Tejón arrives in his “14-year-old” car from Getafe, where he has always lived, thinking about
dumping it
in a certain parking lot in Madrid and arriving in time to attend the appointment at the Ateneo on time.
But, at the last minute, he finds the street closed to traffic, he has to enter the labyrinth of the center and, like a good suburbanite, he informs those of us who are waiting for him by phone how and how late he is.
When he finally arrives, he apologizes, takes off the extra-long down jacket with which he deals with the cold that hits today on the Plateau, and leaves a feather stuck to his shirt.
I take it from him, I show it to him, he looks at me, I look at him and we both laugh without laughing.
The laughter, and the occasional tear at the doors watering their eyes, will come later, in a generous and enjoyable talk of which what follows is only an excerpt.
Great conversationalist, he is a pleasure to listen to.
How long did it take you to come?
Nothing, 20 minutes.
People who live in the center believe that Getafe is in the afterlife, very far away, and they often take longer than me to get to places.
Those of us who live in the periphery are not lazy about distances, right?
We have the Metro map and the Cercanías map engraved in our heads.
I wouldn't come downtown to live, even if I could buy an apartment, which I can't.
By?
Because I like Getafe and what Getafe gives me: that I go to train every day with my friend Eduardo, that I visit Sergio's optician, my friend from school, and we go to have a beer at my friend's bar Use .
I imagine there are neighborhoods in Madrid where you can do that, but with gentrification everything is more soulless.
To meet someone you have to schedule it within three weeks.
And that doesn't suit me.
Is he a suburban boy?
Altogether.
I can leave Getafe, because Getafe does not leave me.
I neither can nor want to deny the place where I have grown up, where I have become.
In my school, in the 80s, heroin was rampant.
We kids ran away from the poor junkies who were willing to take the pesetas they gave us as pay.
My grandparents are immigrants from La Mancha.
From here I'm going to try on a Pedro del Hierro suit for an event, because actors also sell illusion.
But I'm a hard worker, working class, and that doesn't make me less class conscious.
Define 'class consciousness'?
Knowing that there is no social justice, that meritocracy does not exist, that it is the parents.
That, no matter how well things are going for me, my obligation is to pay back with my taxes to the society that has given me everything, including the scholarships with which I earned two degrees at the university in my town, Carlos III.
Law and Business Administration.
I pay them with pleasure and gratitude because they are for the citizens, not for the Government.
When I pay a lot, I'm happy, because that means I've made a lot of money.
The more I pay, the more I earn.
I have always been there by right.
I have never tried to be what I am not.
In other words, on your Instagram profile you can put “entrepreneur”.
Hahaha, I could, what I'm never going to put is
entrepreneur
, or
bon vivant
, or
wanderlust
, or that shit that capitalism sells us.
A respect.
He is triumphing with his character in the series
'Alpha males'
.
Are you more macho, or more alpha?
The alpha of my house is my dog, Roque.
Jaime, his rehabilitator, told me this the other day, and I loved it.
The alpha male, in dogs, is the one who balances.
And I, according to Jaime, am the “chocolate”, the one who keeps the pack together through play.
He made me laugh, because my way of being in life and work is to play.
I arrive on set, or anywhere, and people, dogs, children come up to me.
I am chocolate.
Has it always happened to you?
No, that's happened to me since I decided not to be angry with the world.
Was it before?
Yes, I was very angry with life.
I guess it has to do with a complicated situation in my childhood.
My father left home and it was a traumatic separation.
I felt abandoned and spent almost 20 years angry.
From 17 to 35. Until I said: that's it.
What happened to make it stand?
It happened that they abandoned me again.
One Love.
And then, I said, enough, I have to change the screen, I'll solve this, the tango is over.
The anger is over.
And it changed my life.
I recovered my relationship with my father.
I accepted that I couldn't change him.
That my mother was also like she was.
I understood that we have to accept people as they are, not as we want them to be.
When you accept that, expectations and misunderstandings end and life becomes better.
I have been in therapy for 20 years.
I have decided to be aware.
Not to be happy, to be complete.
Has the therapy been expensive for you?
Very expensive, but I think that and being well off is much better than being able to buy an apartment on Gran Vía.
Does that awareness coincide with your professional takeoff?
Yes, although in the years of anger, I took advantage of that energy.
I've done the whole range of bastards: rapists, pedophiles, murderers, corrupt police officers, the whole macho world.
