Seated by the window of the first-floor bar, which looks out over the sea,
Leonor Benedetto
is concentrating on her monitor.
Engaged, she types fast, it shows that she has gymnastics with the computer.
With prior notice,
Clarín
interrupts "one of the most valuable moments of the day" to talk with the actress, but above all with the reflective and thinking woman.
"I am writing about myself, yes, I have lived many things, many years and
I am pouring into the text never-revealed experiences
that it is time to tell them," she announces with suspense from the Sheraton hotel in Mar del Plata.
Elegant, dressed to the nines, wearing "Fred Astaire" shoes, Leonor closes her PC, orders a coffee with milk and resumes.
"Since I arrived at the beginning of the year I began to write with the idea of releasing a book, I already had it in mind for a long time, it was necessary to put it into practice.
My memories? I don't know.
How do I write? Simple, austere , with few adjectives. But I go everywhere with my little notebook, something always appears to write down in the most unexpected places. And if there is no notebook, a napkin, or a sheet from the diary".
"I am writing a book about myself, about my life, there are stories that have never been revealed," says Leonor Benedetto.
Photo: Marcelo Carroll
He says that he has an informative routine in which he reviews all the news portals.
"I like to be aware of what is happening in my country and I follow political analysts, I
admire Alejandro Borensztein's column
, what a pen, what sharpness. I also like Carlos Pagni's editorials."
He prefers not to delve into how some actors became fanatical about the Kirchnerist ideology.
He lists a few with an incredulous smile.
"The number of beautiful people who are so ugly, how scary."
It's been ten years since Leonor came to Mar del Plata and on that occasion she did so with the well-known work "Brujas".
Her return has her as one of the protagonists of "Lost Mind", the piece by José María Muscari in which Benedetto puts himself in the shoes of a judge of the Nation who suffers from Alzheimer's.
"I must admit that I was prejudiced about Muscari, about whom I knew very little, is that wrong?
Prejudices are usually stupid, but they are still prior judgments about something or someone."
"Later I met him, I noticed a highly developed head and to this day
I thank José María for helping me lose my sense of ridicule
, something that always paralyzed me," remarks Leonor, who embodies that character that she enjoys so much on the stage, "an intelligent woman, but also crazy and half stupid".
"I returned to Mar del Plata after 10 years, when I did the play 'Brujas'. I returned to the city and found it splendid."
Photo: Marcelo Carroll
She says that she found "a splendid Mar del Plata" and that
she likes to get away alone with her car.
"I really enjoy it, I go where the current takes me and I come back when I want. I am one of being alone anywhere, but here in the hotel, writing, I fully enjoy myself, just like when I want to go out. Nothing better than being well with one... It's very difficult to share time with another... I don't like to be the anecdote of the day either, so I like to do mine. Still,
I lead a monastic life
, of great pleasure".
He rediscovered yoga
and it is one of the very few activities he does in company, since he takes classes here in Mar del Plata, together with Julieta Ortega, a castmate.
"If I go to the beach? -he kills himself with laughter-. I see the beach, with luck, from the window, like now... I don't go, nooo,
I haven't sunbathed for 40 years, I wouldn't even do it they will pay me.
I have a lot to do here -he caresses the lid of his computer-, but I recognize that the sea is special, it produces something philosophical. Did you see that they call this city La Feliz?"
She is amazed by how she sees ordinary people.
"It strikes me to see tranquility, warmth, education.
I see people close to that state that seems almost impossible in this country, which is happiness
. At least where I move I do not perceive violence and it seems strange to me, because it is a a city that overflows. And the explanation I find for it is
the connection that occurs with the sea
. On the other hand, Buenos Aires and the surroundings seem so hostile to me and this virulence is blamed on Covid, on the consequences of the anger that remained with people".
Passionate "instagramer"
For some time, more precisely during the confinement of the pandemic, Leonor had
an urgent need to communicate with people
, but it was not clear how.
And she opened an Instagram "to write chronicles" against what her children suggested: "But mom, people don't read, on Instagram she posts photos, but don't write."
Challenging, Leonor began to choose a topic from reality, with a particular reflection of hers.
Today she has almost 34 thousand followers
.
"I found with my chronicles on Instagram a wonderful way to communicate with the other," he says.
Photo: Marcelo Carroll
Just as she is packed with her book,
her Instagram chronicles
, which she publishes only on Sundays and choosing a topic after an intense pre-selection of points, have her extremely stimulated.
"As I read the news a lot, I write down issues that catch my attention and on Saturday I choose the theme and on Sunday I publish. I've been doing it like this for more than a year and it gives me great pleasure to invite others to think, to
show the reality from another point of view
than what the media usually do".
Visiting his account (@leonorbenedetto_ok) allows you to find a carefully chosen cover photo and an austere, objective and non-biased text.
