She had no vocation as a mother.
I evaluated my successive partners… and I didn’t see it. Maybe with one I could have…
But not.
Today she would be a wonderful and loving grandmother.
What would you teach your grandchildren?
Have confidence in yourself: it is essential. It was missing for me. Because of my parents.
As they were?
Good and decent. I was his only child: they overprotected me and I inherited insecurity.
Did they support you as an actress?
When I was twenty years old, they picked me up from the theater.
For protecting her from the night.
Being an actress seemed unseemly to them.
What else would you have wanted to be?
I visit archaeological sites, the floor where history stepped: making history documentaries! I would be Indiana Jones.
Yes, you did journalism on television.
Traits, interviews for TVE: the best of my career with La Escopeta Nacional.
Remind me of some of your interviews.
Indira Gandhi. He gave me twenty minutes, but he liked me: we shared two days. I met the Sikh bodyguard at her house who would murder her shortly after…
Another interview.
The king of Thailand asked me: “How was Andorra?” I’m still shocked! Or General Gutiérrez Mellado: he told me how the guard who was watching them in a small room on 23-F looked at Felipe and Guerra… while he was stroking his submachine gun.
They were good interviews.
But some sometimes asked me “who writes the questions for you?” I was more offended by that than if they called me a “whore”! I prepared them, my soul is that of a journalist.
And he mentioned The National Shotgun…
One day Berlanga told me: “You are very funny,” and he wrote my character for me.
There you are formidable.
While filming he ordered me: “Put blood sausages!”, and I invented “what can happen?” or “look, Jordi, rovellons!”
Unforgettable.
If one day I delayed putting in blood sausages, he would scold me: “I hired you to invent funny things!” he would say.
And you, are you very happy?
I? I would have spent my life filming films like The National Shotgun. I was tired of always playing a pretty and unfriendly lady, evil and rich!
He had filmed Spanish Fury in 1975.
Groundbreaking, extreme, wild, such a stale film had never been filmed, clearly the predecessor of Almodóvar. A delirium of Paco Betriu. Franco was attracted by the title… and asked to see it.
And did you see her?
Yes, in El Pardo. We gave Franco the last push to the grave: Chinatown, whores, thugs… I am a nymphomaniac girl, I wear a Barça bikini and fornicate with Cassen, in front of a voyeur neighbor.
Crazy provocation.
I felt modesty, but I understood that those excesses were liberating… and that they opened new paths. To Almodóvar, I tell you.
Did you also see Franco’s film Doña Carmen Polo?
I imagine her next to him, but… it’s impossible for him to endure her until the end!
In They Know That, David Trueba’s new film, you return to the screen.
I interpret myself as Eugenio’s first television interviewer that I was… I wish I had that vitality today!
Of the many legendary actors you met, who do you miss?
To Luis Escobar, intelligent, funny and cultured. And to Fernando Fernán-Gómez: it was a luxury to listen to him.
Which actress do you admire the most?
Meryl Streep. Supreme! He thoroughly prepares each character… Oh, and I worked with Marcello Mastroianni!
Big! How about in person?
Nice, pleasant, simple, the boy from the neighborhood! Adorable Roman. I love Rome. I almost married a Roman… but he wanted me to cover my shoulders on TV. And not.
Have you ever been sexually harassed?
A guy in an office, yes. I got away, tore up the check he was giving me in his face, came home, filled the bathtub, soaked in it and cried. I told it later to my partner. I didn’t denounce that guy: today he would do it.
Do you approve today of the men who were your successive partners?
I made friends with everyone. I lack jealousy: no one is anyone’s property! I do ask one thing of a partner of mine: not to lie to me. That’s why I approve of all the men I was with… except one.
Do you want us to talk about him?
Let’s better talk about Alexander the Great. He Created a world! His grave has not yet been found. I would give everything to find her!
What is your strong point?
The sense of humor.
