There are interpretations that are like black holes. A focus of attention that catches the look. One cannot stop looking, surprised, shocked. It is difficult to occur, especially in an industry that usually bets again and again for the same faces. But from time to time the miracle occurs. Actresses that do not mimic others, who are different and unpredictable. This year that has happened with Laura Weissmahr, whose interpretation in Salve Maria “Mar Coll co -written movie with Valentina Viso who has just won the fierce award for the best dramatic film – has made everyone who saw her ask the same question, who is that actress?
He has grace that his dark circles were what made Mar Coll look at her, but there is something else. A lot more. An interpretation that converts the physicist into a dramatic weapon. A role almost without dialogues based on silences, looks and body posture. A work that has achieved the award for the best actress in Seminci and that is nominated for Goya for the best revelation actress. In person, Laura Weissmahr is the opposite of her character. It is a torrent of words, energy and illusion for everything that is to come.
I think there were two dark circles that gave him, in some way, the role of Salve Maria.
Yes, there were two dark circles. Let’s see, I was doing a play with Marcel Borràs and Nao Albet in the National Dramatic Center, in the Plaza de Lavapiés in Madrid, and Mar was working with Marcel at that time and came to see the work. I was not originally on the list of the director of casting. She didn’t look at the work, but then we went to dinner and I didn’t know who she was, sincerely. I knew I was directing This is not Swedenwith Aina Clotet, but I didn’t know anything else. She did look at me a lot and there was like a kind of observation. The next day I got the separata that put: “Maria, with two dark circles that reach her soil and a badly done bun.”
The character is a mother who has just had a child and does not linked to him, and I remember telling my boyfriend, “Do you think this hits me?” And he told me, “I hit you Mogollón.” At first I didn’t see anything, because also in the separata put he was an older character. Yes, it is true that I had this luck that we agreed and that he saw something in me. But then, when we did the casting, There was a lot of chemistry, a very cool connection. They had never addressed me like that.
I have realized that they always ask him how he linked to the role, since he is not a mother, something that I think we would never ask an actor, if he is a father or is not.
It is very strong. Just yesterday I talked to some friends who asked me if after this character I had changed my vision about motherhood. It seems to me a very personal question, because I know. He is a character, he is a work and that’s it. And it is true that men are never asked. I don’t think Oriol Pla [que interpreta a su pareja en el filme] He has never asked him. I am not a mother and at first it gave me a little syndrome of the impostor, although you then make a construction of the character. What has helped me is that Valentina and Mar are mothers and have guided me on things about which I was in a cloud. They told me: “Quiet, I didn’t know how to change a diaper.” He was afraid of looking too rookie.
I imagine that for a role like this, The return of Mar Coll to the feature filmthere was a casting intense and chose someone who had no experience as the protagonist in the cinema. It is not normal for him to bet on an unknown face, do you think that Spanish cinema sins of that, of little risk?
It seems very good question. I don’t know other industries very well, but in general it costs to bet on new faces. Yes you see, above all, in author cinema, the same because they handle small budgets. I have been fighting for many years to have such a chance. I’m lucky that even a little before having a representative they arrived castings relatively important. But the reason why I do not reach the big characters is because I am not known. I have lived this. I can talk about my experience, I can’t speak throughout the industry. And as a spectator I love to see new faces. I really enjoyed the interpretation of lens in Second prize, For example.
Did you feel a lot of pressure to be the first protagonist, the role they were going to see?
It’s strong because I was hungry and I really wanted to. I had been saying for almost 15 years, “this is what I want”, but then the day they give me the role was the day that I put the most nervous. When I saw Oriol Pla and other actors I got so nervous that a pupa came out. I thought they were going to see that it was an impostor and that they were going to take away the paper, that I had betrayed me. I remember that I came home crying and insecurities began there. Especially before filming. I carry it very badly. The first day of filming, and when we started with the action it was perfect, because there was present and it happened to me. Because there you have to get and I got. I was lucky to get so much that there was no room for insecurity.
Salve Maria He lived how Instagram and several networks censored the poster because a naked chest came out.
