The metamorphosis of Ricardo Darín: "I am one of those who believe that things will never get better"

It is the month of September 2004 and, like every southern spring, broom blooms in Argentine Patagonia, a shrub whose yellow flowers dilute the hostility of the mountains.

The director is there to film his second film - the first, four years ago, placed him, next to the actor who now remains lying on the floor of a gloomy forest, on Olympus - and he is 45 years old.

The actor is only slightly older - 47 - but has worked in dozens of movies, television shows and plays.

This shoot had to take place in a dark and humid landscape, but nobody took the broom into account, so when the team landed in the city of Bariloche, immersed in an optimistic and yellow landscape, the director said: “I don't film, this seems

”.

The actor told him: "You cannot transfer 100 people to Patagonia and suspend."

They argued.

Finally, the director thought that the actor was right and here they are, in a shady forest, miraculously without broom, shooting the scene in which the taxidermist played by the actor perceives the aura, a prophetic tremor that precedes the epileptic seizure.

In Buenos Aires, for months, the director and the actor have researched epilepsy until they understand that each attack is different and they have decided that the actor builds his own seizure.

Now, in the woods, the director has set up the cameras and is waiting.

The actor is standing with a gun in his hand.

He takes one step, another, until his face fades, dazzled by an opaque luminescence.

His hand drops the gun.

His body collapses, soft on the ground,

and arches as if the sinews are trying to fuse with the bones.

It is something minimal and atrocious, a delivery, an ecstasy.

The shot continues until the director orders to cut.

The actor remains lying on the wet leaves.

The director runs to him, kneels next to him.

He doesn't ask if he's okay.

He asks, "How is it?"

The actor, like someone who has gone through an experience that he will never have in a body that is not his, replies, his voice full of sorrow and horror: "It's very painful."

The film is

and will be released in 2005.

The director is Fabián Bielinsky and he will die in 2006.

The actor is Ricardo Darín and, at the time of filming that scene, he has long since completed his metamorphosis.

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An animal of cinema and stage, Darín won a Goya in 2016 for his performance in the film Truman. Jordi Socías

Ricardo Darín bought this house in the neighborhood of Palermo, Buenos Aires, in 1999, when he separated for a couple of years from his wife, Florencia Bas.

They had seen it together, they had liked it but they discarded it —they needed another room—, and when they separated he bought it because he thought: “No matter what happens, it is a house that she likes”.

He moved in with a mattress on which he and his two children — Chino, Clara, then 6 and 11 — slept piled up.

Afterwards, the couple got back together and started living here.

Some time ago, the married couple who owned an adjoining carpentry shop received an offer from a real estate group that planned to build a building.

The woman warned Darín to leave: the bulk was going to leave him sunk in the shade.

But the sale had not yet materialized and he played her card: "I'll buy it from you."

The woman said yes and now the Daríns (Ricardo and Florencia; the children became independent a long time ago) live in two houses connected by a garden with a swimming pool, which ends in a giant shed where a cinema was set up that is no longer used, preceded by a living room and a kitchen.

Florencia Bas is there with Clara, the youngest daughter.

"Here we cook," says Darín.

"Heh, we're cooking," Clara says ironically.

"Well, I'm inclusive," Darín says, laughing.

On the patio there is a grill, a low marble table, a couple of tobacco-colored BFK chairs.

—Do you want us to talk here, do you prefer inside?

—She says, pointing to the low table— What can I offer you?

His interviewers remark that he gives the feeling of being someone you have always known even when you see him for the first time.

That happens in part for the same reasons that the opposite might happen.

He has starred in soap operas and popular comedies on television, has done dozens of theater seasons, and is the only Argentine actor to have participated in three Oscar-nominated films (and starred in two):

and

directed by Juan José Campanella, and

directed by Damián Szifron, all things that could surround him with an inaccessible halo.

So it is and is not natural that this man opens the door of his house, introduces his family, says that he is on a diet because he is skinny but has a paunch.

He recently arrived from Punta del Este, Uruguay, where he spent a long time after finishing shooting 1985, a film directed by Santiago Miter —a co-production between Amazon;

Kenya, the producer of Los Darín, and La Unión de los Ríos, the producer of Mitre—, whose subject is the Trial of the Juntas that took place that year in Argentina, a process that brought members of the of the Military Juntas of the dictatorship that began in 1976 and ended in 1983. The film focuses on the trial and the lives of the prosecutor in charge, Julio César Strassera, now deceased, and the deputy prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo.

In it, Darín did something that he had always avoided: playing a real person, Strassera, the man who, upon finishing reading the accusation to the military, said a phrase that remained in history: “Judges,

—I always refused to make characters that have existed.

