It’s hard to find another actor who has played more police officers on screen. The judicial agent Leiva from ‘There will be no peace for the wicked’ (for which he was nominated for a Goya), the sub-inspector Charlie Márquez from first ‘El Comisario’ and later ‘El Príncipe’; or for six years Emilio Bremón, the superior boss of ‘Serve and protect’ (Plano a Plano), who has just returned to La 1 after 1,250 chapters. Little to do with the reality of it. Juanjo Artero is happy sinking his hands in his garden, where courgettes, aubergines, countless aromatic herbs and tomatoes already appear. His life changed in 2019 when he suffered a thromboembolism: he gave up tobacco, exercises and eats healthy. “I have even lowered the piston at work.” Well, that’s what he says: he gets up at 4:30, does theater and returns to the movies in July.
Monday
4:30 a.m. I have the first sequence, so I get up at dawn. A shower and a coffee with milk, at that time nothing else enters me. I take advantage of the little hour I have until the production company comes to pick me up by car to go over the script. I have another 45 minutes to Cobo Calleja, the Fuenlabrada industrial estate surrounded by Chinese warehouses where we shot the series.
6:30 a.m. After going through makeup and costumes, we started with the reading of the scenes. It is assumed that the director has already told the technicians what scenes they play, the set that is going to be used… I am not supposed to say much, but I start by having a chat with my son in the series (whom he brings to life Jan Buxaderas), family problems and about his future that are then intertwined with the police case that we have in hand.
12.00 noon. We stopped for twenty minutes to eat a gazpacho and a hot sandwich. This season they have reduced my workload a little, I have asked for it because I had been linking television series for 7 years and I am burned out. In addition, I do theater and in July I start a film, a short role but with which I am excited. So far I can read.
Tuesday
3:30 p.m. Since I suffered a thromboembolism I try to take care of myself. More hours of sleep (if not at night, at least a nap), healthy food, sports… I went out a bit before filming and I take the opportunity to go to the gym. With so much stress, the body appreciates it. First some back stretches on the mat and then pilates. I do a lot of aerobic exercise: an hour on the elliptical and I study; half an hour of bike and study, some treadmill and study… Then you weigh and swim, which is important. So I can spend three hours.
7:00 p.m. I cook just enough, sometimes lasagna with courgette slices, or espencat, with oil, garlic and aromatic herbs. I really like salmorejo or spoon dishes, the kind that are made over a fire in a clay pot, but at this time of day I don’t complicate my life. If they leave me something prepared, I attack what they put on me; if not, I prepare a salad of avocados, fresh cheese and tomatoes from the garden. I have a lot, from a dozen classes. A little green still, but the bushes are bursting.
9:00 p.m. My parents both live and they are a very big influence. He was a cardiovascular surgeon, he operated on Franco and later on Pasionaria and also some terrorists. His job was to save lives. He has always been a horny man, he would bring us home movies of his operations. That’s how I grew up, alternating cartoons with tapes recorded in ‘super 8’ of open heart surgeries. Years later, I myself went into the operating room to record them to later project them to his students.
Wednesday
10:00 p.m. I love being asked about ‘Blue Summer’, it reminds me of a time when we were like the Beatles. I guess it would be different if I had spent my life playing ‘kid on a bike’, but that hasn’t been the case. Last season I spent a week in the series with María Garralón (the unforgettable Julia), a wonderful woman, to eat her up. How we enjoy
4:15 p.m. I was performing ‘Entre copas’ at the Reina Victoria theater for five weeks, until June 5. It’s a dramatic comedy about midlife crisis (yes, I know, I’m almost 60). Sometimes a representation in Valencia coincides with the series, so we balance agendas and if it doesn’t fit, there is always the AVE. In July I have a small role in a film and in August I have to tour the play through El Puerto de Santa María and Alcalá de Henares for two days, although I won’t resume the tour as such until September.
8:00 p.m. As I have been good and studied everything I had pending, all the time is for me. The garden relaxes me a lot, the same when it is time to plant, as when it is time to water or fertilize. I do not use pesticides, all organic products: black soap, neem oil, bacterium thurigiensis. I’m starting to have cucumber and zucchini, tomato soon, as well as carrots. There are asparagus, aubergines, arugula, basil, rosemary, thyme, garlic…
Thursday
9:00 a.m. What a job, the covid test has come out positive for me (we do the test every 5 days). I am vaccinated and had not caught it until now, but at work it happens with some frequency. The week of my birthday… and look what a gift it comes with! I have notified the production people, because we have to go all the way around the shooting plan, look what a job it is. Now it’s time to take it easy until the next exam.
4:00 p.m. Now that I don’t have scripts to review, I take the opportunity to listen to music. I love flamenco, jazz and the music of my generation, especially Serrat -he’s the best-, Sabina, Pedro Guerra or Rosana. Also survival shows [Risas]type ‘My family lives in Alaska’ or those that take a guy to an island full of alligators and he has to look for life.
22,000 hours. I’ve been with Real Madrid from the cradle, just like my grandfather, my father, my uncle… in my case it’s imposed. But look, I wish all the best to Barça, that it comes out of the crisis; they have made us great and we them. And whoever does not want to see him like this, worse for him.
24.00 hours. The whole family takes the dogs out, although they spend the day in the garden, but I am more at night. ‘Jeti’, a westin. and ‘Chibi’, with no defined race, with long hair like a border collie. I also have a cat, ‘Merlí’, like the series that my children liked. Rather, now there are two, because the cat of a friend of my daughter has just had a litter and they have endorsed us with another. I want to call him Benito, like Don Gato, we’ll see if I get my way.
Friday
11:30 a.m. I have played so many policemen and people from the Interior that the only thing left for me to do is act as a minister. I guess everything has its cycles and now it’s time for this one. But I’m nothing like them; I’m a good guy and a bit of a clown. In the play I’m doing it says that ‘to live is to continue living, it’s the way’. You have to squeeze the orange well and get all the juice out of it. When I saw the ears of the wolf, I chose to come upstairs. And I am in those.
#eternal #commissioner #happy #garden