That afternoon, Gervasio Deferr (Premià de Mar, 1980) was so emotional that he ended up crying at his parents’ house. In the morning I had visited for the first time the filming of the series The Great Jump, one of Atresplayer’s big bets for 2024, in which Óscar Casas (Barcelona, ??1998) gets into the shoes of the gymnast and which is based on the biography that he himself recounts in his book of the same name.
Last week, the Olympic champion visited the Pavelló d’Esports de Granollers, converted for a few days into the headquarters of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, one of the moments of glory that the gymnast experienced years before falling into a pit of self-destruction due to his addiction to drugs and alcohol.
During his visit, Gervasio advised the team of the series produced by Diagonal (Banijay Iberia) with some details of those days in Sydney. As before he had done with Óscar, to whom he spoke above all about his mentality. “At 20 years old, I was a killer and I went out on the court without fear, at full speed, like a caged lion,” recalls the winner of two gold medals in jumping in Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 and a silver medal on floor in Beijing 2008. “I wanted to take on the world. And now it is worth having managed to stop the world from eating me.”
Someone who has lived only for one sport since he was eight years old had a lot of numbers to become that killer, reflects Óscar. “But what happens when he stops training and you are no longer on the track? In life you have to slow down. Not everything is about winning, because if you lose later, you have to fight with your internal monsters,” says the actor.
When Gervasio found out that Óscar was going to play him he thought “oh man, he’s too handsome.” But then, in person, “I saw that he had some gestures similar to me.” And now, during filming, he confirms that “there was no one better suited to play me; he is doing spectacular.”
And Oscar has fully committed to this role. He has trained for two months at the High Performance Center in Sant Cugat and has followed a diet, including protein shakes, to gain weight and muscle (he has gained more than ten kilos). Thanks to this, he performs most of the gymnast’s movements and only requires a double for the most complicated scenes. After this physical effort will come another, when he has to lose weight to embody the Gervasio of years later in his fall to hell.
Although there was a good feeling between the two, the actor now prefers to keep a little distance until he has recorded all the scenes of the young Gervasio. “At first I thought I would want to spend all the hours in the world with him, but then I realized that he wasn’t going to help me. Suddenly I saw the final result, the spoiler, and my head started to convulse.” Gervasio understood it.
The autobiographical book was for the gymnast “one more step” in his recovery that could also serve to help younger people learn from their mistakes. Now, with the series and the hook of his protagonist, he hopes that his life lesson will reach more people. “Excessive self-confidence can sometimes be negative and no matter how much there is something in life that you are good at, you may only be good at that and that in everything else you have to learn. I was a genius at gymnastics but a disaster at life. And I had to learn.”
The one who has already taken note is Óscar. “I have given up alcohol,” he states forcefully. “This story perfectly tells how addictions can self-destruct and I wanted to face this project by giving something of myself. Giving up alcohol seemed like the healthiest thing to do.”
Gervasio took advantage of his visit to the filming of the series to walk through the Pavelló d’Esports that will also be transformed into the Olympic venues for Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. He is proud that some students from the gymnastics club he runs in the La Mina neighborhood from Barcelona participate in the series, including Leo, who plays him at about 10 years old. “He has always reminded me a lot of me.”
She is also excited to share this stage with her family, especially with her mother, whose health episode was the trigger for her to react, “when she had a heart attack and I can’t go see her because of how bad she was.” Now her mother tells her that she can die peacefully because Gervasio “is the adult he needs to be.” The best triumph for a triple Olympic medalist.