You can't compete against someone who existed.

When we were shooting

, I was dressed as Strassera.

On a break I went to the

and for a large marriage.

He tells me: “I was a very good friend of Strassera.

You don't look alike at all, but you look the same."

Many times I am asked: “How do you approach a character?”, and I don't have a method.

If I am close to seeing how he feels and how he thinks, I feel that things are going smoothly.

That happens to me with Strassera.

And what that man told me reassured me, because we were not looking for a physical similarity, but to know how the guy worked, how he thought.

Now, a few weeks before leaving for Spain to begin a tour with

together with Andrea Pietra, he says that from his time in Strassera he only keeps the glasses he is wearing.

—They're half old, like

I kept them.

She is 65 years old and one of those memories that is no longer used: wealthy.

The voice, with an extraordinary gradation of textures, is the vehicle of a precise syntax, changes of rhythm and quick retorts that start laughing or destroy any funny possibility.

Her parents, the actors Ricardo Darín and Renée Roxana —a deformation of Rohuana, the original Lebanese surname— met on the radio.

"And they stuck."

They were married on April 26, 1955.

From the age of 18, his father spent a decade in Europe, where he was part of the Foreign Legion, he was a bodyguard to Charles de Gaulle.

"Did he do all that before he met your…?"

"Is all that verifiable?"

He says, in a move he'll execute many times: question himself before he's questioned, mock himself before someone else does.

Dad was a poet, an aviator, creative, very changeable.

And mom was almost Phoenician, she was obliged to take care of the family, the twine.

If it hadn't been for her, we would never have had a place to live.

It was because of her that they got a mortgage and, when he was three or four years old, they moved to an apartment in the middle of Eleven, a commercial and popular neighborhood with street prostitution areas, minor gangsters, occasional thieves.

—There was a lot of criminal lumpenage and I knew all those guys.

I was always very street.

My friends were older and our favorite sport was going for a walk.

We put on a suit, tie, at 15, 16 years old, and we walked from Once to the center.

We would get into an office design house and ask for a quote for an office that had supposedly been commissioned from us.

We played that we were guys with important projects.

His sister Alejandra was born when he was five years old, and just after Darín began to work dubbing, participating in radio and television programs.

—It began to go very well for me, I felt that I helped in my house.

I didn't want to be an actor.

I didn't want to not be either.

But it was being.

I took bus 131, with my little book, and went to Channel 9. And I loved it.

He was very young and was already a television veteran.

When he is written about, his simple and humorous edge is mentioned, but many of the things he tells in a funny tone, stripped of inflections and gestures, are rather sad things.

"I went to school with a suitcase.

It was a big briefcase and I even took clothes with me.

It seems to me that she thought: “I'll give up at any moment, just in case I'll take everything”.

My old man and my old woman hadn't been well for a long time.

Mom worked in theater, on television, on radio.

And dad wasn't like that.

Dad was a poet, dad stayed with his seven, nine, ten year old son talking until two in the morning, telling him things like “never have anything, everything material is an anchor”.

—All his phrases attacked materialism, capitalism.

But my parents argued a lot about money and a little about alcohol.

My old man was an alcoholic.

When there were arguments, I was the last to go to sleep, I couldn't allow myself to sleep and for the argument to continue, I had to be attentive.

That will have happened for two or three years.

Until that fateful January 5 came, when my old man came back touched and with the cat.

On January 5 of the year that Darín was 12, his father arrived a little drunk and, since he did not have a peso and the 6th was Three Kings' Day, he decided to give him a stray cat.

Her mother saw her husband drunk with the cat and a starry fight broke out.

When he finished, Darín approached his father and told him: "You have to separate, don't be stupid."

His father asked, "Are you sure?"

And I said, "Yes, I'm sure."

"Very well," she said.

He closed the door and left.

That inaugurated an unknown stage.

From having a father who instilled skepticism in him and showed him the paths of creation and utopia, he became absent.

“I saw him a year and a half later.

He invited me to lunch.

She told me, “I want you to know that she has a sister.

She newborn.

Would you like to meet her?"

I told him: “Yes”.

And we went to meet my sister Daniela, product of her relationship with her new wife.

I think he was a very good man, armed for other types of fights, not for marriage.

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Darín with Gastón Pauls in Nine Queens (2000).

The actress Alejandra Darín says that she has almost no memory of the fights between her parents.

—Ricardo does remember them.

I remember the absolute presence of my mother and the absence, for very long periods, of my father.

