Jaime Lorente: "I have faced myself in many ways and I have suffered because I was not happy"

There is no mask for Jaime Lorente to protect him from being recognized by a fan hunting for photography alongside Denver, a member of the badass and irascible National Mint and Timbre robbery gang, the one who gives life to

.

The actor's gaze (Murcia, 1991) is one of the most popular inside and outside of Spain since, in 2017, it appeared in what is the most watched non-English-speaking series in Netflix history.

Also, roles like Nano in

, a conflictive young man, although with good intentions, they have done nothing more than to record it by fire in the collective imagination of the 85 million world viewers that add both series on the content platform.

And this part of his anatomy, obviously, is not hidden by the mask.

“As much as I cover myself, people recognize me.

It is true that wearing a large part of the face covered gives a respite but still they stop me ”, he confesses.

There are those who even try to get him to remove it so that there is no doubt that it is the actor who appears in the photo.

At the time of the interview, Lorente has just finished filming

and lands in Ibiza, one of the cities to which the new Bvlgari Bvlgari Cities watch collection pays tribute, with one arm bandaged.

Little friend of stuntmen, the actor, who plays Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar in the new Amazon Prime Video series, sprained himself while filming one of the last scenes.

"On Instagram I began to receive messages from people naked and touching and I was criticized a lot when I said that I felt super violated, but that's what I thought. I don't have to see that ... I don't have to receive the comment from my colleague saying ' how lucky you are"

To put himself in the shoes of the Cid Campeador, the Murcian had to prepare physically with the help of a personal trainer.

“In the Middle Ages the battles were very hard and I needed to be in shape to endure and have a consistent physique with the time we recreate in the series.

We tend to think that warriors had gym bodies and this is wrong because obviously they did not go to any gym.

They simply exercised in order to survive.

I did not control too much what I ate because I do not believe that El Cid was ever on a diet.

For me the most important thing was to be strong to give the size on the set and I also learned to fight with the sword ”.

While talking to Icon on the terrace of a small cove on the island, with a third of beer in his hands, he explains that the confinement forced by the covid-19 pandemic left the filming unfinished in the absence of recording the last chapter.

After the state of alarm, it was resumed, tests were carried out on the entire team to confirm that they were not infected and they were confined in a hotel in Ávila from which they only left to work.

El

, he says, has been the most beautiful job of his career, but also the hardest.

“We started recording in September and they have been very difficult months.

It had no life and was like a zombie.

I remember that I couldn't sleep and my girl [María Pedraza, an actress with whom he coincided in

and

] told me that I woke up screaming due to a stress that I was not aware of ”.

Jaime Lorente wears a Fendi shirt and swimsuit and Abanderado shirt.

The watch is the Ibiza special edition of the new Bvlgari Bvlgari Cities.

Photo: Pablo Zamora

Then came confinement and it didn't make it any easier.

The quarantine placed him in front of a mirror where he saw too many things that he did not like.

"I have faced myself in many ways and I have suffered because I was not happy. Now I know that I do not want to return to my normal self. I had been working for years without stopping and when I stopped they locked me at home. I did not know where to go. During the confinement I have not missed work, I have missed what I stopped doing because I was working too hard, like going down to Murcia to see family and be with friends, moments of mine that allowed me to live a little. I realized that I didn't have

, I didn't even know what I liked. I think it's important to live in the present more and enjoy things that we previously took for granted ".

At 28 years old, Lorente does not find the glamor and fun that are presupposed in fame.

On the contrary, he has suffered a lot not to feel like one more or to have the freedom to do the same normal things that his lifelong friends can afford.

“I have colleagues who are happy with her, but it is not my case.

With the success of

my life took a 180 degree turn and it was chaos.

Everything happened in a very short time and nobody teaches you how to wear it ”.

The actor explains that he works with a therapist because he has not been able to assimilate the sudden absence of anonymity and intimacy.

Thanks to this professional help, he has found, above all, a lot of freedom in the “no”.

“In the end, it's about respecting yourself.

It has cost me a lot because before I was unable to refuse when they stopped me on the street or in a restaurant to take a photo.

But I have learned to do it because when I said yes I suffered a lot.

A simple photo made me bitter for half an hour.

I understand that I am in the living room of many people's houses, even in bed, and it seems very familiar, but if I don't believe my bubble I won't survive this ”.

