Jorge Sanz (Madrid, 1969) reminds us of Augusto Monterroso’s dinosaur: it has always been there. He debuted before he was ten years old and in 1982 he was already appearing in four films, among them, Crónica del Alba. Valentina and Conan the Barbarian, where he played the boy who becomes Arnold Schwarzenegger as an adult. Since then he has never stopped working. At the end of the 80s and during the 90s, teenage girls covered their school folders with his face and he rode on success as if there were no tomorrow. But tomorrow, like winter, comes. It doesn’t matter, they are cycles and the merit is not to return but to maintain. And Jorge Sanz has been doing that all his life.
“That fame is circular was said very well by Serrat after Mediterráneo: one day you’re the host and then people eat the shit out of you. And they forget you or push you away. But you dedicate yourself to what you dedicate yourself to, you make another little song and you are back on top. They rediscover you. And every time that happens, it happens with more force. ‘But where were you?’, they ask. Well I’ve always been there. I have a family, bills to pay and I’m doing theater, TV, on tour, my little things. You’re just not always in the movie that breaks it or the trending series.”
The Jorge Sanz of 2024 is cooler than that hunky idol from the 90s – needless to say, he’s got it on his feet –, he sports a bushy beard and likes to stroke a Scottish lord’s mustache. Now he no longer goes out to bars or parties, he grows garlic and tomatoes in his garden and, naturally, he continues to devote himself to the script with the same enthusiasm as always. He has just released Por Tus Muertos, a comic road movie that he has presented at the Malaga Festival along with The Good Man and Methuselah. Quite a hat-rick from the guy who was arrested for starring in What Happened to Jorge Sanz?
In For your dead – directed and scripted by Sayago Ayuso – he plays Valen, drummer of a legendary heavy group from the 80s whose members (José Mota, Marta Belenguer and the enigmatic ‘el Pollo’ who will be covered by Carles Francino Jr) meet again forced by circumstances. “When I imagined the character as I was reading it I said to myself, damn, only I can do this! And note that he could be a dream character because every time there is a problem, it turns out that [spoiler]. Come on, this is done by Bruce Willis and we freak out.”
The wayward ex-musician and prone to psychotropic abuse that he plays in the film has a very close relative in the Benemérita, a matter that would fit the son of a colonel like Jorge Sanz: “When I started it was the time of exposure and for a military man it was hard that his son was always there after the tits. But my father was quite liberal and he said that if I liked it and he was good, he should dedicate me to what I liked. I had a great childhood. I arrived at a shoot, they put me on a horse, they gave me a sword and they took great care of me. When they ask me if cinema has taken away something from my childhood… What the hell is it going to take away from me. Because in addition to having a very good parallel education with my family, I have traveled, I have laughed, I was doing great in a job that I was good at… Then, if I went to Cuba for two months to make a movie, when I returned my “Father took me with him to the barracks to compensate (laughs).”
It is not so common to find an artist who recognizes in such a natural and unapologetic way the good side of fame: “When I was 14 or 15, I was starting to be famous and I was worried. Verónica Forqué, who was like my older sister, told me: ‘Don’t get overwhelmed. Just think that from now on you are going to be everyone’s second cousin. A cousin you see once a year, at Christmas. Well, you’re going to have that relationship with everyone.’ Seriously, going through life being famous and people liking you on top of that… it’s very easy. I have fun and the people seem great to me: they come, they greet you, how are the kids, come take a photo. Before, mothers came to me saying, ‘Hey, I don’t know who you are, but my daughter is hysterical and can you take a photo with her.’ Now girls come to me and tell me ‘I don’t know who you are, but my grandmother is hysterical, take a photo of her’ (laughs).”
Jorge has had a child every twelve years (they are 33, 21 and nine) and since the youngest suggests following in his footsteps, Sanz reflects on the thankless side of the job. And he warns: “They have lived among sets and sets, I took them on tour… But this is not easy at all. Michael Caine told it very well. A friend told him that his daughter wanted to be an actress and he replied ‘How long can your daughter last without eating?’ Actors who live only from acting are 7 or 8% and I am in that range of between 7 and 70 % who earn 12 thousand bucks a year.”
In any case, they have free rein to try and make mistakes, if that happens. He will be there to tell his experience: “I have the feeling that I have lived what I had to at every moment. At 20 years old I couldn’t sit still, I couldn’t stand the idea that someone could be having a good time somewhere and I wasn’t there. He was in all the sauces. But now I am enjoying it a lot: I live peacefully in my house with my children, my children, my grandchildren, I work, I have a garden and I am happy. “I have survived to now enjoy life.”