And it seems to me that Ricardo assumed a little bit of that paternity.

I always felt very protected by him.

Did you see when they tell you to make a list of the people you love the most?

On my list was my brother first.

Then my mom and dad.

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Clara Darín studied Fine Arts, made screen-printed t-shirts, opened a

with friends for 40 independent clothing brands.

She now has a ceramic objects business called Teta.

“My dad is much more protective than my mom.

"Let me know when you get home, don't drink too much alcohol."

He is very fearful.

I think that being with my mom had to adapt to a slightly more adventurous and risky life, because that's how she is.

We made a trip to Kenya and we dragged it.

On that trip a huge bee got into the room and it was a scandal.

He yelled at us: "Don't come in, there's a giant bee!"

Of course, my mom came in to resolve the situation.

We laughed quite a bit at him.

But he is also very sensitive, he gets very upset, he watches the news and cries.

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I am an alarmist, fatalist and pessimist.

I am one of those who believe that things will never get better, but as a defense and survivalist I am highly positive.

From where we are going and what needs to be done.

But I am an alarmist.

If I'm on the street, I have a peripheral scanner.

Florence is the complete opposite.

She always believes, and she's usually right, that everything is going to be okay.

If I hadn't come across Flor, now she would be inside a black bag with that little card that they grab from her finger that she would say: "A pessimist."

The other day we had called a lunch with my daughter, her partner, my sister, her son.

I start calling my daughter at twelve.

She does not answer me.

Half past twelve, she doesn't answer me.

At one, she doesn't answer me.

She had the fire on, the meat on the grill.

And I went home.

I rang the bell for them.

Her partner appeared, sleepy face.

I told:

"Excuse me, are you alright?"

"Yes".

"That's all I wanted to know."

I got in the car and turned around.

I mean... I know it's not like that.

But how do I do?

Childhood and adolescence passed between school, the street, television programs such as

soap operas such as

“I dropped out of high school in the third year.

I was doing very poorly, I had the mistaken feeling that I was wasting my time at school.

It was a time when the street was on fire.

It was 73, 74, a lot of street mobilization.

For a year and a half, I participated in a group called TERS, Socialist Revolutionary Student Tendency.

We went out to paint.

It was a supposedly intellectual arm, of meeting and discussion.

When the dictatorship began, in 1976, I was working on Channel 9. I have the feeling that I was quite oblivious, due to an overload of work, but we were screwed up because going out at night was risking it.

For whatever reason you ended up in jail.

Between 1979 and 1980 he acted in a series of films called

plots that mixed romance, entanglements, neighborhood friendship.

A producer had the idea of ​​bringing him together with Raúl Taibo, Carlos Olivieri and Gustavo Rey in a group called Los Galancitos.

They toured theaters with light plays leaving in their wake a trail of screams, whispers, tears and lipstick.

His level of exposure was considerable when, in 1978, he met Susana Giménez, a star, a very popular

who was 13 years older than him.

They had met in a bar, and met again at the Hermitage Hotel in Mar del Plata, playing cards.

"We started playing together.

And so we hang out.

But the couple generated controversy.

Because of the age difference, because of physical characteristics.

I was a noodle.

Next to such a mine.

They were together almost eight years.

They made a musical comedy,

which was on the bill from 1986 to 1989. But, before that, they were not very clear-sighted in relation to the future of the other.

When she got the proposal to do a game show on TV, he advised her not to do it.

She accepted and that cycle —

— was a success.

When in 1982 he received the proposal from the television director Diana Álvarez to make

, she told him that it was not for him, that she had to make another telenovela.

—I felt that I had a depopulated toolbox, with a certain agility and playfulness for comedy, very little else.

Until

Us and fears was a cycle of unitaries with a prestigious cast that marked an era: people commented on it for days until the next broadcast.

“Diana got into a fight over me.

They didn't want me there.

I was a galancito.

With her I felt the confidence of someone who tells you: "Come on, you have something to do with it."

From then on I began to feel respect from people, from colleagues.

In a job characterized by a lack of continuity, he never had to ask for a job.

Proposals always came to him, and he almost always said yes.

To the prestigious cycle

(1983), to the telenovela

(1987), to the telenovela

(1990).

“I had all the luck.

It is a bit unfair that I have so much and my parents have not had.

But it is like a balm to know that, in family terms, it was balanced.

It would be fair to admit that I worked hard in order not to waste it.

And I notice that I have a new luck.

Now I am judged for everything, not for the last.

If I don't have a good grade in the last job, they let me pass because the previous one was good.

Later, as he walks out the door, he says that he is always, like the Chinese jugglers, spinning all the plates.

