What is Suárez like?
My character in Money Heist? Decided police, who acts, measured… or it seems so.
Special operations.
“Very credible: I see myself!”, a real police officer from that branch tells me.
Good compliment to you.
“You make good out of bad,” they tell me. Bad? Suárez only seeks to stop the bad guys! To the attackers of the Mint Factory.
The viewer signs up for the bad guys.
It is the success of La casa de papel: let the bad guys be the heroes. The assailants, the ones in red, are the good ones here.
His role has brought him worldwide fame.
I learned from everyone on the set. And I cried…
What a day?
I arrived on set relaxed, believing that I would be filming an action without text. And the director gives me a piece of paper written by his hand, a long text: “Learn it, we’ll shoot.”
What a robbery.
I swallowed my tears. The scene went well.
Will you film more seasons of the series?
It’s been five seasons. I’m unemployed.
No proposal?
I could tell you “I’m in something that I can’t tell you yet.” No: I have no proposals.
And I don’t see him distressed.
I have novels to write… and I write.
Now publish a novel: Let this house burn with us inside.
A thriller with violence and sex: I try to extract all the possibilities of language, make it sensory and create atmospheres.
The good poem contains the five bodily senses, said Lorca…
Ah! I have said many texts by Lorca…
Were you first an actor or a writer?
I was a child with nervous tics, hyperactive and attention deficit… undiagnosed. And I went through hemiplegic paralysis. I only completed my EGB studies.
And you stopped studying?
I started FP, I left and helped my father in his fishmonger in the Aluche market.
What did you learn there?
What an artist he was selling! She shouted: “Eastern tuna for elegant people!” or “The best sardine, on this corner!”
Selling fish with art, very good.
I learned his ease in treating everyone, at the same time I learned nerve.
Nerve?
My father had proverbial self-confidence: that’s how he even managed to sneak into the Atlético de Madrid box… and I with him!
Mattress fans?
As a child in Madrid, being athletic meant challenging bullying: that built my character!
Describe that character to me.
I celebrate the journey more than the goal. The prize is the journey. “You’re going to succeed,” they tell me about my novel… “I’ve already succeeded! –I respond–: I have written and published it!
Due action matters more than its eventual fruit, teaches the Bhagavad Gita.
Connecting with my concerns is more important than social or professional status.
And your concerns are…?
Tell a good story.
When did you start counting them?
At 14 years old I wrote rap lyrics, to feel part of a group… I was inspired by Jim Morrison.
What have you worked on?
Store restocker. Bodybuilding instructor and boxing teacher, in a gym. Nightclub doorman. Maintainer at a golf club, in London…
There I would meet interesting people…
Rich, very rich. In the gym he met Kenneth Branagh and Sarah Ferguson.
What was that Mario like?
I was looking for myself, timid, still disconnected from my essence. I was passionate about nothing. I returned to Spain and worked as a construction material salesman.
Did you connect there with your essence?
I owe that to a friend: she caught my sensitivity and encouraged me to join a theater group…
What’s up?
With poems, song lyrics or theater or film scripts, he brought stories to life. He was already 35 years old when they paid me for the first time as an actor, in Águila Roja.
Thirteen years ago… and until today?
Yes, I already aligned myself with myself. And then came The Money Heist.
Does the physique determine the roles?
My size, appearance and voice give me roles of authority… or villain.
What character would you like to play?
Someone with sensitivity and humanity, one who evolves.
It will come, for sure.
Now, in the meantime, I enjoy writing. I heard this phrase from a friend: “I fled from you like someone fleeing from a burning house. “You were the house and you were the fire.” And about that I built a story… with details that I remembered from my time at the golf club in London.
