Antonio de la Torre (Málaga, 1968) has had a cold. At the end of the eighties, every Sunday night he got into one of the trucks of the company where his father was a transporter to go from Málaga to the Complutense University, where he studied Journalism. “I was always very complex. I remember being embarrassed that they thought I was a gamarús because of my thick Andalusian accent. And a certain complex of poor as well; I was in the cab of the truck wrapped in a blanket because the heating wasn’t working.” He graduated while trying to break into cinema and today he is an Illustrious Alumnus of the Complutense and the Spanish actor with the most nominations in the history of the Goyas.

Antonio de la Torre premieres Tratamos demácio bien a las mujeres, a story of maquis who resist Francoism with all lost and in which drama and black comedy are mixed with the work of Carmen Machi, Isak Férriz, Óscar Ladoire, Julián Villagrán, Luis Tosar , Gonzalo de Castro, among others.

He plays a militiaman called Doce because he lost 11 brothers in the Civil War. What did you do to empathize with the character?

In general, I’m always looking for an element that I can connect with: I’ve known loss, my parents, and in the ideological field, I’m not revealing anything to you if I tell you that I’m left-wing and that if I’d been born at that time I would have supported in the Republic

The film includes elements of magical realism that fit very well with the story, Clara Bilbao’s debut.

I was a jury at a short film festival and Clara was competing with one called Prohibido ajar cadaveres a basura with Juan Luis Cano as the protagonist. His universe freaked me out, his irreverence, so much so that I told him in a grim tone ‘If you ever make a movie, let me know’. And he did. When I read the script I thought ‘this film is signed by Tarantino and works like a bitch all over the world’. For my part, it seemed essential to me that the interpretation be very realistic in order to balance. And we had a military advisor, Joaquín Chamorro, to show us, among other things, how to move with a weapon on our shoulder.

Have you ever felt Doce’s desperation?

At a time in my life I lost a lot of hope. A friend told me ‘you don’t want to kill yourself, you want to die’. I was very young and I was worried about the future. I can understand the hopelessness and your question is pertinent: what is not known cannot be explained. This does not mean that to play a murderer I have to kill, but I do try to understand that impulse to violence that we all have had. Step out into your darkest side.

Perhaps because he was from the working class he decided to get involved. In the last generals he went last for Sumar in Málaga.

I was very worried because I imagined Santiago Abascal as vice-president of the Spanish Government. The people of Málaga offered it to me and I agreed to close the list as a symbolic gesture. Election night was crazy because I had just come from filming in Tortosa and I got on the plane convinced that when I landed I would be in a different country. But I am grateful that Catalonia and Euskadi rescued us.

Do you like Pedro Sánchez?

I don’t think he’s a leftist; in this sense, for me the best president of Spain so far has been Zapatero. But I recognize the skill. I think that Sánchez has more political shrewdness than ideological conviction. Everything that has been done by the left in the previous legislature was for Unides Podemos. And now it will surely be thanks to Sumar. But in the end, the division on the left is the squaring of the circle.

In Spain, bulls, automotive, agriculture, hospitality… Everything is subsidized. What does he feel when the right points to them this way?

One of the things that fascinates me most these days is that on mobile we have all the universal knowledge, and I feel it almost more like the journalist I was, it is the immediate possibility to contrast the information. A study by the Spain Film Commission shows that for every euro invested in cinema, two are generated: in direct and indirect jobs, advertising impact, etc. Cinema generates more wealth than spending, but there are also 700,000 people who work in the culture of this country and are a strategic sector as a society. In the end, it’s sad but there came a point when I gave up on dismantling this mess.

Do your famous dad’s kids hesitate at school?

No. Dani has said it once, but bah. Ah, Martina, she plays a small role in the film.