—Once an analyst told me: “Have you ever tried to see what happens if the saucers fall?”.

And I told him: “Everyone fall?

For me, when one falls, it is already a catastrophe”.

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Darín with Norma Aleandro in The Son of the Bride (2001).

—I think that the versatility that in many of us is seen from a great composition, from a very important change of

or behavior, in him is given by a very subtle minimalism —says Mercedes Morán, who worked with him on films like

and

—.

It is a delicate and difficult task, because what sets it apart is a way of looking, of thinking, of justifying what the character does.

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One Thursday in March, in the middle of the afternoon, Darín eats a pear and a peach, sitting at the patio table.

If the eyes of a water blue innervated a heart appeal in extreme youth, time added nuances to a face that became a mask capable of transmitting bitter tenderness —in

, amoral violence —in

or an indecipherable Mephistophelian power in

Florencia's sighting has several versions: he was in a pizzeria, she walked by and went back to look at him;

she was in a corner, he saw her and said something to her.

They all end in the same thing: brutal combustion.

—I was in a pizzeria, on Corrientes street.

We see each other, I follow her, I make a joke and she doesn't give me a ball.

The next day she appeared at the same pizzeria with a friend.

Instead of talking to her, I talked to her friend.

To annoy her.

We laughed, we never parted again.

She was a puppy.

She was 18, 19 years old.

I am a guy of 30, already half busy.

As she confessed to me, I was not one of her favorite characters.

She came from a great exhibition, Susana's partner, stoned in public.

It wasn't the best thing that could happen to you walking down the street with me.

'It must have been difficult to tell Susana.

"I didn't discuss it with her at first.

It was a deteriorated relationship, we were on our way out.

With Flor we were very cautious.

We were half clandestine.

Until one day I told Susana that she was going to marry me.

She told me: “I know you, you don't marry someone you met three months ago”.

"No, I've known her for over a year."

“Okay”.

That was it.

And the two had the chivalry to incorporate the other: if we love each other, we all love each other.

We are family.

Florencia Bas grew up in San Nicolás, 230 kilometers from Buenos Aires, the daughter of a psychologist and an obstetrician, and moved to the capital at 17 to study English translation, but her studies were left aside.

They were married on April 18, 1988. Darín's father fell ill with cancer almost at the same time that Florencia became pregnant, and he refused to let her illness be a matter of concern: he only wanted to know about the child to come.

He died on January 5, 1989 and 10 days later, on the 15th, Chino was born, named Ricardo Mario after his two grandparents.

That moment has been reproduced many times: Darín and his sister Alejandra arriving at the house where his father lived to discover, to their surprise, that he had nothing.

Of course, there was no surprise.

—I had been to that house two or three times, but we knew that he had nothing.

Everything I owned could fit in a shoebox.

What do I keep?

"What did your father say about your job?"

-Zero.

He never told me what was right and what was wrong.

But the feeling I have is that he didn't agree with me working from a young age.

It's as if he wanted me to be something else.

In 2016, he won a Goya Award for his performance in

, directed by Cesc Gay.

There he plays a terminally ill man preparing to live out his final days without self-pity.

When he read the book, he told Cesc Gay: “For me it is impossible not to think that the protagonist of this film is my old man.

That acidity, that humor, that fatalism.”

At the award ceremony, he closed his thanks by saying: "I want to extend this... to... my father."

Though he seemed ready to say more, he left, choked with obvious grief.

“My old lady was very different.

He passed away in 2018. He was an unbeatable strength.

I used to say that my grandparents owned a village in Lebanon.

She was in contact with the Lebanese Embassy in Buenos Aires, processing to return to claim properties.

We told her: “No, mom, they're going to shoot you down, imagine that you arrive in Lebanon and say: 'Go away, this is mine'.

In the end it was not because an infernal conflict broke out there.

If not, he would go to Lebanon.

In 1993, the year his daughter Clara was born, Alberto Lecchi directed him in

He was the first director who invited him to have more participation in the shooting: "This is what this looks like, do you see something to correct?".

-For me, the actor did his thing and that's it.

With Lecchi I began to understand interdependence.

I'm worried about whether the guy who's taking care of the

ate or didn't eat.

Is it a way to have control?

Can be.

In 1999 Juan José Campanella summoned him for

the first of a series of films that placed him ever closer to being what he is: the most popular of the cult actors.

Or vice versa.

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When she arrived in Buenos Aires from her hometown, Florencia Bas worked for a while as a model and actress.

'But I didn't like the show.

She suffered from it.

I think I enjoy Ricardo's exposition but I don't like my own exposition.

