Charo López: "With this nose and this profile, they didn't let me do comedy"

Actress Charo López, in 2019 Sergio Parra.

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The voice sounds like thunder on a silent night.

"Hi, I'm Charo."

And without necessity, he clarifies: "Charo López."

The actress, a myth (she laughs with the adjective: “I am only a human being”) of the Spanish interpretation, has no representative: she herself manages her projects, her times and her interviews, which she conducts by phone in front of the inexorable advance of the second wave of covid-19.

“I don't like interviews very much.

Well it depends on who ”, and he lets out a laugh: the illuminating beam that goes behind the crack in the storm.

"Like everyone else, I am not comfortable these days with the situation" imposed by the pandemic: a lot of distance and caution.

That is why at the Seminci in Valladolid, where he receives a Golden Spike two days after his 77th birthday, he has limited his contacts.

“When the award was announced to me, I was in a few days of uncertainty and concern, and suddenly this announcement made me rejoice, and remember the best of this profession.

I'm not kidding you, it's a fantasy that lasts a while.

We are with the virus lurking and the lowering of mood leads me to sadness ... Yes, you do things at home that you did not do before due to lack of time, such as ordering cabinets, or contacting friends, but it is not comfort ”.

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When López turned 65, he self-managed with the possibility of a certain retirement.

“Nothing, it was nonsense of youth.

I thought in my fantasy that my path would change and take me in other directions.

It has never been fulfilled: I work a lot more, I take care of more things, I am very tired ... I am not doing things as I would like, but who does them?

I do not".

And he assures that when the pandemic ends, he will say no more times to proposals that do not really satisfy him.

Has Charo López really never been free to reject, for example, projects?

“I have always been difficult, although at the moment of truth, as an actress, I have it in my DNA, I accept many stories.

Instead, I refuse many things outside of my work that I considered frivolous or nonsense.

I do not talk about my things that I am ashamed.

And without falling into it, it hasn't gone bad for me ”.

By the way, he brings out a well-mannered chill when asked about a recent shoot: "Next question."

The actress has known generations and generations of filmmakers, and she does not want to leave without remembering those she loved most: Gonzalo Suárez was the one who convinced her to be an actress, with him she has shot seven feature films and the series

(“Gonzalo It is a butterfly that does not allow itself to be classified in a cardboard, paraphrasing Cortázar, it is unique - do you know that during breaks from filming

he made me box with him? - and I have always had him close; now we are waiting to film, when the pandemic leaves us,

Mario Camus is grateful, among other things, for his character as Mauricia in

or his appearance in

Pedro Olea is considered another brother on the road.

And now he has found in Juanma Bajo Ulloa “a very free filmmaker”, with whom he has made two films, the last one,

, just released in Sitges.

Have you not lacked comedies?

“With this nose, with this Greco-Latin profile, with these black hairs and these shoulders, they never left me.

They pushed me to tragedy: to make me cry or to cry ”.

That is why she herself went to get Dario Fo to let him bring her to Spain

López studied Philosophy and Letters in Salamanca.

There she met and married the cinematographic historian and director Jesús García de Dueñas, and together they came to Madrid: he studied at the Film School, she worked as a teacher and did a little bit on stage.

His mention breaks the voice of his first wife, because García de Dueñas passed away last May.

“One day we went to a jazz festival in Barcelona, ​​we had dinner with Gonzalo Suárez and he

me to do

I was very young, very open to life and it seemed even normal to me.

I hesitated, and asked Jesus, who gave me my first lesson in independence: 'You have to do everything you like and want to do.'

He studied acting, chained success after success in film, television and theater.

“I lived through the best times of

where I learned about technique and cameras with fellow geniuses like Bódalo, Delgado or Puente.

I never knew how to adapt to the three cameras, I was very beast, and in reality, the TV that I did was film for television, like

Call it shot television.

I like to do the theater, I love the cinema to see it ”, he says.

Some thorn stuck?

“Well, not working with Luis Buñuel in

because the French actors union vetoed me ... What a pity!

And so many others, such as

by Pedro Almodóvar ... There are films that I should have made, and it didn't happen for just one reason: because I'm afraid, I hold back too much.

Some great proposals I rejected out of panic.

Come to this place of life, I regret it.

So scared, why?

For what?

Could it be the Salamanca that I carry inside from the Jesuit school? "

Machismo in Spain

There are still gender inequalities in Spain in 2020. “I believe that machismo in Spain has to do with male and female personalities, and with how we have organized this life. Honestly, in my profession as an actress I have not encountered machismo, and many times the names of the interpreters appear earlier in the credits, and that they charge more than men. Outside of work, each one manifests according to their principles ”. But the woman from Salamanca remembers that she has collaborated with few directors. Among them, Pilar Miró, Josefina Molina in 'Lo más natural', or Isabel Coixet. “Inequality comes from very far and very badly. It will take a long time to balance, and the female condition is highly influenced by external events, like the few female producers ", says the actress.