«I am very feisty, I like the weather»

One talks on the phone with Ane Gabarain (San Sebastián, 1963) and has the impression of doing it with the neighbor on the fifth floor. “I am very normal,” he says, which seems exceptional in an industry that is sustained by spotlights, cameras and long makeup sessions. Ane, you see, is Miren, the courageous mother of the ETA member of ‘Homeland’, a dog-face duel with which until not long ago was her friend Bittori, a character for which she was nominated for the International Emmy as Best Actress . There is much talk about the fact that papers lose their luster as they gain years, but Ane seems willing to prove otherwise. “I am very feisty, I like the weather,” she says slyly. While filming the next season of ‘Amar es para siempre ”(Antena 3), he enjoys“ the thousand things that can be done in Madrid ”. One is to go to the theater, a format that he has not neglected and that ingratiates him with people. “You see the audience in the stalls, all wearing a mask but overcoming their fears, and you want to applaud them.”

Monday

5.00 hours. Go ahead, the actors have a very variable routine and that what is valid for this week is not valid for the next, that the same I go to bed at this time. Today I was getting up early … and I fell asleep! So when the production company calls to pick me up by car I feel like a zombie. A quick shower, a soluble coffee … I spend my life running.

8.00 hours. We started rehearsing on the set in Pozuelo where ‘Amar es para siempre’ is filmed, which is now 17 years old. I play the woman-wife-mother of a family of toymakers in the 80’s. Bourgeois, well situated … What last year was a patisserie in the Plaza de los Frutos, which are the exteriors of the series, now there are a toy store. Things on television. These days I work a lot with Carles Francino, Itziar Miranda … Also with Jon Plazaola, who is always a great pleasure. We acted as mother and son during the six seasons of ‘Down there’, which we shot in Seville, and now we repeat.

Tuesday

11.00 hours. There are not many takes on television because the rhythm is frenetic. There is an estimated time per sequence, although it also depends on whether you handle a light scene, another with dramatic weight or a more cumbersome text. In addition, I am no longer 35 years old and it is not the same to plant yourself with four learned pages than to memorize fourteen. That we are not machines, come on. In the middle of the morning, we stop for lunch: a vegetable sandwich, a piece of fruit … something else hits me like a stone.

20.30 hours. I live to study the scripts, two hours and more if necessary. I’m so anxious that not only do I eat late for dinner – the worst, I know – but sometimes I even do it twice. A vegetable cream, a grilled breasts … in winter, spoon dishes go well. And go back to studying. Sometimes I don’t understand myself: if I do comedy, I think I’m more of a drama; and when drama plays, well the other way around. In the end, it all comes down to having good companions, a direction as God intended and a text that grabs you. Well that’s fine, now an asparagus omelette and a Cola-Cao before going to bed.

Wednesday

6.50 hours. I go into makeup after the catering prepare me a coffee as God intended, not the placebo that I take at home. Only then do I put myself in the hands of Ainize to fix my face, which at this time, you can imagine, is not an easy task. Then they comb my hair, that if I come for the weekend it is a horror. And from there to the dressing room, to dress according to the script. More rush. At this point, I no longer even know the PCRs that I have done.

6.30 p.m. I have gone to the theater with my friend Jone Irazabal to see ‘Los Gondra’, in the Inclán Valley of Plaza de Lavapiés. Now the series has me abducted, but I do not give up my bowling with Mikel Laskurain -the Joxian of ‘Patria’-. He already tells me: “I see you more than my wife.” The theater is priceless: all those people with masks in the stalls, overcoming their fears of leaving home … You want to applaud them.

Thursday

12.30 hours. They say that the villain characters are more grateful, although I think it is best to move between intermediate grays, which is how real people are, of flesh and blood, with edges. How lazy to work with clichés, right? How much better to dive into them and their motivations.

16.00 hours. I am very feisty, I like the weather. I try not to accommodate myself, I don’t know if it’s an advantage or maybe just a job survival instinct. It’s a bit of the work culture that actors have, that of not saying no to anything. In the end, the years go by, you see what you have been priced in and you think ‘well, I’m not doing that bad either’.

23.30 hours. I am sleeping late rather than going to bed late, and when sleep resists I take the opportunity to read. I am with ‘The laws of the border’, the novel by Cercas for which Chechu Salgado is nominated for a Goya as a revelation actor. I have all the existing platforms and to have, but time is studying me, putting washing machines, cleaning … Then there are all those people who tell you ‘you have to see this’. By God, what stress, to me is that they block me.

Friday

17.30 hours. While the shooting lasts, I live in a studio here in Madrid. I love the capital and the feeling that you can do a thousand things, even if then you do nothing because your life is a whirlwind. Strolling through El Retiro, going to Primark … I also really like the Acacias area. I haven’t painted for a long time and I like to do it in a filthy way: mixing the grease, messing with the colors … I’m not very fine, I admit it. But I just can’t find the time.

19.00 hours. I return to San Sebastián. By bus, by train … lately a lot by BlaBlaCar, because my schedules are what they are and the combinations are terrible. Although I have a license, I have not driven for a long time, I am terrified of it. Let’s see if they finish us the Basque ‘Y’ at once, at this rate I don’t know if I’m going to live to see it.

Saturday

11.00 hours. How I missed the sea and being back with the family! A little wine while we cook, a beer … an intimate and relaxing act. If I have a talent, it is knowing how to listen. We prepare a rich Russian salad, some stuffed mussels, things that are not overly elaborated but that bring the family together around a table. The hydrogen spherifications I leave to others.

17.00 hours. I’m going to visit the neighbors, the only good thing I got from confinement. We have gone from saying hello and goodbye to weaving a very beautiful relationship, a very great bond, to the point that they have become part of the family. You have to take care of the affections. I had a dog called ‘Paco’ and he died ten years ago. One of the beings that I have cried the most in my life; Who was going to tell me that you can love them so much!