He is famous as long as I know him personally and as long as I know him from the news.

But he takes it very simply.

"He talks about you like you're a force of nature."

'There's a bit of mythology.

He is a guy with enormous strength.

I am very practical.

I like to build, fix a plug.

That doesn't interest him.

He is not interested in going to the bank, taking care of the accountant.

However, he has been an excellent father-mother to my children.

He is the one who calls to ask if they have arrived safely, if they have a fever.

He is much more motherly than me.

He has a wonderful sense of humor, and that makes him very difficult to fight with.

Every time I argue, he makes me very nervous because he minimizes everything.

He laughs, joke, joke.

-In 1999 you distanced yourself.

—The children were older, they needed their father.

And Ricardo filmed, did television, theater.

The proposition was that, in order not to have a husband, he preferred not to have one.

All of that led to a marital breakdown that had much more to do with our routines and the routine of school.

The passage of my children through school was very traumatic for me.

The teachers, the mommies, the chats, the jackets.

All that routine that you say: “I wanted to enjoy my son and not have to do the mommies pool to go look for them swimming”.

I needed to get everything off me.

I missed him a lot.

But I didn't miss Ricardo who worked 24/7 without stopping.

I missed Ricardo, my partner.

We started having reunions after a while, and we recomposed our relationship.

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A characteristic gesture of Ricardo Darín, who in 2016 won the Goya for his role in Truman. Jordi Socías

“I had a really bad time at first, when we grew apart.

I went to the corner of the house, where Flor and the boys were living, I stayed in the car looking at the windows and calmed down when the lights went out.

Shortly before the marriage collapsed, a young man, with 20 years of experience as an assistant director, was looking for financing for his debut film and was rejected, until he presented the project in a competition and won it.

The man was Fabián Bielinsky and the film was Nine Queens, the story of Marcos, a street swindler who is presented with the opportunity to make money thanks to a piece of information passed on by Juan, played by Gastón Pauls, a supposed criminal apprentice.

Although the character of Marcos seems like a small-time scoundrel, he hides a creeping amorality.

The actor chosen to play him was the endearing Ricardo Darín.

—El papel, originalmente, era para otros actores. Fabián me hizo una lista de reparos que tenía conmigo. El primero era que yo le parecía demasiado simpático. “Te hacés el payaso, y no es ese el clima que yo quiero en el rodaje”. Yo podía entender la dualidad moral del personaje. Yo conocí a esos tipos en el Once. Eran ruines, pero se hacían cargo de los chicos del barrio y no permitían que nadie nos tocara.

Nueve reinas fue un hito —la gente la elogiaba con un insulto: “No parece argentina”—, y la actuación de Darín levantó ovaciones. En 2020, al cumplirse 20 años del estreno de la película, Javier Porta Fouz escribió en La Nación: “Ricardo Darín no era una estrella tan grande ni era el sinónimo del éxito asegurado en el que se convertiría después (…) esta fue la película clave para su legitimación como actor; podríamos decir que lo impulsó como ninguna otra a su consagración definitiva y a avanzar notablemente en su camino a convertirse en estrella”. Después de 30 años de oficio, era una revelación. La metamorfosis —de galán a mejor actor argentino— estaba consumada.

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Andrea Pietra protagoniza junto a Darín Escenas de la vida conyugal desde 2017, después de que Érica Rivas dejara la obra, y en este momento está con él, de gira con esa pieza por España.

—Yo tuve apenas un mes de ensayo para el estreno en 2017, en Madrid. Temblaba. Él me dijo: “Tranquila, porque cualquier cosa que pase yo te atajo”. No es lo mismo salir así que con un compañero que te dice: “Ojo con lo que hacés, porque me cagás la obra”. Cada noche volvíamos del teatro a nuestras casas en metro, y en el vagón iban muchos de los espectadores que habían estado viendo la obra un ratito antes. Lo miraban sin poder creer. “Disculpe, ¿usted es Ricardo Darín?”. Él hablaba con todos hasta que llegábamos. La sensatez de Ricardo es poner en el trabajo lo que hay que poner en el trabajo y en la vida lo que hay que poner en la vida.

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Si se confeccionara un documento de Excel con los premios que ganó, las casillas estarían desiertas hasta 1998. A partir de 1999, con el Cóndor de Plata por El mismo amor, la misma lluvia, empezarían a llenarse, rebalsarían en Nueve reinas (Premio del Festival de Cine Latinoamericano de Biarritz, Premio Sant Jordi), y nunca volverían a estar vacías. En 2001 se estrenó El hijo de la novia, dirigida por Juan José Campanella, en la que interpreta a Rafael Belvedere, un hombre abatido que regentea el restaurante de sus padres, interpretados por Héctor Alterio y Norma Aleandro, internada en un geriátrico con alzhéimer. La película se proyectó en España al mismo tiempo que Nueve reinas. Si hasta el momento era casi un desconocido en el país, esa conjunción hizo que todo cambiara.

