Leonor Watling: "A politician or a journalist has more ego than an actor"

• Leonor Watling series: "Now success is buying what you want in a luxury store like Georgina, shit on success"

• Interview Leonor Watling: "Ten years ago I wanted everyone to like me; not now"

Actress and singer.

She Spanish, but British mother.

Eleanor, but also Elizabeth.

Watling without giving up Ceballos.

Comedian and friend of the papers close to any abyss.

has spent a lifetime fighting against easy, recurrent or too handy definitions.

She now, she returns to the cinema after almost five years away from him, not acting either on TV (special mention for the series '

') but in each of the many gigs of her group

Of she.

And she does it with all the honors from the hand of

, a film by

that adapts the novel by

' and that turns a ghost story into many things at once: a sour portrait of loneliness, an insightful and profound x-ray of pain and loss, and, of course, even a very serious comedy built from perplexity.

And in the middle, an Leonor Watling who refuses to be just Leonor Watling.

What has cinema done to you that makes it so hard for you to return to it?

Does it respond to a plan? It's a plan to conquer the world [laughs].

It is that or rather that the projects that I liked the most were not movies.

So easy.

This time everything fell into place: the script, the novel by Millás, that I wanted to work with Viscarret and that I could finally do it again with Paco León. But there will be something more specific...Yes, that universe of Millás --which also has Murakami or Paul Auster-- to find in the most prosaic the possibility of a great story fascinates me.

It's not a fantasy movie with ghosts in it.

It is a film set in everyday life and in which strange things happen. How many ghosts haunt Leonor Watling? We are all haunted by one.

The problem is when you don't react and you stay there, blocked.

The interesting thing about the film is that it also shows that we all have our own closets in which we hide from others [the main character sneaks into a house camouflaged in precisely a closet].

And there we are all.

We all bury things deep inside.

There is always something deeply intimate that we cannot share with anyone and the problem is that you get in there and cannot get out. You have to come out of the closet, then... That's it. In any case, an actor or a singer lives, by definition , out of all the closets, always in sight of the people... It is not my case.

And it's not that he's better or worse than anyone else.

I just can't, I'm too modest.

And it would be the same if she were a lawyer.

I don't get to make a video for example talking about my life.

I have Twitter and Instagram, but for work.

I never post anything personal or about my family.

But I guess it's because I'm late.

I already had the personality built when the networks appeared.

Sometimes I think how hard it must be to start your career when what matters most is how many followers you have.

It's terrible that a contract depends on the number of 'followers'. Aren't you afraid of having the wrong profession?

His is a very committed job for modest ones. Not only is that my job.

I like what Fernán Gómez used to say that hopefully we actors were suspicious bundles between film and film.

I remember that I had a regular time when after doing the series

Sometimes I think how hard it must be to start your career when what matters most is how many followers you have.

It's terrible that a contract depends on the number of 'followers'. Aren't you afraid of having the wrong profession?

His is a very committed job for modest ones. Not only is that my job.

I like what Fernán Gómez used to say that hopefully we actors were suspicious bundles between film and film.

I remember that I had a regular time when after doing the series

Sometimes I think how hard it must be to start your career when what matters most is how many followers you have.

It's terrible that a contract depends on the number of 'followers'. Aren't you afraid of having the wrong profession?

His is a very committed job for modest ones. Not only is that my job.

I like what Fernán Gómez used to say that hopefully we actors were suspicious bundles between film and film.

I remember that I had a regular time when after doing the series

they stopped me on the street.

I had a bad relationship with people who didn't look at me.

Then there are times when no one notices you.

You have to get used to these changes.

Little by little, you learn not to look up so much.

Let's say I'm reactive, not active.

If people approach me in a normal way, my reaction is good-natured.

If they get weird, I get weird.

On the other hand, now we are all watched, not just the actors.

has been democratized

'. And those ups and downs of being recognized or not, how do they affect your ego? I get along well.

It costs more to get used to the fear that they will stop calling you to work.

But I live in a space where I feel recognized, appreciated... And my type of fame is not incompatible with taking my children to the park. Does being an actress serve to sing better?

And the other way around, does knowing how to sing make you a better performer? Not at all.

You are always afraid that people will think that you are taking advantage of yourself in some way.

When I sing I want people to be clear that what I do is music, that I'm not a tourist... On a personal level, singing and acting at the same time is very useful: it sets your ego on you;

you understand the work from various points of view... Thanks to Marlango, I arrive at the shoot very calm with my ego;

I don't feel the need to impose anything or make myself seen.

I already impose and do what I want when I sing. Let's say that he has his ego in his place... Everyone has their own ego and, despite what is believed, a politician or a journalist has more of an ego than an actor.

In my case, everything depends more on the faith I have in what I am doing than what others say about me.

The worst thing that can happen to you is that when you suffer from impostor syndrome someone approaches you to tell you how wonderful what you just did.

That sinks you. Is that impostor syndrome cured by maturity? Not me.

Every time you tackle something, write a song or start a movie, it doesn't matter what you've done before.

You always start from scratch.

Everything is just as difficult as the first time.

John Hurt once told me that he had already been told by Orson Welles that with the passage of time this profession gets more and more difficult.

If Welles and Hurt were clear on this, imagine those of us who are neither Hurt nor Welles.

With age you discover that contrary to what you thought when you were young there are not only one or two ways of doing things, but many more.

And that makes everything more complicated."With age," he has said.

How does growing older in front of the camera affect you? It's not as serious as it used to be.

I have the feeling that I have touched the change.

When I was 30, they told me: "You'll see in 40 that they forget about you." What has changed? Society has changed.

A producer or producer has no social responsibility to educate anyone.

The cinema, in general, should not have that task.

No one can be required to hire older actors to make anyone aware of anything.

They are mortgaging the house and they have to make movies that people want to see.

And now people also want to see movies and series with actors and actresses over 25 years old. There are also more of us of a certain age... Yes, we are still more.

And I imagine that the platforms have helped.

You no longer have to go to a specific audience, but to many.

A thousand gaming tables have been opened in the casino and... Nobody opens a gaming table

if there are only people playing slots or poker.

I imagine it goes there.

Everything has changed.

Ladies now also have a life of desire.

Before, ladies were just that: ladies.

They were ladies' characters and that's it.

The other day someone asked me: "How many scripts did you get with unnecessary nudity?" And? Well, I don't know because I was also involved in that narrative.

And although they wanted to see more of the woman's body and we had a worse time because of it, I have experienced situations in which the actor was also very uncomfortable.

It is not just a female issue. Recently, Maribel Verdú spoke about how everything has changed because there are now so-called privacy coordinators.

Now that's a change in the narrative that she talks about... If there are stunt coordinators,

why shouldn't there be sex scenes?

But I, however, have had an advantage in this... Which one? I started with the best coordinator of erotic scenes, Bigas Luna.

Then I have experienced very compromising situations, but I came very well taught.

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more

• actresses

• Instagram

• Twitter

• cinema