Among the latest posts are
the episode that Moria Casán lived on the beach
, the sales frenzy of Harry's book from England, child poverty translated into millions of children in Latin America and of course there was no shortage of the World Cup in Qatar and he wondered if
"The honor of a country was seriously at stake in a football match."
She even reasoned about the importance, or not, of an award that she was given as an outstanding personality of the City.
Leonor Benedetto talks about her fascination with social networks.
"On Instagram I found a way to reach people," she says.
Photo: Marcelo Carroll
At 81 years old, Leonor speaks of fulfillment, of the need to do things
and of a dilemma to which she cannot find a solution: "I need to rest my head, but it is impossible for me."
She says that she has a lot of energy, not only physically, but also intellectually.
"I like to do it from another place, as it happens to me now with writing. Why do I do it?
I suppose out of necessity, a need to do for the world, a need for recognition
, although it sounds horribly vain, but it's the truth. Someday, when I'm dead, I would like someone to say:
'Look how good this is, Benedetto wrote it
. "
Fascinated with her social networks, Benedetto explains that she publishes on Sunday nights, something like a ritual, "because for many people it is a day, an awful moment, because not everyone has a job that necessarily gives them pleasure.
So every Sunday I appear, as if I were a little light.
But people tell me, I'm not making it up... 'I wait every Sunday to read to you'. If he pressures me? No, not at all, I just get unbearably vain, but I celebrate myself ".
He's not afraid of pushback, he says.
"I don't provoke them either,
people don't question me or insult me because I write in a way that I don't judge
, I don't offend, but if I question or mess with critical issues, I do it carefully, with subtlety."
my grandmother louise
Few know that Leonor was born and raised in Paraná, Entre Ríos.
She recognizes that she has few things left of the Paraná woman, but some powerful memories of her.
"The omnipresence of the river was part of my life, of my routine, the Paraná is what gives life to the place where I was born, but I must admit that
I am not a nostalgic woman
. It did not happen to me at all when I lived in Spain nine years... Coming to Mar del Plata for three months does not make it difficult for me, the only thing I miss is Filomena, my kitten".
"I am a woman who puts down roots anywhere, I adapt, I do not miss, I am zero nostalgic," says Leonor Benedetto.
Photo: Marcelo Carroll
He says that he is not an uprooted person, but he compares himself to the camalote, "a plant that, once a year, comes down from the Amazon to the Paraná River, forming a very consistent green carpet on which little mules, otters walk... And
I am like the camalote, I have my roots on something that moves
. I am like that, I adapt, I take root wherever work takes me, I don't miss my home, my bed, my bathroom... I'm here and I'm fine".
Memories of Paraná return, he liked the idea of traveling through time and the great figure of his childhood emerges, the main postcard of that wild landscape:
Luisa, the maternal grandmother
.
"I am Luisa Leonor," she points out.
"She was a generous woman, I don't remember her ever complaining...
It wasn't until ten or fifteen years after his death that I realized how poor he was.
And yet he never let me know.
But when I returned to Paraná a long time later
and I returned to that house that marked my life, there I noticed how little I had and
how much it did and gave me
".
Luisa was waiting for her to have a snack with "the best coffee with milk I've ever had again. Something that can be simple, she did like the gods. And at night she prepared
my favorite dish at the time: fried liver with onion. To suck your fingers."
He nods like someone who realizes something a long time later.
"It's just that there was nothing else, it was barely enough for that. But Luisa
was a person rich in imagination
, very mischievous, funny and gossipy. Always jovial and active, without a fucking weight, but she had everything else that a millionaire would envy ".
Leonor's face is transformed, remembering, perhaps, the most important person from her childhood.
She says she never ate liver and onion again, "but just remembering it, the taste comes back to me."
She emphasizes that she never saw her falter, "she had guts, always alone, because
her grandfather sent her to move, he abandoned her as he should and with six children
- she ironically herself - without consideration ".
Grandma Luisa gave everything for her granddaughter Leonor "but
there were no looks, gestures of affection, or hugs. Love for her was something else
... coffee with milk with bread and butter, which made me happy, or being able to repeat fried liver with onions. Or she made my bed so I could sleep in and put those sheets that seemed starched. She adored me, but there was no physical contact and we had to contextualize... We're talking about more than 70 years ago."
From the window you can see the rainy sunset and in a little while Leonor will go to the theater.
"It's the only thing that I have clear about my future... Tomorrow God will provide. And
foreseeing little has gone well for me, you know? Always, from a very young age, I knew that I would have a very good life
, even without having the slightest idea of what I was going to do. But I was convinced that it would have a good destiny, like the only film I wrote and directed, which was called
'El buen destino'
, one of my favorite phrases".
Silver Sea. Special delivery
ACE
look too
Julieta Ortega: "I do not dare to sunbathe in a bikini, I have a cruel look on me"
Alejandro Fiore: the simulator that spends the summer doing theater and the WhatsApp group of Lampone and company