Oblivious to all social conventions and intoxicated with alcohol and love, a couple dances their delirium to the sound of Nina Simone. A carpe diem of joy and fantasy. A chimera based on a precarious sense of reality to which Sílvia Abril dedicates herself with an open heart. Along with Lluís Villanueva and Lua Amat, she stars in Esperant Mr. Bojangles, based on the successful novel by Olivier Bourdeaut.
After the rehearsal of this play, which will arrive on February 2 at the Poliorama theater in Barcelona, ??directed by Paco Mir, Manuel Outumuro explains to the actress in the dressing room that he will portray her “like a diva.” “Diva me?” she laughs. And laughter and humor fill the afternoon. Because April, although she tears easily, is very clownish. And, for a season now, she has also defined herself as “metacyclical,” because “I am neither less nor on pause,” she explains.
Do you like fashion or does it overwhelm you?
I’m not one of those who say, but what should I wear? It’s not difficult for me to do photo shoots because I’m very playful.
Any complex?
Out complexes, out, out, out. Of course, fashion is gaining medals that it has not yet earned, it is not enough to open a plus size store. On the catwalks, the place where they show what they do, they have to show that they no longer choose skeletal models.
In his book Losses of Laughter he says that he doesn’t feel like sex that much…
The disappearance of estrogen changes us as women, so let’s start accepting that woman and that sex that we may now want, which has more to do with caresses, and does not have to involve penetration. It’s a great topic.
And how to make men understand that, in her case her husband, Andreu Buenafuente?
That’s the battle. Luckily, I have a man who is super understanding and super open and we have talked about it. Mariona Bassa made a documentary about menopause for TV3. I saw him with Andreu and I told him: “Here you will understand many things; that I am not capricious, that I am in a phase where psychological things happen to me caused by physiological ones”… It is difficult to understand if you are not a woman.
Many taboos must be expelled…
We are a generation that has to be at the service of the one that comes behind us, breaking walls and glass ceilings. Do you know the gesture that dogs make when they get out of the water? Well, I see myself doing it with the stereotypes and education that I carry.
It is defined as metacyclical…
I have accompanied a series of women in a project by Lydia Zimmermann called the metacyclics. We want the word menopausal to disappear, because we are not less nor are we in a pause, we are in a different cycle. We want to avoid a term that is derogatory and negative.
Is a good friend better than a good lover?
Absolutely. A good friend, a good wine, a good dinner… Come on, therapy to last for weeks, really.
The actors, in each project are a different person and live other lives. How do you do it: add those personalities to your own or avoid anything that influences you?
When I finish a project, I close the door and it stays there. But I learn things, including how to see the world and the people who make it up differently. There remain the emotional trips that you have taken… Like Aristophanes’ The Assemblywomen that I took in Mérida, a trip with six women in which I learned a lot about sisterhood. When Esperant Mr. Bojangles finishes we resume the tour. So I closed that door but now I open it again and Sílvia, who will have experienced Esperant Mr. Bojangles, will surely be a little better. And probably a bit crazier. Because something will stay with me from the madness of Jeanette, Camille, François, Renée…
What do you learn from your daughter, Joana?
He is 11 years old and grows up embracing differences normally. She doesn’t make derogatory comments to a person who has green hair, or walks down the street dressed super eccentric… There is an integration of difference that amazes me and I like. I remember a time when you still had to wear a mask into pharmacies. I was with Joana and a friend of hers. I gave my daughter a pink mask and her friend a blue one. I got angry: ‘Mom, why do you assume that the rose is for me? You have to change that.” He doesn’t stop giving me lessons.
“At 50, the damn crisis doesn’t catch you by surprise. It catches you half blind, menopausal and with your first ailments,” she writes. Also forgetful?
I have always been. There must be different types of memory, because it will take me more or less to learn a text, but I do it without problems. But I am amazed when people tell anecdotes from when I was 14 or 15 years old. I have amazing vital amnesia.
Perhaps it is that she is not so much anchored in the past as anxious about the future…
I have an inertia that often makes me turn the page in a way that is too brutal, which is to forget everything, even death. I am taking a journey towards acceptance. This year I lost my father; Concha Velasco has died, with whom he had a very special relationship, and last year we recovered the story of Andreu’s grandfather, Mariano, who died in the Civil War… Now I am more for the battle of living in the here and now to squeeze more out of life, to not tiptoe.
What’s not damn funny to you?
Well, the war. I’m not one bit amused by the ability we have developed to get used to seeing images on the news every day. I have a hard time accepting injustice… I don’t like bitter people either. I can’t handle toxic environments, and there is a lot of that and it’s getting more and more.
Have you found them?
At the Institut del Teatre, a second-year teacher told me that as long as I was fat I couldn’t be an actress. She destroyed my life and gave me an eating disorder. I wasn’t bulimic because I didn’t vomit, but almost. Later, luckily, I have not had experiences of abusers in management, nor sexist colleagues. The teacher was a bitter actress who was not active and paid for her frustration with some students.
Being a comedian, what has been the moment that you cried the most?
I cry very easily. The last time I cried a lot, that I couldn’t stop, to the point that I couldn’t speak, was in the rehearsal at the end of the show, with everything explained by the person who plays my daughter, Lua Amat.
What excites you?