—Tuve suerte. Un tipo al que nadie conocía tiene dos películas que le gustan a todo el mundo, con dos personajes absolutamente distintos. Si lo planeás, no te sale tan bien.

En 2002, El hijo de la novia quedó nominada a un Oscar como mejor película extranjera. No lo ganó, pero Darín siguió imparable. En 2003 comenzó una gira por España con Arte, que había estado en cartel durante cinco años en la Argentina, y fue uno de los mayores éxitos de la temporada de teatro en Madrid. En 2004 protagonizó Luna de Avellaneda, dirigida por Campanella, y en 2005 El aura, la segunda película de Fabián Bielinsky, en la que interpretó a un taxidermista epiléptico que imagina la ejecución del atraco perfecto.

—Con Fabián investigamos mucho sobre los pacientes epilépticos. Y me acuerdo del día en que decidimos no seguir ninguna de las historias porque había tantas versiones de epilepsia como pacientes. Nos volteamos media botella de whisky de la felicidad que nos dio descubrir que teníamos la libertad de hacer lo que quisiéramos. Pero cuando llegamos a Bariloche para rodar había florecido la retama, esa florcita amarilla, y él quería construir esta historia en un bosque húmedo y oscuro, y dijo: “No filmo, esto es Heidi”. Tuvimos discusiones. Le dije: “No podés hacer eso, estamos todos acá”.

El diario Clarín publicó esta reseña sobre El aura: “Darín (…) está estupendo como el motor de esta historia atrapante (…), pensar El aura sin él es sencillamente imposible”. Todo indicaba que el binomio Darín-Bielinsky se transformaría en otra dupla de éxito paranormal, como Darín-Campanella, sólo que más arriesgada, pero en junio de 2006 Bielinsky falleció en São Paulo de un ataque cardiaco.

—Había hablado la noche anterior con él. Me había dicho: “Se me acaba de ocurrir una comedia negra que te va a gustar”. Le pregunté: “Pero ¿de qué se trata?”. Me contestó: “Te lo cuento todo el jueves”. Nunca supe qué era. No la tenía escrita en ningún lado.

Desde entonces, actuó en muchas películas de directores consagrados —Fernando Trueba, Campanella…—, y en varias de directores que provenían del cine independiente, como Pablo Trapero —Carancho (2010); Elefante blanco (2012)— y Santiago Mitre, que lo dirigió en La cordillera, en 2017, donde interpretó a Hernán Blanco, un hipotético presidente argentino construido con gestualidad mínima: una forma ambigua de sonreír (que ni siquiera es falsa), una forma reconcentrada de mirar por la ventana (que podría ser perfidia o preocupación).

—Hay que buscar la posibilidad de ir a otras líneas. Si no, es recostarse en un perfil en el que ya sabés que andás bien. A mí me pasó eso muchas veces, que das un examen en una materia y te quieren hacer repetir esa materia para que saques una buena nota. Yo quiero correr el riesgo de no sacarme una buena nota.

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Santiago Mitre escribió el guion de 1985 pensando en Darín como protagonista, tal como había hecho en La cordillera.

—Era difícil encontrar un actor que pudiera sostener el peso y el misterio de ese personaje que no fuera Ricardo. Hernán Blanco parece cristalino, pero oculta todo. Es un envase. La forma en que surgió 1985 es muy pedestre. Un día estábamos comiendo con Ricardo y le digo: “Tengo ganas de hacer una película del Juicio a las Juntas”. Y me dijo: “Yo te hago de Strassera”. Si me decía: “No te conviene”, yo no sé si la hubiera hecho. Él tiene un sistema de afinación, una conciencia de cómo suena como instrumento, que puede afinar más arriba o más abajo con una claridad total.

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Ricardo Darín.Jordi Socías

En 2009 encarnó a Benjamín Espósito, un ex funcionario judicial obsesionado por un crimen ocurrido en 1974, en su cuarta colaboración con Campanella, El secreto de sus ojos. La película quedó nominada a un Oscar como mejor película extranjera, lo ganó, y Darín recibió ofertas de toda clase, entre ellas interpretar a un narcotraficante mexicano en Hombre en llamas, dirigida por Tony Scott, que rechazó. “¿Por qué los latinoamericanos tenemos que hacer siempre de narcotraficantes?”, dijo para explicar los motivos de su rechazo, en años en los que los cuestionamientos a los tópicos hollywoodenses eran todavía tímidos.

