Almost two decades have passed since viewers first looked inside the portal at Calle Desengaño 21 and met all its neighbors, who would become undisputed stars of Spanish television in Aquí no hay quien viva.
A series that stands the test of time and that retains an incomparable legion of fans thanks to its humor, but above all thanks to its protagonists, who with their talent and charisma managed to conquer several generations. One of the most popular was Belén López Vázquez, played by Malena Alterio, a resident of the third floor and who managed to go from being a second-rate roommate to the absolute protagonist of the series.
Belén achieved the impossible: that an entire generation identified with her. A young woman in the middle of a crisis of her 30s, unable to hold on to a job because of junk contracts, sharing a flat because of said economic crisis and, to top it off, single.
A character that catapulted Malena Alterio to absolute fame here in Spain. Born in Buenos Aires, she is the daughter of renowned Argentine actor Héctor Alterio and Modesta ‘Tita’ Bacaicoa; She is also the sister of the also great actor Ernesto Alterio. It was to be expected that art and acting ran through her veins, and she began her career in Madrid with the comedy El Palo (2000), with which she was a finalist for the Goya Award for Best New Actress.
After finishing Aquí no hay quien viva, Malena Alterio continued her film career in Spain and Latin America as an actress, and the truth is that nothing has gone wrong for her.
After the end of the series in 2006, Alterio played Cris in La que se Avecina -sequel to Aquí no hay quien viva- for one season. In the purest style of Belén, Alterio continued to play a woman that everything went wrong for her, yes, in a more mature stage. However, the actress has assured several times that the role of her life has been and always will be that of Belén. In the program El Faro de La Ser, she came to say: “I am like Chanquete. Whatever happens, I will always be Belén.”
On her departure from the legendary Telecinco series, Alterio confessed on the Planet Calleja program the reasons that led her to leave La que se Avecina: “They offered me to do theater and I had been playing Cristina for a long time. It is also true that I had been doing theater for a long time of Bethlehem,” he said. “I wanted to change, do other things.”
The fame and the pressure to which she was subjected made her definitively make the decision to leave television. “At first it was very flattering that people would stop you and that fans would ask for photos, but the level of popularity grew so much that it was a bit of a horror movie at times, not being able to walk down the street,” explained the actress.
In 2010, he also recorded the film Five Square Meters in Alicante, in which he starred alongside Fernando Tejero, his faithful companion in Aquí no hay quien viva. In March 2011, she received the Fotogramas de Plata 2010 award for Best Theater Actress, for her play Madre Coraje y la hijos de ella.
At 49 years old, the actress can boast of having a solid career in the world of acting. She has been active since 1995, and has been lucky enough to try her luck in film, theater and television; being awarded various awards, including for her role as Belén by the Union of Actors up to four times or at the Feroz Awards, where she won the Best Leading Actress award for her role in the film Shame in 2018. One of her Recent successful projects have been the Amazon Prime Video and Mediaset series Señoras del (h)AMPA, in which she plays Lourdes Sanguino.
About his personal life, little is known. The actress has always been extremely discreet with her private life, and it is only known that in 2003 she married the actor and theater producer, Luis Bermejo, with whom she was until 2016, when they divorced. However, Alterio and Bermejo have continued to work together. Without going any further, in October 2021 they starred in the play Los que hablando, a show loaded with humor, written and directed by Pablo Rosal.
Alterio defines himself as a “kind and calm” person, although only in short distances. In an interview collected by El Comercio, the actress confessed that she had been going to therapy for a long time: “For many years I have been in therapy and I have analyzed myself. And welcome! Here there is still a certain rejection, it is thought that whoever goes “The therapy is very bad. And it’s not like that,” he said.
