If there is an actor who conveys closeness beyond the screen, it is Javier Cámara. A Riojan from 1967, the son of farmers, he became an unexpected actor thanks to one of his teachers, who captured before him the sensitivity with which he has fed so many good roles later. From Siete vidas and the jump with Talk to her (unforgettable Benigno) from Almodóvar to Narcos and The young Pope, going through titles by Coixet, Cesc Gay, Medem, Trueba or Berger. Today, in addition, he is a happy father of twins, a boy and a girl, almost 6 years old, by surrogate pregnancy, whom he keeps away from the media spotlight. Cámara chats with the Magazine from his Madrid home, in Chamberí, where his neighbor and friend, the pianist James Rhodes, delights him with his rehearsals: “At nine in the morning he starts playing wonderful things. Never before, he is very respectful ”. Music was always present in his home, he remembers: “I’ve had a piano all my life, my father was a musician, he played the saxophone, and my mother sang in choirs.”
Cámara premieres the new installment of Rapa (Movistar Plus). Once again in the shoes of Tomás, a former professor whom chance turns into a researcher and who is affected by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), an issue that the series helps to make visible. In this season, two unsolved cases cross his path again with that of the inspector (Mónica López). A thriller (which is already preparing its third season) that he has enjoyed as much as the Galician landscapes in which it was filmed. “The beaches of El Ferrol, and that decadent city that nobody loves and with which Mónica and I have fallen in love”.
What is the best of Rapa?
Mónica López, wonderful, and the entire team itself. A Galician people who have finally been able to make a generalist series and have gone to their land to tell what they know and want.
Of your character, what attracted you?
I don’t like their pain, but at the same time it is what attracts me the most. His fear of death.
Do you have any red lines when choosing a role?
I have said no to several, because the extreme suffering blocks me right now. Being a father has made me more sensitive and fragile. I am strong, but I avoid those characters that get inside you, hurt and take a tremendous toll.
How is it protected?
I don’t protect myself, no. I cry, I get emotional. I’m like this. Finally, I wanted to say what I feel! We men should cry more, we should be ashamed, because it is very nourishing, very relaxing and very liberating. Expressing fears, in your circle, of course, it is not about going out to a square and start shouting: “I’m sad, this world is crap.”
You like me, you exude good vibes, even tenderness. As it does?
(laughs). That’s because of the education my parents forced me to have. In the villages, you know, you have to say hello, be polite. My father said that they raised him so that when they offered him a cookie, he would answer: ‘No, no, thank you very much’ and he would only take it if they insisted. We come from that forced education. We want the cookie but offer it to someone else.
Has fame changed you?
If they greet me, I always try to smile. People are frankly polite with me. Once they told me: “Can I ask you an intimate question?” And I replied: “No, of course not. For the little intimate I have, lady! They know me from head to toe!”
And the critics, how do you fit them?
I think people forget bad jobs. As if you reached a tacit agreement with the public: that’s not what they talk about. It is very rewarding. I would tell you that only a couple of times in my life have I been told something unpleasant. In any case, after doing therapy, the opinions of others in general, so massive, do not influence me as before. I am already 56, there is already a temperance.
What do you remember about that youth in crisis, about bullying?
I will tell you that I did not identify the fact that they laughed at me or insulted me as bullying until I heard other cases and thought: “Come on, it has happened to me too.” So that behavior was more rooted in society, with animals, with some children. In my case, the years have passed and I don’t know how you manage it, but you do. Although something remains. Sometimes when I hear loud laughter near me, a kind of light goes on in my head. They are still saying, what a fun guy!, but I think: what are they laughing at? It happens to me less and less, but it’s something like childish that makes me alert.
How do you live with fame?
It is very curious. Change the perspective of others. To me, no one was listening, now suddenly I say: “I believe…” and you see that they are silent to see what I say. I would tell them: “Keep talking, damn it, what I’m going to say is nonsense.” They make space for you because they think you have an opinion and deep down I don’t have it on many things. I tell you from the heart.
How does he get along with himself?
Better every time. Your mistakes matter less to you. Have I screwed up? What am i going to do. The important thing is to recognize it.
A virtue.