—Pero no era sólo por eso. Había estado de gira por España y quería volver a casa. ¿Es tan difícil de entender que te quieras volver a tu casa? No quiero ser millonario. A lo mejor termino siéndolo, pero no quiero hacer eso.

En 2014 protagonizó uno de los seis episodios de Relatos salvajes, dirigida por Damián Szifron. La película arrasó en la taquilla, obtuvo muchísimos premios, incluido el Goya a la mejor película iberoamericana y el Bafta a la mejor película no inglesa, y quedó nominada al Oscar, aunque no ganó.

—Qué genio Szifron. Es un placer laburar con un tipo como él, que te da herramientas y te dice: “Dale, te sigo”. ¿No tenés frío?

—Está fresco, sí.

—¿Vamos adentro?

En su estudio hay un par de sillones tapizados en cuero color chocolate, un escritorio antiguo, una biblioteca de piso a techo. Un lugar ordenado, con el razonable oleaje de alguien que usa el espacio a diario.

—Acá leo y también boludeo. Juego a la Play. Al póquer online, pero no por guita. Ya tuve problemas con el juego. El casino me mordió fuerte durante cinco años. Un tarado mental. Si tenemos algo es por Flor.

El 22 de marzo de 1991, por orden de un juez que investigaba una causa de autos ingresados al país por una ley que permitía a los discapacitados importarlos sin pagar impuestos, fue detenido. Había comprado una camioneta que había entrado al país en esas circunstancias. Otros 2.000 autos estaban en la misma situación, pero no hubo más detenciones. En 1995, un juez firmó la prescripción, la Cámara la revocó, y la causa prescribió definitivamente en 2017.

—Conmigo nada prescribe. Si alguno me quiere atacar, lo primero que hace es agarrar eso. Estuve tres días detenido por comprar un auto en la concesionaria oficial más grande de la Argentina. Estaban confabulados los de la concesionaria, compraban autos con descuento para discapacitados y los vendían. Me trataron como si fuera un delincuente, la poca guita que teníamos la perdimos con un abogado. Yo siento que a esta altura la gente tiene una idea de qué clase de persona soy, pero muchos pensarán: “Es un impostor”.

En 2018, la actriz Valeria Bertuccelli, que había trabajado con él durante 2013 y 2014 en Escenas de la vida conyugal, contó en una entrevista los motivos de su alejamiento: “No quiero entrar en ningún detalle. Creo que alcanza con que él reflexione y pida disculpas (…) Dejé una obra exitosa porque no resistía los malos tratos”. Darín se refirió al tema diciendo: “Cuando una mujer declara una incomodidad, un destrato (…) hay que prestarle atención. Que yo no esté de acuerdo con Valeria y muchas de las cosas que dijo no significa que no haya que prestarle atención”, y contó que durante la obra habían tenido un malentendido que habían solucionado conversando. Pero Érica Rivas, que había sustituido a Bertuccelli y también se había alejado, publicó un mensaje en su cuenta de Instagram, dirigido a Bertuccelli, que decía: “Sos valiente. Sos hermosa. Gracias. Tus palabras reparan”.

—Esa es la otra nube que me va a acompañar. Yo dije que no me voy a defender, porque soy de los que creen que el tiempo pone las cosas en su lugar. Va a tardar, porque cada tanto aparece algún comentario del tipo: “Este mejor que se calle, que es un maltratador de mujeres”. No logro entender el porqué de lo que hicieron. No puedo terminar de incorporar que alguien me odie tanto. Por la relación que tuvimos previa, no lo puedo entender. Es razonable entender que después de siglos de derechos vulnerados, ahora tengamos que atravesar un periodo de reacomodamiento y es lógico que algunos sufran. Yo lo lamento por mí, porque me metieron en una bolsa en la que considero que no merezco estar. A lo mejor esto es algo que me persigue toda la vida. Será parte de lo que hay que pagar para contrabalancear tanta suerte.

Entonces Florencia se asoma y, con voz amable, dice:

—Perdón que los interrumpa. Richard, en 15 minutos viene…

—Uy, me olvidé. Perdón, amor.

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Cuando terminó el colegio secundario, el Chino Darín, que está ahora en la Argentina grabando la segunda temporada de El reino, la serie de Netflix, pensó en seguir ingeniería industrial, pero entendió que no era lo suyo y empezó a estudiar cine y a tomar clases de teatro.

