Esteban Kukuriczka became a well-known face worldwide after the premiere of 'The Snow Society', the Netflix film that earned a 2024 Oscar nomination for Spain, in addition to becoming crazy on social networks. The interpreter put himself in the shoes of Adolfo 'Fito' Strauch and immersed himself in the immensity of the Andes to portray one of the best-known plane crashes in Latin America. La República spoke exclusively with the Argentine actor in reference to his future visit to our country, along with other actors from the cast, for a long-awaited event and meeting with fans in the capital.
How did Esteban Kukuriczka experience the boom of 'The Snow Society'?
—The issue of the Miracle of the Andes is a case that is quite well known in Latin America, either because of the films that were made, or because in one way or another people heard about the accident, but did you expect this level of recognition and impact? Because it was crazy, especially in the first two months of the year.
—No, all the movement he had was very surprising. Obviously I expected the film to do well, we had seen the quality of the material, but then something happened where the material came to light and it stopped being a bit of the director's and started to belong to the audience and it generated a very strong, especially in the first two months of the year. The impact it had was very impressive.
—Not only did it become one of the most viewed films on Netflix, but I have seen all kinds of merchandising from the actors, publications, edits of all kinds on social networks.
—I only had Instagram and things were coming to me from TikTok and Twitter and then I created accounts so I could see the edits. I received a lot of data, it's impressive. There are people who haven't seen the movie and know more about the story.. The other day I met a friend at a bar and he told me: “My daughter is eight years old, I don't let her watch the movie, but she knows all the names of the actors from watching the TikToks.” He hit a fairly young generation that perhaps were not so close to the accident, I had heard about it through my mother, but a 15-year-old boy did not have the opportunity, not even through his parents, to learn about the tragedy.
—How much did your life change after making the film?
—My day to day life is the same, suddenly maybe someone greets me on the street. At theater performances they give me flowers, they give me drawings, people are very loving, something that didn't happen to me before. What I aspire to, which has yet to happen a bit due to the situation in my country at the moment, is to start having the possibility of auditioning or other jobs. The cultural part is very still, because it is very difficult to produce economically.
How did Esteban Kukuriczka prepare for 'The Snow Society'?
—What was it like meeting the real 'Fito' Strauch? Did you talk a lot with him? Did you consult him for information about the scenes?
—It was very beautiful, he was always very open with me, a connection was formed, we were able to empathize with each other, he invited me to meet his family. Later throughout the entire filming process he was very attentive, I sent him a message and said: “Fito, what happened this day? What were you thinking in this situation.” He recently came to eat at my house, he went to see me at the theater, I talk to his children, we have fluid contact. He was very generous with me.
—What was the most special scene to record for you?
—There is one that I really enjoyed, it is the conversation we have with Fran, who plays Daniel Strauch, when they begin to see the possibility of eating the bodies of the deceased, because that scene was the one I worked on in the first casting. It was a very long casting process and I worked on it throughout the entire process. I had it very worked, very incorporated into the body and suddenly being on the set, in the mountains filming it, after all the instances, was very special, because apart from it we were alone, it was very intimate.
—What was more complicated: the physical effort that the role implied, the weight loss and all that, or the emotional effort of building the character, of trying to connect with the extreme situation he experienced, choosing to eat the bodies and the moral debate What did this entail?
—It all goes hand in hand. It is a film that was very physical, being on a diet, which is already a physical effort, alters your mood, being cold also changes your mood. I think the difficulty is in the accumulation of things that were happening.
—Did you lose a lot of weight for the movie?
—I weighed 74-75 kilos, I went up to 83-84 kilos and then I went down to 66-65 kilos. So I lost approximately 18-20 kilos.
—During the casting process, which you said was long, did they make you wait a long time until you were told you had the role?
—To me a lot. They had to put together the trio of cousins, they thought about it from the casting with a single character with three sides. After returning from Uruguy it was a week of quarantine in Buenos Aires and I had three more weeks of waiting. I was crazy, I didn't know who to ask. It was horrible.
—How did you decide to participate in this event in Lima? There is great expectation for his arrival, in fact the tickets for the meet & greet are sold out.
—Next week we travel to Peru. Today new tickets went on sale, we are going to meet on Wednesday the 17th at the ESAN Convention Center. It is the first time I have traveled to Peru, I am very excited, they told me that the food is very good, now we deserve to eat well, after all the filming.
—JA Bayona said that, if the film returned to the top of Netflix as the most viewed foreign films, he would start working on an extended version of the film and the fans have already managed to get to the top, will we have the extended version?
—You will have to get to work. Bayona, you have to keep your promise, right?
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