing it in book form. It’s a nice way to live, at least for me.
-It is your first series, what weaknesses and what strengths have you seen?
-Well, I have not thought about it in those terms of a series or movie. That doesn’t seem so important to me. Rather, I think that the challenge is the one I was saying to you, the challenge is that there is as little distance as possible between the original idea and the final result. That’s what you do when you direct a series or a movie. And I think that this time what we originally devised is very similar to the series that we have delivered. In that sense, I am quite happy. ‘Doctor Portuondo’ is quite similar to the series we wanted to do. It might even be a little better, depending on how you look at it.
‘Doctor Portuondo’ will be available on Filmin from October 29.
.