Alvaro Onieva Madrid
Madrid
Updated Wednesday, March 27, 2024-21:27
Series Corrupt Stevedores: Iron Hand shows the shadiest and most unknown side of the port of Barcelona
Filming a series like
Iron Hand
is not easy: cold, humidity and night work shifts.
"Bad combination! I don't recommend it to anyone
," recalls with a laugh the Argentine actor
Chino Darín
(
The Kingdom
,
Stories to Tell
), one of the members of the star cast of this Spanish Netflix series, released on the 15th. March, and created by Lluís Quílez (
Bajocero
). The seaport of Barcelona is its main stage. Thousands of containers of merchandise arrive there every day and, in some of these, kilos and kilos of cocaine are hidden. And from this idea of the port as a gateway for drugs, as well as that there are those who turn a blind eye or profit from it, the fiction begins, whose boss is an
Eduard Fernández
with a hook included — hence the title of the series —, who is also accompanied by
Natalia de Molina
,
Jaime Lorente
,
Sergi López
and
Enric Auquer
.
At the end of 2022, the production took over the port space, turning its performers into a family of corrupt dockworkers whose story takes place with the containers that arrive in Barcelona as a backdrop and almost always with the night as an accomplice to their misdeeds. . The wind and salt permeated the bodies of the actors during the recording of complicated days. "For me it was a hard and very demanding shoot. Also physically, because of the action scenes and the way they were shot," says Darín. His character, Víctor Julve, is a crane driver who "has a particular sense of justice" and a hidden motivation in the port. "He is there fulfilling other functions, as we discovered at the end of the first chapter," he advances.
Was filming so hard? I had never done action and this combination of weather, more action scenes, more particularly sinister and hostile locations due to their conditions exposed to the weather, plus the particularities of the director and his way of shooting these things, made that the filming was cumbersome. It was long and hard. Did you have to prepare yourself physically in any way? I had been preparing a lot, but I found quite a few surprises along the way. One adapts plans to circumstances. I had a bad blow at one point during filming and then I had to do all the action scenes after that kind of injury, so I did most of the action scenes in the series injured. It was a bit hard for me, honestly. I had a blow to my rib and another to my knee, the first in a scene that I can't mention and the second in a motorcycle accident, because my character rides it. So, did you have to do rehabilitation during filming? I wish! I'm doing rehabilitation now, I put ice on it between takes. What was it like filming in the other locations in Barcelona? We did things that are kind of forbidden in reality. For example, there are chases on Las Ramblas or Barceloneta... using those places has been interesting. What was the most fun part of filming? The coolest thing was using the crane. I even had psychopathic fantasies while I was operating on her and seeing the whole team down there. It is not a joke. I just went up the tower and was able to play with the commands a little. It's a nice place to see the panoramic view of the port.
The cast of
Iron Hand
has five Goya awards (
Eduard Fernández
has three,
Natalia de Molina
, two and
Enric Auquer
, one) and a César (
Sergi López
), undoubtedly one of its greatest assets. "I did the series because they told me who they were and I said: Please, what an opportunity! It has been a luxury to work with all of them," de Molina acknowledges. Chino Darín has also enjoyed this one-on-one with acting greats: "I really enjoyed working with Natalia, especially a scene we have with a phone and a chip... I also had the opportunity to work with Ana Torrent, who many of "My classmates didn't agree with her, and I had a lot of fun with Salva Reina.
The cast was one of the main reasons why I was in there
, so I tried to enjoy the present."
The rest of the performers also recognize the hardness of the recordings: "It has been a very demanding series both in terms of planning, and Lluís wants to record everything from all possible angles, and in very extreme filming conditions," says
Jaime Lorente
. The headliner, Eduard Fernández, adds: "It was winter, in the port, as much humidity as there could be next to the water, cold and night... That made it very difficult. And, on top of that, many hours.
When it was "Young man, working at night made me laugh
. Now, none, it's very hard." At least, they have not had to embark like other actors did: "I would have liked to, but knowing Quílez, who rolls from everywhere all the time, if the port is hard, the boat is already...".
To all this, Fernández had to add that his character has an iron fist. "Look, it's grown back!" he jokes. "It was a bit heavy because of the little posture; I had to shrink my hand all the time. It wasn't an excessive difficulty, but it was a sign of the character who was curious and attractive. I remember that in one sequence I forgot the grappling hook; I was already rolling and "
I said,
'Damn, the hook! I took it off sometimes because my hand was so sweaty
.'