Patricia López Arnaiz (Vitoria, 1981) does not stop. Since she starred in ‘Ane’, the number of projects in which this late-calling actress has been involved has not stopped rising. The icing on her best professional year was put by Forqué, Feroz and Goya for this role as a watchdog of the high-speed train works in the Basque Country, mother of a young Borroka. Now she stars, along with Javier Gutiérrez and Irene Virgüez, in ‘La hija’, the latest feature film by Manuel Martín Cuenca. Patricia and Javier give life to a married couple unable to have children who propose to a minor with an unwanted pregnancy to take care of her during the nine months in their mansion in the Sierra de Cazorla in exchange for keeping the baby when she gives birth.
-How are you doing this with the promotion?
-Well, it’s intense, but in the end you do it with a lot of love because it supports the film and I really want people to come to see it, so I am delighted to do so. It is one of those projects that is nice to talk about because it is a beautiful thing. It’s been such a cool job to do that I feel comfortable talking about it.
-What caught you in the project?
-The first thing was the script, which was one of those readings that you enjoy per se, without thinking about more. It was very enjoyable, it was very well written and it caught me. It was a trip with a very interesting ‘in crescendo’. More attractive was knowing that it was Manuel Martín Cuenca who was behind it. It was a guarantee to know that he was going to participate in a job that he was going to enjoy as an actress because of the way he works with actors and actresses. I confirmed that in the test, which was very cool because it was not a typical test, he directed me and used those methods of his to surprise you, improvise, exercises that suppose you to be open, very willing, very listening and very dedicated to seeing what happens to you with what he proposes because it can be anything.
-Gives life to a woman initially with doubts in that pact, who later shows implacable, ready to do anything for one goal. How was the character prepared?
-The preparation was with all my companions. We went to the Sierra de Cazorla, ‘in situ’, and we were working intensely, immersed in the place, the past of the characters, and we were passing through it and incorporating it, as if we had filmed it, with many improvisations, reflection and experiments with Manuel . Then the character, which may seem complicated, was easy because that previous work was very good. I arrived at the shoot already loaded and with the entire backpack of these two characters that is not known in the film, but that I think is intuited. And of course what happens to this woman is that if at first she doubts it is because she knows that if she makes up her mind, she will open Pandora’s box. The exposure to pain and suffering that she accepts when addressing this pact assumes that it is a life or death option, if this does not go well, I will die, that is why she has doubts at the beginning, when she sees that the girl is not convinced. For her it is like jumping into the void. When you are sure of it there is no going back. It is a Greek tragedy.
-Is it a challenge to give life to a character predestined to fall badly among the public?
– (laughs). Well, I do not think that my goal is to be liked by the public or that I have to be sympathetic. Sometimes it has happened to me, I have done jobs where they have given me these guidelines, but no. Neither I have thought about it nor Manuel has transmitted it to me. In the end I work with the material that exists and in the script this woman is where she is, I understand her. In the end, to do a job you cannot judge your character, you stick around the whole trip and you don’t stop understanding her because you are moving from her logic and she is a woman that if people knew where I had to travel to get there I think that He would accompany me with much more sympathy because they are people who have suffered a lot, who have had a journey with the theme of motherhood and fatherhood very hard and on the verge of wanting to die, of reaching some super dark places. Everything that happens in the film I do from a totally understandable place, from logic, from love and from a place that ends up taking me there but I, as an actress, do not judge them as unpleasant.
-What was the most difficult part of the shoot?
-Really, it has not been a difficult filming for me because when you work with a director, a material and some wonderful colleagues, all of that makes it very easy for you. Perhaps it was hard because it was a very special location, for which I would have bet a thousand times, but which involved an extra effort because we had to move every day for practically an hour, through the Sierra, in some pickups, which you came to roll with your stomach in mouth. But I have no memory of difficulty.
-The film focuses on a very topical issue that is surrogacy and surrogacy. Do you think it will encourage debate and discussion?
-Well, I don’t know, I suppose so. I think it is a film that leaves those silences and those spaces for people to ask themselves questions and comment on it. We will know now when you get to the movies and they start giving us your feedback.
-What is your opinion about it? Do you think surrogacy should be regulated or do you think it is a form of violence against women?
– It seems to me that it is a very delicate subject. To get into the reality of the character, I didn’t need to study or investigate this, I just had to get into the emotionality of this woman, her desire, her pain. Before giving my opinion, I like to document things well, but I do have my opinion and I believe that it is true and that it is obvious that a woman who is exposed to this usually does it out of necessity. There is something there that does not have to be easy at all and that is very hard because the bond that is generated between a mother and a child … I think that if we were really in a utopian society, balanced at the gender and class level, we would not things would turn out that way.
-There is a moment in the film in which it is said that his character is not well “for not having had children.” Do you think society continues to exert pressure on women on these kinds of issues?
-Yesterday they asked us about this and we talked a bit about it. In my case, I have not felt that pressure in my life, but it is my circumstance. Yesterday Javier Gutiérrez commented about colleagues that, for example, when dedicating themselves to this trade, they have had it very difficult in that regard, the few facilities. That question of when are you going to have children is still there, but they are like those questions that are asked when you are little about when you are going to have a boyfriend and nobody thinks about the possibility that it could be a girlfriend. It’s these set phrases. In that regard, I think that pressure is becoming less and less important. It is true that in motherhood or in the pressure when it comes to having a professional life and being able to combine it, because there are still difficulties, especially for women.
What a Goya means
-It has been eight months since the Goya won. How is it noticeable?
-I don’t know what to tell you, the truth is, that moment was such a tsunami … The first thing is the moment of all the love you receive, which is crazy, and then it is true that now it is something that you have stuck there. If someone knows you: “Are you the one from Goya, right?” In general, it does not happen to me that they recognize me, I feel super calm in that aspect because it is very sporadic. In the end, the Goya is like a symbol that is very widespread, you don’t have to be a cinephile to know what it is and it is always there. And then at the level of work well yes, a lot of work is coming to me from ‘Ane’ I think, shortly before the awards. With the premiere, I already began to notice how a lot of work proposals were coming.
-Are you worried about losing some privacy?
-Yes, all that gives me a little respect. You do not really know how to find that balance of being able to continue leading the life that I have always led and being there because in the end it is still a job that exposes you and you want the public to see you and like your work. I would like something not to happen to me that would suddenly change my life in that regard. I’m like cautiously, carefully. I’m talking to you now, I don’t know if in two years it will be like this or if I will think otherwise. There are also things that now I have to do that at another time in my life would have scared me, with that exposure index, and now I do them and I do them with another kind of tranquility.
-For example?
-The whole world of communication at the level of red carpet premieres, all that part of the exhibition that has nothing to do with the shooting of the film, which is what you know you like. That is an extra that comes from outside and you have to learn to be there. There are people who will find it easier, but for me it is something that, although I am noticing that I am becoming more familiar with each other, it burns a lot of energy. There is something there that worries me and for which I am not quite comfortable.
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