"The quarantine placed me in front of a mirror where I saw too many things that I did not like. I have faced myself and I have suffered, I was not happy. Now I do not want to return to my normality of before because I realized that I had no 'hobbies ', I didn't even know what I liked "

Social networks –especially Instagram, where the interpreter accumulates more than fifteen and a half million followers– have become the thermometer that was indicating to the protagonists of

the success of the series.

The first year it succeeded outside national borders and Spain was the last place where it worked.

At that time, when the series was still aired on Antena 3 - before Netflix bought it - and the success was relative, Lorente had about a thousand followers on Instagram.

It was one of his friends who realized that something was happening from one day to the next.

“It was Christmas Eve, I was in Murcia at a friend's bar where we have the habit of having an aperitif and spending the whole day, and a friend who is hooked on social networks asked me why I suddenly had 10,000 followers.

From that moment it went up from 10,000 to 10,000 ”.

Today he is the Spanish man with the most followers on Instagram.

When he began to add millions of followers on Instagram, the private messages he received began to move away from decorum and make him feel invaded by a lack of respect that, he admits, overwhelmed him.

Such was the discomfort that it generated that he even assured that he felt “super violated”, a statement that was not without controversy.

“I was criticized a lot but I felt that way.

I received many private messages and at first I answered everything, until more and more people came to me naked and touching.

It is that I do not have to see that ... We are that we want to change things and we want respect, and does this seem nice?

Nor do I have to receive the comment from the colleague saying 'how lucky you are'.

I no longer look at the messages because it pissed me off a lot ”.

Jaime Lorente wears a Calvin Klein t-shirt, Dior Men pants and a Bvlgari Octo Finissimo watch with a gold face and black dial.

Photo: Pablo Zamora

The actor, who began filming the fifth season of

in mid-August, made the decision long ago not to live as a slave to social networks.

Hence, I approach them almost exclusively as a work and advertising tool.

Very occasionally, he allows a license to share photographs of himself from when he was a child or with his cat, but it is not usual to find personal images on his profile.

“In my real life, I don't take a photo and I hardly take my phone out.

I don't know how many photos I will have with my partner, but she takes them, ”she says.

Jaime Lorente is in love with his profession and, above all, with the theater, where he comes from.

And if it had not been for the covid-19, on March 25,

would have premiered in Madrid

, a monologue written by Santiago Loza.

The confession of a man who presents himself as the excessive admirer of a criminal, as the actor himself explained on Instagram shortly before he was forced to cancel the premiere.

His passion for the theater was discovered at school.

“As a child I was a bad student but I always felt supported by the teachers because they trusted me even though my grades were not good.

Thanks to a teacher who encouraged me, I did the performing arts baccalaureate and when I finished it I studied theater.

At that moment I realized that this was what I wanted to do in life ”.

When he finished his studies, he settled in Madrid, began in

then

and the rest is history.

The watch Jaime Lorente wears is the Ibiza special edition of the new Bvlgari Bvlgari Cities Photo: Pablo Zamora

Throughout the interview he repeats several times that he "loves" to get on stage, but admits that the performance "is full of lies, lights and posturing."

His experience in successful series, mainly starring young actors, has shown him that in the filming, as it is said to happen in

, feelings are magnified and everyone wants to be close friends with everyone, but when the work is done they do not they never resume the relationship.

“A lot of people are like brothers during filming and then they don't see each other again.

Of all the shootings, I have a true relationship with few people ”.

In

Lorente he has the leading role but he does not lose perspective because he knows what it is that the leading actors are unbearable.

“I don't understand how such shit can fit into something as beautiful as acting.

In this profession everything is competition.

It is very difficult to create real relationships, but on a set I am there for others and I love my colleagues.

In the end the only rival I have is myself ”.

However, he confesses that the atmosphere that was breathed during the months of work at

was magical, there were no ego struggles or bad gestures.

"I've never been part of such a wonderful cast," he concedes while finishing his beer.

And having worked in two of the most successful Spanish productions of the last decade, he is very sure of what he says.

Realization: Ángela Esteban Librero.

Photography assistant: Orlando Gutiérrez.

Production assistant: Laura Benítez.

Makeup and hairdressing: Elia Martínez.

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