Berto Romero turns to terror, supernatural although naturalistic, in the series 'El otro lado'

Berto Romero's (Cardona, Barcelona, ​​48 years old) favorite genres as a spectator have always been the fantastic, science fiction and horror.

“Comedy is not among them.

I don't usually see a lot, but I dedicate myself to it because I have a certain amount of factory equipment to do it.

Even if I do something serious, people laugh.

And you have to take advantage of that ”, the actor and comedian confesses this Thursday.

After the success he obtained with

For three seasons, the new series he is preparing,

, will be scary.

It will also be funny.

She says she can't stop the smile from flooding his creations.

“Terror and humor are two genres that, in theory, produce spontaneous reactions in the audience.

Laughter and fright are like spasms.

There was something interesting when hybridizing them, because both are very radical emotions”, commented Romero.

He does it in the middle of filming the new project, on the sets that the Mediapro company has on Avenida Diagonal, in the heart of Barcelona.

Finding a very particular balance between both genres, as he did with romantic comedy and drama in his previous series, is his main challenge.

“We are again looking for a very specific tone, one that is not widely seen.

It is a ghost story.

Ghosts of all kinds.

The literals appear and also the metaphorical ones.

We follow the classic tradition of this type of story, although adapted to our own filter”, says Romero, who repeats with a good part of the technical and creative team of

.

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In the Barcelona recording studios, the team has built the apartment, somewhat old and claustrophobic, of the protagonist, played by María Botto.

Right next to it, the one for the character of Berto is being created, an equally outdated place full of references to conspiracy theories.

In the fiction, she begins to detect presences from the afterlife and he, obsessed with unsolved mysteries, finds out what is happening and becomes involved in "a full-

case ."

The interior sequence that Alberto de Toro, one of the directors of

, is filming during this visit to the set, proves this.

It is "one of the toughest and most gendered of the entire series," describes Romero.

It shows Botto dealing with strange events.

A

man , dressed entirely in green to disappear from the image in post-production, drags the actress violently.

This production by El Terrat (The Mediapro Studio) has six half-hour episodes each directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera and De Toro (responsible for the 2020 zombie and war film

).

It can be seen from 2023 on Movistar Plus+, the same platform that aired his dramatic comedy on fatherhood.

The team has wanted to innovate taking into account where it came from.

That is why Catalan changes this time to the children of

for the ghosts.

Berto Romero, in the center, on the 'set' of 'El otro lado' with María Botto, co-star of the series. LANDER LARRANAGA

The scripts began to be written a couple of months after the premiere of the third season of

, in the fall of 2020. It was a time of collective terror that, in this case, seeps into the oppressive and oppressive of much of it. of history.

The outdoor sequences have been recorded in Manresa, at various points in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat and in other places in the province of Barcelona.

It is another of the changes with respect to Romero's previous adventure in Movistar Plus +.

If in

the viewer could see an "idealized, almost New York, and a bit posh, like its protagonists" Barcelona, ​​this time the story is set in the narrow apartments of Bellvitge, a suburban neighborhood that owes its current physiognomy to the mass housing neighborhoods built during the 1960s and 1970s.

“We found it interesting that the strange events occurred in a modest block, in a beehive building, far from the clichés of a mansion on the outskirts or an old woman's apartment,” explains its creator.

Vigalondo and Buenafuente

The comedy part is continuous, Romero advances: "It's the same kind of unforced humor, letting the characters generate comedy among themselves."

And the same thing happens with terror, which tries to portray it "in the most sincere and naturalistic way possible", but which has involved a much greater technical effort.

This time they have needed special effects.

“We have made use of a lot of traditional trickery, later supported by digital effects.

But, in principle, everything is being very handmade, to maintain that naturalistic feeling, ”he points out.

Also appearing in the series as main and secondary characters are his inseparable Andreu Buenafuente, the filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, María Pascual and Eva Ugarte, co-star in

, with whom he wanted to "take advantage of the extraordinary chemistry that existed with her" in a new role "that is key in the plot."

Berto Romero has reserved a role in the series for Andreu Buenafuente, in the background.LANDER LARRANAGA

The other side

is conceived as a very closed unit.

Although the platform has shown interest in having a second batch, at the moment it is not in Romero's plans to expand it beyond these six chapters, he says.

“Fortunately, I don't have that pressure.

Movistar Plus+ gave me the freedom to extend the story of

as long as I wanted.

When I told them that it was not enough for more than a third season, they did not insist, despite the fact that it worked well, ”he explains.

There is still time for the viewer to see the result of this creative twist by the Catalan, who does not stop remembering that laughter will also make its way into history.

"I would tell people to watch the series if they can, because since there are so many... I make them short so they have time and don't get overwhelmed, I know that everyone has fifty things to see and it doesn't give them life" , joke.

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