First, I think it’s an Instagram pain with this move to censor. We were in 2024, what boredom. It is a chest supposedly of a female cis body, but then you put a chest of any friend of mine who is transitioning and that chest is not censored. Who decides it? What algorithm is putting these bases first? And second, it is an infant chest. The infant chest was supposed to have never been sexualized. And it is assumed that, in fact, on Instagram, if I am not mistaken, there are some bases that say that a chest can come out if you are giving milk. In fact they can leave Instagram because there was an activist who fought in favor. When I saw the poster for the first time, the first thing I thought was that they were going to censor it on Instagram. And then a little news of it has been made. But if I tell you the truth, that news bores me a bit because I think it was obvious. What else does it give? If it is the daily bread for many of us. We already know what will happen. I would almost prefer that that would not be linked to the film, because the film was not censored.
Salve Maria Talk about a taboo subject, the mothers who regret, have the idealization of motherhood broken or is still present?
I think it continues. There is more awareness about it. Not only in the art world, but I speak with friends of mine who just being mothers and the image is very varied, from those who have gone very well to those who have had a fatal. Thanks to this movie I have had many conversations about it, and what I liked most is that even the women I know that have had more positive maternities, at least the first years that are supposed to be the most difficult, they have felt identified with many things that happen in the movie.
The character of Oriol Pla is what is called a false ally. He is a very real character, the man who believes he does things well and does not do them well.
I believe that the standards are very low. The character is supposed to be like the ally. A modern and feminist man, but is that very little is expected of them. I don’t know how far we were aware that he was going to crack so much that character, because we wanted the point of view to be that of Mary and that there was no reason why you can say that the culprit of this is the character that Interpret Oriol. If she had a more attentive boyfriend, the same would surely happen.
How do you live on the day of the nomination to a Goya? Obviously, there are pools, rumors … but then you have to suffer.
When I started this project I would never have imagined it. But it is true that before the nominations people tell you, they will surely name you, and that generates a kind of need to want to content all those people who are telling you that. I thought, if I don’t get it, I’m going to disappoint everyone. So I got very nervous weeks before. Then, when it came out, already perfect. The truth is, and I will always say this, it is that for me the prize is to have made this movie, because one thing is that all your friends and the people around you believe in you, but being able to prove it to yourself is very liberating . I am at a time when I say, “Jo, how good, you are not as fraud as you thought you were.” So my therapist is very happy and I am very happy. This is an extra and an absolute honor. The recognitions are wonderful, but I think that not to lose your head you have to focus it from here, and I try to do that.
Was it the typical girl who already dreamed with a Goya?
Sometimes. What happens is that I have never allowed it at all. The impostor syndrome has hurt me a lot. And my cynicism, too. I have been two or three years that little by little I allow me to do it more. I swear that, since I started to roll the movie, in my head I imagined it. I imagined speeches. Suddenly these dreams were planted in my head, but before, perhaps because there was no tangible project, I did not allow me to dream. And that is very screwed. That is why I am enjoying it a lot. Before there was fabulation, fantasy … and now it is very strong that it can be done truth. Fabulation allows you because you think what can happen is far, because if it is not preparation and not fabulation.
And the red carpets? There is much talk about breaking with that, but then that tradition is maintained.
I have made a learning in this little time that I have been doing all this. At first, I tried to do something that was not me. I tried to imitate. I have referents that are very eloquent, responsible and intelligent when they speak, and I do not know how to do it. I don’t know how to think before speaking. I am very chaotic and now I have dared. On the fashion side, I already disguise myself to go down the street. I love it. I do not see an obligation to do it only when there is a red carpet. I really like the drag, so I already do it and it is easy for me because I like it. The whore is for the people who do not like, because we are all very different. In addition, there is a criticism if you do not meet some requirements that … what are they? Because when one disguises himself, each one has a different definition of what the costume is.
He has some acting, then.
Yes, it helps me a lot. Clothing is my character. I really like it as a weapon. The other day I was at the nominees party, and had a look That I had done with second -hand clothes that I like a lot. That gives you a Power And you distance you a little from you, you feel like you’re not so exposed. And then there is the policy behind that.
Do you think about the politics behind a suit, a red carpet?
It is that everything is political. Fashion is 100% policy and is obviously different if you put an inditex suit if you buy it second hand or if you buy it elsewhere. There are certain values that at the time of dressing must have. As at eating, when behaving or walking down the street. I am super against Fast Fashion. If the red carpets are going to get more Fast Fashionthen let’s take them away.
If you are coming dressed in the Shein, then sorry, love. And this has nothing to do with money, because I tell you that without money you can do it. I have done all my life Lookazos out of money. I say this because it is something that seems superimporting.
Full interview video
Video: Lourdes Jiménez and Nando Ochando
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