Hugo Silva: “I don't intellectualize anything, I simply act”

See you at mid-morning on the day of the 2024 Goya Awards nominees' dinner. Meet at one of those cafeteria-bakerys with dozens of varieties of coffee and sourdoughs, next to the Rastro, near your house, where you know him and no one bats an eyelid when they see the famous film and TV star.

Opposite, an imposing gypsy patriarch is sitting in the sun at the door of one of the neighborhood's typical junk shops, presided over by the portrait of an anonymous gentleman, from the dismantling of an apartment, and in the middle of a traffic of walkers and delivery vans. .

When he appears, Hugo Silva asks, first of all, to be able to have a coffee and something solid on his body.

He comes from the gym, he is starving, and he eats a piece of toast with egg and avocado placed on the corner window, overlooking the landscape and the countryside.

He is in his element.

I suspect you're bored with promotion interviews.

No?

It's my job and my obligation to get excited about them, but most of the time it's answering the same question many times.

Then, I go on autopilot and have to draw on reserves so as not to get bored.

Do you evade easily?

Yes, I'm always like that.

It is not a professional question.

It's a drive.

I watch people and imagine things.

I've always had fun watching, since school.

Reality didn't seem fun to me and I made my own movies.

I remember myself being quite lost.

He grew up in

San Blas , a

tough

neighborhood

in Madrid.

It didn't seem hard to me: it was my neighborhood and that's it.

It's not that my reality seemed hard, but boring.

It is later, when you compare your life with that of other people, that you become aware of how hard that was.

Of course there were drugs, but I didn't have close cases.

And there was a lot of inequality.

It was a working-class neighborhood where people tried to make the best of themselves.

What was your social elevator?

The filly.

I am very grateful to destiny.

When I started studying at the School of Dramatic Arts, which I entered not because of my studies, but because of a test, and then, when I started going to

castings

and they caught me, I recognize that I have been very lucky in life.

He would do something on his part.

All my energy.

I spent all my youth on that.

I've worked like a beast, but that doesn't always work.

All that stuff about positive thinking and if you want, you can makes me nervous because it's not fair.

What I can say is that I gave 100%, and the rest was luck.

My career, despite having had some great hits, like

Paco's Men

, has been slow, gradual.

And very funny, too.

I dont complain.

Apart from money and glory, what has he received in return?

Meeting people in my profession who have shaped me, changed me and given me culture, awareness and empathy.

I have had a window to other types of people, with an artistic drive and curiosity about culture.

It is what I am most grateful for in this job.

Are you class conscious?

A lot.

My family is union members, I never forget it and I am very proud of where I come from.

My father called this having a “poor complex.”

Does it sound familiar to you?

Yes, I, more than just poor, I also have the complex of an ignorant boy, who entered the School of Dramatic Arts without studying.

Nobody made me feel bad there, well, maybe some idiot, but I don't want to remember.

But yes, I have always had that complex of a boy who had a filly and it was there and I didn't really know why.

How do you handle the red carpet vanities of your profession?

It is true that, sometimes, there is a lot of nonsense in them, but there is also nonsense in football or on TV, anything that has public exposure.

I think that vanity hides a lot of insecurity, fear and anxiety.

I'm in a mood.

I have the humility to look at my character from below, not from above.

It's my job, and there's no nonsense there.

The other is accessory.

It's not that those of us in cinema are that important.

Well, some are about gods.

I don't.

I love when they put me in my place.

People are looking for something else.

He has a good time with us, maybe some of our work resonates with certain people, but the most we can hope for is to be like the second cousin of someone who sees you, is amazed by you for a while, and something else.

What are you crazy about?

With the music.

It can save my life.

Now, for example, that I'm nervous about all this Goya stuff and so on, I listen to Chet Baker a lot.

There are music that spurs you on, others that calm you.

For me he is therapeutic.

Hugo Silva, photographed in a cafeteria in El Rastro in Madrid, near his home.Bernardo Pérez Tovar

Do you go to therapy, therapy, like almost all actors and actresses?

Yes, and nothing happens.

Everyone should go.

I have started recently.

But not for my job, but for life.

As you get older and things happen to you, you need tools and a certain perspective on life.

Help me.

At 46 years old, have you noticed the

click

of getting older on the scene?

Yes, naturally, they offer me other types of characters that are more mature and complex, and I find them much more fun.

I am delighted with the change.

But I also tell you that, inside, I am 23 years old, although then I look in the mirror and I am no older than 38.

His character in

A love

is an emotional manipulator.

Were you inspired by anyone in particular?

I know some, but I am not an actor who is with the character all day.

Now, when they say “engine and action”, I've already been focused for a minute and on the bull: I know where the mark is and what I have to do.

What I like most about my profession is that moment.

That other reality.

Because reality is boring for cinema.

And he makes his own movie.

Exactly, as it happened to me when I was little: just as others wanted to play soccer, I wanted to play the protagonist of the series of the moment,

Falcon Crest

, for example.

He has played a cop many times

.

Could I play an aristocrat?

There are other actors who would do it better than me.

It would be a challenge, because my energy goes elsewhere.

But it could, perfectly.

He talks about energy all the time.

It's just that I don't intellectualize: I act.

Sometimes directors ask me to say a phrase thinking about I don't know what.

I tell them: give me all the information about the character and then I will translate it.

I don't even know what I'm looking for, it comes out.

I discovered a long time ago that you don't have to think about it too much, he has no more mystery.

But come on, this job is not that complicated.

I don't know who said that acting was either easy or impossible.

I agree.

Your colleagues are going to criticize you.

Yes, this is not popular, but I also tell you that I have seen many people who get in front of a camera and do not succeed.

This is like drawing.

You can learn to draw, but if you are a denial, you are a denial.

Well, you were an electrician, you can always be one again.

What's up, I don't know how to do anything else.

I have been a little ant, I learned that from my mother, that is what you learn in a working-class neighborhood.

And, besides, I don't care about brands, cars and all that.

For me, luxury is being able to spend a weekday Tuesday surfing in Tarifa, and I can do that between jobs.

Well, thank you very much and good luck at the

Goya

.

Thank you.

I am very excited to be nominated.

Especially for my family.

My grandmother would have loved it.

My mother is happy, although my father no longer arrives on time.

He died recently.

It has been very disconcerting to lose the person who has taught me almost everything.

I guess, with time, the body and mind will come to terms with it.

I have not done it yet.

'One Love'

Hugo Silva (Madrid, 46 years old) rose to instant fame in 2005 with his role as a police officer in the series

Los hombres de Paco

.

His portrayal of Agent Pacino in

Time Bureau

also contributed to his legend.

"There was a time when, on the street, cops in uniform or plainclothes would come up to me and tell me: 'I'm a partner,' as if I were really a police officer too," he jokes today.

Almost 20 years after his emergence into popularity, he is now nominated for a Goya Award, in the category of best supporting actor, for his role as a nosy and manipulative neighbor in

Un amor

, Isabel Coixet's film about Sara's novel of the same name. Table. 

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