At castings they took me just for that.
Nobody saw that I could be comedy, that I can be, that I am, in fact, a rattlesnake inside my anger.
Until the Caballero brothers [the producers of
Machos alfa
] arrived and saw it.
Raúl Tejón, actor in the series 'Alpha males' photographed at the Ateneo de Madrid.Bernardo Pérez
Are you sexist?
Of course I am, which is my turn, and I don't realize it, because I have been raised in the patriarchy.
I have been lucky to grow up among powerful women.
My great-aunt jumped on the train and lost her legs before they caught her with the black market, with two ovaries.
My mother pushed ahead alone with my sister and me, but she still put up with things that she shouldn't have to put up with.
This has made me understand that women can be as powerful as they want to be, but that they have also been raised in patriarchy.
In other words, there are sexist women.
Well of course.
There are many sexist ladies and many gay
gentlemen
, because patriarchy is transversal to the entire society.
But there are things that I don't go through and I'm not even willing to debate.
Those who say that violence has no gender, for example, I don't even argue.
Total red line.
Boy, go to therapy, I've been there for 20 years now.
Those who deny genocides, for example, another red line.
Aren't there any of those in any of your family chats, for example?
Well, of course, look at what I've told you about my great-aunt, for example.
As long as there is no justice and restitution, there will be two Spains, of course there are.
I have broken some relationships because of those things, I don't have to put up with certain things that hurt me.
Is homophobia one of them?
Well, of course, if you don't accept me as I am, that's it: there's nothing more to talk about.
I don't force anything on anyone.
Marry a man, a woman or a poodle.
But don't tell me what I can or can't do with my life.
Is there still homophobia in your profession?
Well, of course, tell me an explicitly gay actor who has won a Goya as a protagonist.
You will tell me that Javier Cámara, and, yes, he is an exception.
But historically they are won by perfectly heterosexual actors playing Iberian males.
They have tried to remove me from a cast for being homosexual, hello?
Did anyone try to get Tom Hanks out of
Philadelphia
for being straight?
For this reason, I consider that it is an act of vindication and militancy to say who one is.
Sexual orientation is not part of my private life.
Are you in favor of 'outing'?
No, because each person has their personal struggle, their process, and they have the right to say it whenever they want, if they want.
But I also don't understand why anyone is offended because they say he's gay.
Nobody is offended because they say that he is six feet tall, or that he is short.
It is still internalized homophobia.
There, there, making friends on the bus.
Let's see, the group is as diverse as society, and has picked up some despicable vices.
There is a brutal ageism.
The pen is banned in certain sectors.
It seems that we all have to go to the gym, work out to have a well-defined
six pack
and enjoy the Benidorm Fest.
Fuck off.
We have been fighting all our lives to be allowed to be, feel and say whatever we want and now the collective is going to tell us who we are.
Let's be sensible.
We must make an effort to inform ourselves and deconstruct ourselves.
There is a lot of talk about masculine deconstruction in 'Alpha Males'.
Have you already deconstructed your home?
Well, I have my readings, and my things.
I have been making an effort for many years, and this is going to sound bad, not so much because I am a feminist, but because I am a better person.
Is happy?
Well look, yes.
And I have reasons to be sad.
My mother died this summer.
I go every week to see Itxaso, my psychologist.
It's a daily job.
And I do it because it is what feeds me as a person, and as an actor.
The only advice I give to those who ask me is that knowing who they are, and embracing it, is what makes you different, what will differentiate you from the rest.
'ALPHA MALES'
Raúl Tejón (Madrid, 48 years old) is Raúl Camacho, the muscular macho, systematic unfaithful and insecure pimp of the quartet of male protagonists of 'Alpha Machos', the comedy-series about the crisis of masculinity of the Caballero brothers, with which This "battle" actor has achieved mass popularity.
Before that, Tejón was part of the first promotion of the double degree in Law and Business Administration at the Carlos III University of Madrid, based in Getafe, a peripheral city of Madrid, where Tejón has lived since he was a child with his family, from Alcázar. of San Juan (Ciudad Real).
It was at the end of his degree, when the recent graduate, who had participated in amateur theatrical productions, decided to audition for
Romeo and Juliet
and was given the role of Romeo on the first attempt.
From there, he began teaching acting classes with Alberto Corazza, put aside law and business, and chained one job after another, especially in theater and television.
Until now.
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