The streets of central London are ready for Christmas consumption. Between trees without roots or plastic and gleaming backstage appears the actor Clive Arrindell , the bald man of the Lottery, recently arrived from Madrid where he has recorded the Christmas announcement for Pescanova . It has changed the slippery luck and the illusion for random money for the tangible and tasty ranges and prawns. This year follows the trail marked by Vicente del Bosque , former coach of the national football team, who starred (cutting his mustache) the advertising spot of the fish and seafood brand of the past Christmas.

"I am surprised by this competition that begins in Spain with the television commercials for Christmas. When I made the Lottery [from 1998 to 2005] our main rivals were the cava brands ; now it is a brand like Pescanova which is also in the career of commercials, "says Clive in a tone of disbelief and doubt. And he answers his own questions with the following apostille: "I imagine that everything goes from audience ratings." The holiday season invites you to leverage on the couch and surrender to the TV or any screen.

From his recent stay in Madrid to record the announcement, Cilve says: "I have done the work with very professional people and that always shows; while you do it, and, obviously, in the end, but I can't tell you much about what the content because, if not, it won't be a surprise. "

What it does imply is that the spot will have faults to those who made it famous almost twenty years ago. "In the announcement I observe different people in different contexts who do different activities; the recording has been done in black and white although I don't know anything about music, I don't think they put that of Doctor Zhivago that sounded in the propaganda of the Lottery" , adventure the actor who does not distinguish between recording an advertisement or a scene from the popular series The Crown in which he has played the role of the owner of the newspaper that uncovered the courtship of Princess Margarita and photographer Tony Snowdon .

For Clive, "to interpret is like dancing, if all the participants dance well -not only the actors-, harmony and artistic perfection are achieved, however, when some of them fail, the squeak sounds; in the case of The Crown , the script is in itself a very good work that the actors had to at least match. "

From The Crown series to the announcement of Spanish seafood, the range of work in which Clive Arrindell, born in Trinidad and Tobago 69 years ago , moves is wide and diverse. In Spain, after the fame generated by the Lottery campaign, he also announced a beer brand. He still wonders what generated him so much popularity. "I don't know why I became so well known among the Spaniards, but I do remember that among my acquaintances there they told me that Father Christmas was dressed in black," he recalls.

And the black color continues to be his uniform, even the hat that covers his head and looks like the tissues at home by the grandmother before the indifference of the TV.

Last year, Vicente del Bosque's seafood ad cut the mustache village, a feature that characterizes it, and the bushy mustache of the former coach was projected on the long, stylized mustaches of shrimp. An association (that of the character's mustache with that of the shellfish) that is not so obvious with the image and personality of the bald Lottery.

"There is some mustache and face-to-face look with a shrimp , but the focus of the announcement is not that my mustache is cut or my spot is a parody of last year's propaganda; those who have advertised are professionals and creatives, "the actor concludes during the interview in which he recalls that" I was very cold in Madrid, still coming from London, I felt an icy temperature because we filmed at night in studios and outdoors; in a museum near Atocha inside a train I caught a Siberian night that made me shiver and I had to overcome the weather. "

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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