I think I have found a profession that makes me grow, being with many different people, in wonderful teamwork, which enriches and makes me very happy, although there are more private things in my life that make me even happier.
How fortunate that they encouraged him to study dramatic art.
Of course. Well, I guess a lot of people knew he was gay before I knew it myself. They saw me much more fragile, that he played with the girls and… until you find out, 8 more years pass. I’ve always thought I’m late to places. Not anymore, but it used to happen to me. When I started at the drama school there were people who had already studied a career, they knew who Stanislavski was. I came from town at the age of 18 and still greeted when entering the subway. I was overwhelmed and it could have gone wrong, but that mixture of innocence, self-sacrifice, of not wanting to look back and push forward made it go well.
Was it hard for you to accept yourself?
There is an adolescence in which you don’t know what you like, you are 14, 15 years old, you are looking for yourself, you wonder if boys turn you on more, you don’t take it well. It made me shy, I was afraid of being rejected. And more in a town. Your father is preparing a future for you that you don’t like and you say to yourself: “I’m not going to be here.”
How does your 56 years suit you?
My knee hurts! Like my mother, who has always given her problems. And I say to myself: “My God, you already start. Get back in the gym, dammit!” For now I’m going to the pool.
Does the subject of the image press you?
No (laughs). I assure you not. After Vota Juan, my image… the more destroyed the better. There is a moment when I say: “Hey, I’m not like that, that underneath there is a more pleasant and positive person.”
What makes you happiest in your life?
My family, my children, my mother, who is 91 years old and has more energy than you and me put together. He arrives every night after ten at home in the village. Yesterday she told me: “Son, maybe I won’t call you because you’ll already be asleep… That’s my mother.”
His two children were born by surrogate pregnancy, a controversial and topical technique after the Obregón case. Do you think it should be approved in Spain?
I believe that a calm debate on the subject is needed. But it is that today there is no moderate conversation on any topic! So one thinks that it is better to spend a thick veil for a while and it will come. I would love a consistent, logical debate, where those who really know the subject would give their opinion. Sometimes I hear things that hallucinate: “My God, but that is not so! That awful”.
How was your experience?
Off the bus I would tell you about my life, but I must be cautious, because there is a lot of viscerality.
What he did explain is that “there is something very beautiful in this, we are a family of many people, we are not just 4”.
It is something so intimate, I have such an emotional part in all of this that what I say is going to be from the heart. It is my life, that of my children and that of another family, in the United States, that loves us and that we love. I don’t know what people think and deep down I don’t care. There are people who speak from moderation, because they have the data. I only have my story and that of people I know. And my experience has been magical, wonderful, and only emotion can do it.
What kind of father is he?
Well, I don’t know, when they are older let them think. But it is very difficult to be a father, I do see that.
He played a mediocre and corrupt politician in Vota Juan. They abound, right?
I don’t know, “I trust in the kindness of strangers”, as Blanche Dubois said in A Streetcar Named Desire before she was taken to the asylum. I don’t know if they take us to the asylum, but surely there are people who do it well. Although the radical, insulting and electoral discourse drives us crazy. Today it is difficult to be a moderate person with a speech, because what attracts attention is the silliness, the banal, the populist… But I think there will be wonderful people, well, if not, we would all get off the boat, come on.
Who convinces you more?
I vote for the left, for the party that leaves me closest to the “bus stop” of my house, even if it doesn’t take me to the very door. With social and environmental issues, essential for me, and two or three other things are convincing me.
What irritates you about others?
His insistent need to know everything about one.
How do you prepare your characters? Any ritual to get into the situation?
I don’t know how I focus them. I will confess to you that sometimes they come out and sometimes they don’t. One has weapons to hide, but there are characters that come inside and others that stay outside and you have to invent them. Some you chase because they tell your life, and others you have no idea who they are and that’s why they attract you, others you see them as distant and you think that you will never interpret them and then you see that they also have something of you, that this evil, bad ostia and that perversion are also there.
He has shot series like Narcos and The Young Pope. Road to Hollywood?
Every time I start studying English I feel like I’ve forgotten everything. They should give me a mute character or something like that. I open up more to Latin America, although I don’t say no to anything. If they trust, I go.
