Dressed in the gang’s iconic red jumpsuit, her character as a hostage-turned-robber (Stockholm) captivated the audience addicted to Money Heist. Overnight, Esther Acebo surpassed six million followers on Instagram. But the 40-year-old actress from Madrid has calmly digested the phenomenon. Since then, she has been the mother of a girl, Sol (17 months), she has shot other films, such as Jaula, and has been the partner of David Bisbal (“charming!”) in a video clip.
Now he is preparing his return to the theater, with The shape of things, after a vacation that this year has not been scheduled in advance. “Living is improvising, really.” His new film, De perdidos a Río directed by Joaquín Mazón, is already being shown in movie theaters. It is the surreal trip of some thirty-somethings to Brazil, where a friend has died in strange circumstances. Once there, the deceased has fled and his lawyer (the character she embodies) is desperately looking for him.
What is the best of the tape?
She’s fun, naughty but white, and her rhythm is wonderful. Pure evasion. My role is the counterpoint, the nasty character who puts some common sense among those funny guys overwhelmed by the Brazilian party.
It is presented as “a crazy journey of three colleagues who have not found their place in the world.” What’s yours?
I conceive life more as a path. Today I am in the place where I want to be, but maybe in a year I will be in another place and I also feel in my place. The important thing is to find yourself in your center, comfortable wherever you are and with what you do.
How would you define your current stage?
Intense and exciting. It is linked to the fact of having my little girl. With the excitement of working, because I enjoy it a lot, but now there is always a part of me that connects with her puppy. It sounds cliché, but being a mother is like experiencing things for the first time. Everything is suddenly exciting, whether it’s going down to the pool or cooking healthy kibble. I live it with dreams and a lot of emotion.
He explained that Sol was born after a “wild” labor of 25 hours.
True, it was in a respected delivery unit of a hospital, with the help of a doula; quite hard but all good. And without anesthesia, yes, like crazy (laughs).
She shared her partner, Diego Martire, in networks after the paparazzi paired her with the actor Alejandro Tous.
It made us laugh: it couldn’t be more false. My psychologist says that people need certainties and if they don’t get answers, then they make them up. They were looking for my daughter’s father, they saw me with a colleague and associated him. But he has no more significance.
You studied INEF, how did you turn towards acting?
It was actually the other way around. I did theater and dance since I was four years old. At 17, I loved a million things, but I knew that what made me really happy was the theater. When I told my mother and brother that I wanted to study drama, they thought it was crazy. So since I was doing athletics and I am fascinated by the human body, how it works, I kept going, without leaving the theater. Until I couldn’t handle everything and I trained as an actress.
The theater, she said, helped her when she was bullied at school.
Back then there was no talk of ‘bullying’, but the truth is that I didn’t want to go to school. There were those who insulted me or laughed at me, because of my height, because of my hair (in contrast, now they praise it). They made me feel weird. I have always been very sensitive and did not know what to hold on to. Years later, with therapy, you generate tools, but at 13 I didn’t have them. Did that make me stronger? did it empower me? Well no, it gave me a bad time for a couple of years. Where I felt good was in drama classes. As an actress, a character covers you and you give yourself freedoms that you don’t have in your life. It was my safe place and even today acting is the environment in which to play again.
She started out as a presenter.
Whenever they interview me I think they are going to scold me, for being intrusive. If now I feel the impostor syndrome as an actress, imagine as a reporter… I was a few years, in Cosmopolitan TV and Non stop people. I said: “But I’m not a journalist!” It was a school for me, I learned to be alert, to improvise, but I knew it wasn’t my thing.
And the casting for ‘La casa’ arrived.
Yes, and madness. The series generated a lot of addiction, many fans. There were people who watched an entire season in one night. And I thought: “My goodness, with what it has cost us to make it, please ration it!”
Are you afraid that something like this will not be repeated?
Look, what I feel is the certainty that it will not happen again. With my character I lived a beautiful process. As unfortunately sometimes happens, she was a woman with a job that did not fulfill her, a lover who did not treat her as she deserved… and suddenly she was super brave and broke with all of that. I hope to continue working with dignity as an actress, but I think that La casa was unique. This profession is like that…
Insecure?
You must embrace insecurity. I am not an official, for better or for worse. Fears assail you: that if with the maternity break I still don’t work anymore, that if I don’t pass the casting. There are stages that you have no rest and others in which you must have faith and trust.
What adjectives define it?
I was going to say impatient, but it is something that I am working on and I have improved. I am very perfectionist and self-demanding, I am not completely satisfied one hundred percent. If I were a writer I would never finish the book. And very empathetic, which sometimes plays tricks on me. If we all were, that would be great.
What would she change about herself?
I am not punctual, quite late.
What kind of mother do you want to be?
I would like to be as conscientious and respectful as possible. I think we are marking a change. My mother tells me: “Daughter, how different you do things.” That “don’t cry” thing sounds terrible to me. Of course you cry! I hope I don’t change my mind when I reach the terrible 2 years.
In addition, he has several pets…
My house is a small zoo. I had Django and Petra and Brisa came with my partner. Here we are, with three dogs and a baby.
In confinement, he shared a canine yoga session on networks…
Oh my God, what I haven’t done! They invited me to do a yoga session with dogs. And I told myself, my dogs are very nervous, this is going to be horrible… and I have a lot of nerves all circulating at the same time, even though I seem calm. But the session pleasantly surprised me. It was not about achieving postures, but about sharing a conscious time with your critters. It worked super well, it was relaxed. It is something that I would recommend to people, to do calmer things and not live so hysterically.
Before you mentioned your psychologist, has she been helpful?
I believe that we should all take care of ourselves inside, our mental and emotional health alone or with the help of others. Going to therapy had a stigma, when it’s like playing sports, I don’t do it because I’m fat or unhealthy, but to stay healthy, feel good. Sometimes I’ve been overwhelmed, she helps me reposition situations. I don’t have a dependency, but I find it great to have a person to turn to when a situation overwhelms you. We work with emotions and we must learn to know them well. I think everyone would benefit from it.
What angers you about this country?
There are so many things that go wrong… Reconciliation policies that do not exist, scarce social policies, inequalities that are increasing. I feel sorry. Call me naive, but I think that politicians are idealistic people who want to change things; I don’t know when that stops working like that.