—Mi padre y yo tenemos recorridos muy distintos. Mis elecciones no fueron producto de una necesidad. Él tuvo un camino casi ineludible. Me tomé mucho tiempo para preguntarle qué le parecería que yo me dedicara a la actuación. Y la respuesta fue normal: “Me parece perfecto, tenés que hacer lo que quieras”. Él tiene muchísimos recursos, pero transfunde cierta cercanía a través de la pantalla. La vez pasada me dijo algo que me hizo pensar. Me dijo que actuar es el arte, o el oficio, de hacerles creer a los demás que estás pensando lo que estás diciendo. Me parece que parte de su concepto de la actuación tiene que ver con los procesos mentales detrás de las palabras, y creo que eso es algo muy difícil.

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Es un día de humedad extrema. El sol baja hacia la tierra con una languidez hastiada. A las cuatro menos un minuto de la tarde, la puerta de la casa de Darín se abre, él se asoma gesticulando con la mano —vení, vení—, y habla en un susurro mientras camina hacia el patio.

—Salí antes para que no tuvieras que tocar el timbre, porque están todos durmiendo.

Esta mañana fue a jugar al tenis, el calor plomizo le hizo daño y lo obligó a dormir una siesta.

—Yo juego con personas mayores, como yo —dice, sentándose ante una larga mesa de madera del patio.

Una noche, cuando era chico, iba con su padre en un desvencijado Renault 4L cuando los detuvo un policía que apoyó el caño del arma en la ventanilla y le pidió los documentos. El padre gritó: “¡Saque eso ya mismo de acá!”. Se bajó y siguió gritando: “¿¡No ve que hay una criatura!?”. El policía, creyendo que estaba ante un superior de civil, le dijo: “Perdón, señor, ¿con quién estoy hablando?”. El padre de Darín gritó: “¡Con un ciudadano, pelotudo!”. El policía, demudado, le dijo: “Perdón, señor, siga”. El padre se subió al auto, miró al hijo, paralizado en el asiento del acompañante, y le dijo: “Tranquilo, no pasa nada”.

—Y me pregunto: ¿yo sería capaz de hacer algo así?

Ayer, por algún motivo, se acercó a la caja en la que guarda las cosas de su padre: postales, cartas, poemas.

—Yo heredé algo de la emocionalidad de mi viejo, pero no su cabeza, no su dolor. Él tenía un dolor que yo no heredé. Tengo otros.

Una madrugada de 2008, tres hombres entraron a esta casa a robar. Estaban Florencia y Clara. Florencia evaluó la situación: jóvenes, sin armas, asustados. Detectó al cabecilla y le dijo: “No me importa lo material, pero encerrame en el cuarto con mi hija y los perros”. Él la encaró: “Te estás poniendo muy nerviosa, callate”. Entonces ella lo aferró por el cuello: “Me voy a poner muy nerviosa si no me hacés caso”. Y el sujeto obedeció. Al día siguiente, cuando se supo del robo, Darín declaró a los medios: “No me imagino tomar represalias con esos chicos. La responsabilidad de formarlos es nuestra y no creo que estemos haciendo lo debido para que tengan educación, salud, y que sus padres tengan trabajo (…) Hay que pensar qué es lo que hacemos por los chicos y no en bajar la edad de imputabilidad o la mano dura”. Ha contado la historia varias veces, no para hacer alarde de la bravura de su mujer, sino para resaltar la precariedad de la vida de quienes los asaltaron.

—Voy a sonar muy ingenuo, pero todo eso es falta de amor. Son pibes que miran para adelante y no ven nada bueno, y no reconocen en su pasado gente que los haya querido. Son cosas que me angustian mucho. A veces siento que me interesan o me conmueven cosas que no…que a nadie… Que no.

En una escena de Truman, Darín y Javier Cámara, que interpreta a su mejor amigo, entran a una librería. De pronto, Darín se balancea levemente y dice: “Me estoy mareando… un poco”. Una enunciación simple, sin quejas, pero el tempo y la textura que le imprime bastan para entender el estoicismo con que su personaje enfrentará la muerte. Hay muchos momentos como ese, en sus pelícu­las y en su vida: una frase apenas dicha que lo dice todo.

—I don't go to that box much where I keep my old man's things.

He hurts me.

I always wondered what would have happened if my old man had been a little more careful or lucky, in terms of economic stability.

But life is what it is, not what you want it to be.

I once gave the title to a poem he made.

"Do you remember?"

-Yes.

Sometimes when he laughs, he seems like he wants to cry.