I can get excited because my daughter tells me: “Mom, I love you, have a good day.” I get excited very easily when I go to see a theater performance, when I go to the cinema… I get really excited. She is a bit like the protagonist of Mr. Bojangles, in that we are pure emotion. I am very permeable because I try to always be connected through the good and the bad.
Are the complexes you talk about in the book real? The nose, the eyebrows, the hair…
I was self-conscious when I was a teenager about my nose. With age, you relativize. I’m tired of hearing about antiaging and longevity. I love beauty treatments, which make me feel better, but not to make me look younger. I will not fight that perpetual battle against time, I want to have the wrinkles that accompany me along the way. If you fight against time, let it be to be healthy, to be strong, to be able to play with your daughter, to dance without problems. I want to be agile, flexible, mentally active, and be the age I am. But hey, if I have to recognize any complex it would be the “bulging out” of the arms.
For an actress, wrinkles are a greater pressure than for an actor…
Someone has to play the role of the older woman. Ángela Molina, for me, is the inspiration, I find it fascinating. She is a character. I wish I were as good an actress as she is. I’m not 30 years old anymore, but a neighbor told me that when they tell her that she doesn’t look like she’s 56, she responds: “I’m also 30, I’m also 7, I’m also 12, I’m also I’m 40… I’m all these ages.”
How is it maintained in the form?
I have Lola, my coach for 9 years. She lives in the mountains of Madrid and I train with her online for strength, mobility… What I need now is bodybuilding, to combat the loss of estrogen and activate the metabolism. Endorphins, serotonin, all my energy comes from sport. You also burn stress, it works very well for me for coconut.
The protagonist’s husband says she is pretty, danceable and melancholic. Which of the three adjectives does she most identify with?
In the performance I dance and dance… I would dance the entire performance. She is a woman who doesn’t like reality and creates a world for herself, for her husband and for her daughter, to make life more fun, more exciting, more everything. The problem is that she is getting out of hand. It is a work that talks about mental illnesses. She is diagnosed with schizophrenia, among other things, but what about the happy life she has had?
It was difficult for her to get pregnant, what would have happened if she had not been a mother?
Motherhood changes you as a woman, it gives you a brutal shock and then you have to go back to being who you were, because you disappear to relocate. It is wonderful and at the same time disconcerting. Nobody told me that I would cry more than the baby. Missing it is a shame but nothing would have happened. When my sisters began to be mothers I had a phase of obsession. But at that time I had a partner who didn’t even want to hear about being parents. We separated and I told myself well, that’s it, it can’t be. And when I relaxed, the person appears and says, let’s try it. I am very much in favor of couples who decide not to have children. And you are not less of a woman if you have not been a mother. What’s more, I admire people who ethically decide that they do not want to bring more people to this planet that is turned like a sock.
How do you protect your daughter from social media?
Your school supports smartphone entry as late as possible. We parents have agreed. We have not marked their age or grade. We want to be flexible and we’ll see, but at the moment, they don’t have it in the first year of ESO and we will try to have it in the second year of ESO either. They are not old, their brains are not mature enough to manage the information they receive through social networks.
And how do you protect yourself?
I don’t have Twitter, I have Instagram and I hardly read the comments, because it’s a waste of time. A person helps me, because I have accumulated commitments, from the theater, from the film and that is very slave. The brave and admirable thing is not having networks. I would like to, but not yet… I love socializing and WhatsApp makes it a lot easier for me.
[April is also about to release Parenostre, the biopic of the Pujol family that takes place on the day the family found out about the publication of the news of the undeclared accounts. Her role is that of Victoria Álvarez, ex-girlfriend of Jordi Pujol Ferrusola. A few months ago she presented the latest film by Jordi Sánchez and Pep Antón, Alimañas, as the protagonist with Carlos Areces, Loles León and Sánchez himself, and on Netflix she participates in the series Every time we fall in love].
Have you made a list of resolutions for 2024?
I haven’t had time yet. But, I am a big list maker. Shopping, things I have to remember, trips I want to take. I have made it my goal to visit Iceland before the end of 2024. Traveling is one of the things I like the most.
I understand that Andreu Buenafuente is more homely than you…
He is more of a homebody, he could live in his wide inner world, he paints more than he talks. I need to have a coffee with a friend, talk to one, another… But Andreu loves to travel, because it allows him to get away from here and be him, not to be known. I thought he was well-known until I started dating someone more famous and then you realize how cumbersome popularity is. But we handle it well and we like to travel precisely for that reason.
Where can we find it if it disappears?
I am very easy. And with very small things I already hallucinate. We know where we can’t find anyone. And it doesn’t have to be a particularly exclusive and very expensive place. And we can go to a friend’s house, we have them everywhere…
What place gives you the most peace?
I have discovered that nature heals me. It can be a forest or the sea.
And what gives you energy?
My job, dancing, playing sports, going for a walk in the forest. Also nourish the brain, learn something new.
What is the place that has impacted you the most?
Madagascar amazes me every time we go. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. We have been collaborating with the NGO Yamuna for more than ten years. He takes prostitute mothers off the streets loaded with unwanted children. They are trained in agriculture, crafts, clothing… and the children are educated and given one meal a day. We have taken Joana, because there she has an adopted little brother.
Any motto to guide you?
“Here and now”, or “importance, just right”. There is also one from Shakespeare that we keep in mind at home: “What happens is expedient.” And Andreu’s phrase “laughing is the only way out” is also another motto that we practice a lot.
