Carles Almagro, public relations 2.0 and ideologist of the soirée, notes on a betting table drawn with a marker on the window the pools of those gathered. In a few moments the Oscar red carpet will begin and the penthouse of the Sofía hotel in Barcelona is bustling with activity. Excellent catering, a ‘bartender’ who prepares cocktails and the cast of guest actresses and actors who take positions on the sofas in front of a 49” television. Everyone wears pajamas, as the dress code dictates. Most of it, silk. That night, someone will get lost on the way to the bathroom in the 320 m2 room whose first guest was Rafa Nadal and at least three couples will celebrate the experience as it should be. In their respective rooms, this is a movie date, not a Roman bacchanal.
Cristina Brondo, Almagro’s partner, explains its origin to us: “It was born from a certain boredom of always being very dressed up and it occurred to us to have a party in pajamas. This is the second time. “It’s about watching with friends a gala that excites us and in the most comfortable way possible.”
Macarena Gómez, Brondo’s partner in the comedy Desmadre Included, has just finished filming the film Hora y twenty. That night she went in a flash to drop off the AVE at the station for her husband, Aldo Comas, and she confesses herself exhausted. Not because she was her lover’s chauffeur but because of the hustle and bustle of joining the party that had just landed in Paris, witnessing her friend Teresa Helbig’s fashion show: “For me, it has been Teresa’s best collection to date, but by far,” she says. . Her bet for that night was Paul Giamatti, an Oscar candidate and his partner in the second season of 30 Coins, the fiction by Álex de la Iglesia that has taken HBO by storm. “I’m happy that they gave the character of an empowered woman, which Macarena Gómez already is, I mean they usually give me roles of crazy or weak women. In this series I am a full-fledged woman. And sexy. “Hey, maybe I’ve never taken advantage of my physique,” she reflects as she buttons her satin shirt. “Oh, I show the pitrera.”
Juanjo Puigcorbé, along with his partner, Lola Marceli, is also celebrating: we see him in Entre tierras and the second part of Machos alfa, he has worked in an Argentine dystopia under the orders of Rodrigo Cortés in which he plays the pope and presents in Madrid the work Roca Negra. It was during rehearsals for this show when he retaliated with an explosive interview given to La Vanguardia. Puigcorbé accused the ERC itself, which recruited him as second on the list for Barcelona, ??of having pursued his professional destruction. “When I entered politics, my home was in Madrid, I had no other. They offered me to enter the ERC lists for the 2015 municipal elections and I accepted, I left everything and came. Those years were turbulent and after leaving politics, I could not work on my land. I was a tourist in my city: paying rent and without work. Kafkaesque.”
The actor believes that his way of working at the head of Culture of the Barcelona Provincial Council, outside of cliques, must have stepped on several calluses. On the other hand, from Madrid they do not stop offering you projects. “And they didn’t hire me as a reaction because I told all this very recently. But notice that Flotats, Núria Espert, Marsillach left… And those who have not left, will. There is a very serious problem of cliques and numerus clausus. I have seen how they get paid a few bucks a month for doing what? We’re not doing well. The funny thing that Barcelona always had is that the government was 600 km from here and our civil society was very far from political control but now that control is everywhere.” Puigcorbé left politics in 2019. When asked if what he experienced in those years has shaken the convictions for which he accepted the ERC proposal, his answer is: “Man, I have some very important doubts.”
Ares Teixidó also left Barcelona for Madrid to join Zapeando. Returning on AVE, he realized that he didn’t have pajamas for the occasion, so Bruna Bravo, her ex? from her (she is not quite precise), he has lent her the one she is wearing. Ares has shown the talent to present his own program – he has shown it but now they have to share a table. “I resisted going to Madrid for a long time but now I think I should have done it sooner,” he reflects. Octavi Pujades sips soda while his partner, Anna Senan, doesn’t stop taking photos. He has been with the play El joc de la veritat for two seasons while he prepares a role that he will premiere in Madrid and rehearses a television project. He has two children and a good sense of smell: he got a movie, actor and actress right.
For Julia Creus from Tarragona, who failed in her bid for the Oscar to Bradley Cooper, several jobs in the US have allowed her to shake off the teenage role of Merlí. Out of love, she went to Asturias and returned to star in the play Setembre at the Santa Tecla festivities in her hometown. “There was no call that made me more excited than when they called me to do this to finally be able to do something at home. It was a show that filled me a lot: being a star singer, being Rosalía for a day as they say, the choreography… It embraced everything I think I am as an artist; “one of the most beautiful performances of my life.”
