Unforgettable are his Mamen, in ‘Periodistas’; Laura, from ‘Laura’s secrets’; Macarena, in the ‘Vota Juan’ trilogy, and Bolaño, from ‘Merlí: sapera aude’. Characters that penetrate the public, something in which it has a lot to do Maria Pujalte (A Coruña, 1966) who, since she wants them to be special, thinks about them a lot. She is now Isabel in the series SkyShowtime ‘The Invisibles’, a fearful and quiet woman who hides a great secret, with whom she suffers when she has to suffer and enjoys when she frees herself with dancing, the great passion of the actress since she was a child. A character who hopes that, like those, she will always accompany him.
How did you get the project ‘Las invisibles’? Is it perhaps that Héctor Lozano is turning her into her fetish actress after her intervention in ‘Merlí: sapere aude’?
Hopefully! It is true that we worked on two seasons of ‘Merlí: sapere aude’ with Bolaño and we got along very well. With him and with Menna Fité, the director. It was them again and a large part of the technical team and it was like: oh thank you! I am part of this family. Then he told me about the project… So when Morena Films and SkyShowtime picked up this series it was absolute happiness. Because they are very long processes until a series can become a reality. Every day celebrates one more everything that can finally be carried out.
Tell me about Isabel, a very different character, for example, from Bolaño. Even if they share the vulnerability.
Isabel is a woman who leads a difficult life, but is unaware of it. When we meet her she is in her 50s and .., and we already know that the menopausal process brings with it tremendous hormonal changes that greatly affect how you perceive reality and how you were able to overcome the difficulties of life& mldr; It is when the backpack, if it is loaded with slabs, begins to weigh a lot. A delicate vital moment. Isabel has a few stones in her backpack. She comes from a heartbreak that left her in debt, she is a hard worker, she is quiet… She is quite afraid of power, of her bosses…
And he witnesses something he shouldn’t have seen.
Yes. She is a witness to something that happens in the hotel, something very big, and the viewer will accompany her in that debate that she carries with her: what do I do with this? I keep quiet, I speak, I am afraid, I stay in the street, no. I can say it, but I’m betraying my colleagues… And, as if this were not enough, her brother appears and says: “Hello, I’ve stayed on the streeteee…” It’s a brotherly relationship of ‘I love you/I want to kill you, but stay’. He is a beautiful character for that: because he is human, very real. Hector has that ability to write characters very close to reality and to always see his vulnerability.
That secret that she keeps is like a great metaphor for those that hotel maids keep silent about..
The fact that they are invisible — being one of those people who are always relegated to one place, who are not the focus of attention, who is not looked at or who is more interesting, or more interested, to look at other places — allows them to see a lot . We all say: I would love to be invisible so I can be in places where,… Well, that’s a bit. They see the intimacy of people.
They could write a book on human flaws. Something that would happen to the waitress who advised them.
Yes. Rocío, our dear Rocío, the ‘coach’ that the production provided us with. She was a waitress in very relevant hotels for many years and she told us a lot of things. She lectured us and she talked to us a lot about what it meant to be there. About the operation of the hotel, about the guests… she told us anecdotes and about the relationship between them. Because it’s a tricky balance. They are under great pressure and are highly controlled and monitored. And living with that tension, with that pressure, is not good. But we already know that this happens in any company. As for you, they improve your conditions or put you in a badly high position… They divide people. And they have to deal with this on a daily basis.
It’s okay to talk about menopause, because it’s not common in fiction.
No, because no one cared. Since the story traditionally comes from a male gaze, how could they care to talk about the menopause? More has been said about the hormonal changes of adolescence. But for fiction, the beginning of autumn in people’s lives has always been of less interest. Because it alludes to less sexuality, I don’t know. But I find it interesting because it’s a difficult time in a woman’s life. And there are the topics of hot flashes and such, which for those who suffer from them are very bloody, but there are many more things. All the hormonal change is very important, because it affects your mood… And at a point in life when we think: we’ve already reached the top, we’re going to start going down (laughs), we have to deal with it. So you have to talk about it, normalize it, at times take away iron, also put a sense of humor in it… Give it a look. Name it.
One more protagonist of ‘Las invisibles’ is dance. We didn’t know she danced so well.
I have enjoyed like crazy! I have always liked to dance. I started when I was very little doing a lot of classical dance until I was 14 or thereabouts and it was a passion. But he also had a vocation, which was the theater, and since he did pure classical, he didn’t have physical conditions either. Then I did contemporary dance. I have always had a relationship with dance because I really like to dance.
And he has a physical form that allows it.
I have exercised all my life, because it is a healthy habit that makes me feel great and you notice that with continuous exercise your body is more alert and physical exertion is much more enjoyable. And dancing is a wonderful thing, it’s very liberating. Hector used this weapon very well. He thought: how do I lighten them, how do I want to imagine them freeing themselves as a writer… Dancing is very liberating and he uses this dreaming tool from the look of a partner who sees us all enjoying ourselves. It’s a very nice way to do it.
The viewer is also evaded from the reality they tell.
And it’s kind of crazy. Like very unexpected. It breaks reality and each chapter is very different, surprising. So we worked a lot, we rehearsed a lot, and I had a great time. It was a joy, a wonderful plus.
Related news
You are remembered for your characters such as Mamen, Laura… Would you like Isabel to be one of them?
Absolutely. Television, series, have something very close. Because you are in people’s houses. That so domestic is the place where my career has been developed mostly. You realize that you arrive a lot. And they keep telling me like this: from Laura, from Mamen, from Bolaño from ‘Merlí: sapere aude’, from La Macarena, from ‘Vota Juan’, which they have now broadcast again…. Every time you take a character you want it to be special for the public, and for that it has to be very special for you. Think: what is this woman like, what is happening to her, how does she move, how does she speak, how does she look at her… Because Isabel is a character that she looks at more than she speaks. Yes, of course I want. I want people to see ‘The Invisibles’ on SkyShowtime, to fall in love with the series and for all of them to leave an imprint on people’s hearts, which is somewhat the intention.
