Mexican actor Demián Bichir.Image Group LA (Getty Images)
Demián Bichir (Mexico City, 59 years old) began acting at the age of three, when he went on stage at the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the same place where 32 years later he received the Ariel award for best performer for his participation in
Until I die
(1995).
Like many Mexicans, he wanted to play soccer professionally.
He tried until he was 14 years old, but his teacher told him that he was "a very good actor."
With his family's background in theater and art, there was no turning back.
Fifty-six years later, more than a hundred productions between film, television, and theater, both in Mexico and in the United States —including an Oscar nomination in 2012—, Bichir debuted in 2022 as a director, screenwriter and producer with
Un Circus Tale & A Love Song
.
His debut film, in which he also stars and which was presented for the first time at the Morelia Film Festival in 2016, finally saw the light of day after six years.
The film, a story inspired by his life and now in its eighth week on the billboards of the Cineteca Nacional in Mexico City, tells the story of Refugio, a boy born in a circus who embarks on the search for his first lost love. years ago, on an emotional journey from childhood to adulthood, from Mexico to the US.
The also actor of Quentin Tarantino's
Los 8 Más
Odiados, spoke with EL PAÍS through a video call about the current moment of his career, his passion for writing and music, his participation in the television adaptation of
Let me in
(Paramount+), as well as the grieving process he faced after the death of his wife Stefanie Sherk in 2019, the co-star of his most recent film.
Question.
What is the reason for this presentation of the film so many years later?
Reply.
We were fortunate to be invited to the Morelia Festival, which is not only one of the most important festivals in Latin America, but also a much-loved one.
Times are never the same for each film and we are also going through two years of a pandemic.
That also slowed us down a bit when it came to light, but while its premiere was being defined we were able to be invited to Havana, Georgia, Denver.
We also went to Huelva, San Sebastián.
The festival opened because they were honoring Jorge Perugorría that year, it was very emotional.
The Cineteca opens its doors to us, since many distributors and many exhibitors want the film to be absolutely fresh, that it does not have so much time and above all that it has not had as long a run in festivals as ours.
I have always thought that things are for a reason and that times fall into place by themselves,
Q.
How was the challenge of assuming the role as an actor, director, scriptwriter and producer?
R.
I have always thought that the only way it can be interesting to see the directing work of an actor is if they have a story of their own.
That's why I've been writing all kinds of things for many years, from poems, columns, articles, songs, of course, and now I also have scripts for short films and so on.
So that vein is always there.
And we practically wrote this story because of a contest we had among friends to see who could deliver a script by a certain date and whoever didn't deliver had to pay a $1,000 fine.
There was no prize, but there was a fine [laughs].
After the competition, I kept working mine.
Q.
Are there similarities between you and the character of Refugio?
A.
The whole story.
It is the pretext that generated the text.
There are many points that obviously have to do with my own life journey.
And indeed there is a very clear analogy between theater and the circus.
We grew up in a theater hand in hand with our parents, first going from plaza to plaza throughout Mexico City.
The circus is very similar to life in the theater.
I have always found circus life fascinating and super mystical.
The character's journey from Mexico to the United States also has a lot to do with my own journey;
and the love that has always been fundamental, not only for me, but for the whole world.
It is always present, love, heartbreak, the fight for it, where fate always plays a crucial role, which is why this bond with my father in the film, the character played by Jorge Perugorría, was very important to me.
Q.
Another backbone of the film is the role of women, because of the influence they have on Refugio's path and on the plot, why was this focus important?
R.
I consider this to be a feminist film.
It seems to me that this dictates the story, because the figure of the woman in my life is fundamental from the enormous courage that my mother has, a great actress and mother of three.
To this day I wonder how she managed to be an actress, attend her rehearsals and give us three meals a day.
In love, women have been fundamental since I was a kid and the power that radiates in every way wanted it to be captured in the film.
Our society has tried unsuccessfully to control women, to subdue them.
Most men have always tried to minimize women, put her down, suppress her, do everything possible so that she does not fulfill her dreams, because deep down most men know that women are much more powerful. .
That is why the empowerment of women is fundamental to me.
The director Demián Bichir during the recording of a scene in 'A Circus Tale & A Love Song'. Danna Press
Q.
Last year you had another project on your hands.
How did the interest or the possibility of taking this work,
Let The Right One In —which
already had a
film remake—
arise on television?
R.
I have always thought that if you are going to make a new version of something that is wonderful, it had better make some sense;
and that was my first great curiosity when they invited me to this idea.
When I read the pilot, I was immediately hooked.
My first question was, how can you transform two hours of great cinema, a beautiful film, the original Swedish version, into 10 hours.
How you expand two hours into ten and hoping it's just as powerful.
When I read the pilot they explained it to me.
Q.
The original version is considered one of the modern references of vampire mythology
R.
I was immediately hooked on the arc of the entire series because it seemed to me that it was a love letter, as its creator says, to the original film, but it is also full of new elements and new characters that greatly enrich the story, logically from my point of view.
Different very important web pages have named our series as one of the best.
That has been a huge gift.
Q.
So, at this point in your career, do you prefer to focus on one project at a time?
R.
When they offered me the pilot, for me that is what there was.
Point.
We all thought, 'I love the pilot, I want 10 episodes.'
But that nobody knows.
I concentrate on the 50 pages of the pilot.
And that's all there is to me at the time.
When they ordered the first season, the most important thing in my life was those 10 episodes.
One cannot be anxious.
We have always known that in my family, because the only thing that exists is the play or the film project of the day.
We love what we have on our hands.
Q.
And now what are you up to?
R.
You know that as a musician, poet and madman, we all have a little.
I spend my time writing.
She didn't stop writing, I keep generating songs.
I made an album during the pandemic, I did it absolutely alone.
I didn't know it was possible, but Paul McCartney also tried it with much less success than me [burles out a deep laugh] and that's obviously a joke, but I didn't think it was possible for someone who isn't an engineer or a musician, or anything, I could achieve nine roles.
I was very happy with the third independent album that I do and I'm going to continue.
The guitar was always with me.
I always spend a lot of time in front of the piano.
Once the film has seen the light, I am already preparing the next story to shoot as soon as I have the financing.
Q.
Regarding your musical facet and most recent album,
E4
, I understand that you have songs that you composed for your wife, Stefanie Sherk.
A.
That's how it was born.
I've said it many times before, but of course the fact that
A Tale of the Circus & A Love Song
is being released now is also a way of honoring her memory.
She did a beautiful job on our movie and we will miss her forever.
We have all suffered the loss of a loved one and we know how it hurts, so I am very happy that we have been able to travel with the film, with Stefanie.
Basically I recovered some songs that I had written for her and also others that were in the pipeline.
There are also two songs that I wrote for my daughter Gala and another song that I wrote about the
Black Lives Matter
movement , the
quarterback gesture.
Colin Kaepernick and all the national debate and controversy that he spawned.
There are three songs that were also fundamental to this whole healing process of having lost Stefanie.
Q.
To what extent did art help you cope with your grieving process?
R.
It was important, without a doubt.
Friends, nature, by this I mean art in general.
George Clooney and Robin Wright literally hugged me and invited me to make their movies at the right time so that they could complete the whole stage of mourning.
Land
[along with Wright, 2021] we shot it in the mountains of Alberta, in Canada.
Every morning in front of that beautiful and vast nature, it relieves anyone.
And George Clooney too.
He said to me: How about we all go to London to shoot
Midnight Sky
?
And so we left.
Art, friends and nature are enormous medicines.
subscribe here
to the EL PAÍS México
newsletter
and receive all the key information on current affairs in this country