José Mota: "In the Spain of before, when people saw Gila there were not two Spains, there was only one"

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José Mota (Montiel, 1965) is one of the most famous people in Spain and, also, one of the most worked. Without going any further, next week premieres in cinemas 'El hotel de los líos' and the next, 'De Caperucita a loba'.

That implies years and years of public appearances which, in this country, guarantees a reasonable dose of trampled puddles and tone departures, but... No. A long review of his previous interviews to prepare this reveals that the comedian from La Mancha has never given a scandalous headline. The journalist faces the appointment restlessly...

I was thinking that... You do well to think. In these times it is a scarce commodity. Nor is it customary in me, but the fact is that you have been talking for 30 years and you have not gotten into any trouble. How is that possible? It is nothing premeditated. I say what I think and, yes, maybe I think a lot about what I say. What one might think is common sense, right? I am a restless person who constantly navigates in doubt, I am always looking for different paths, I do not stay stagnant anywhere. I'm a restless ass. You've gone off on a tangent... [Laughs] True. Let's see, I'm honest: I don't want to contribute to creating tension because there is already too much in society and because I think, really, that the great job of comedy is to unite people. Comedy unites and comedy sets us free. In that Spain of before, when people listened to Gila there were not two Spains, there was only one. That is only achieved by comedy, it is the emotional miracle of humor and, I try to contribute to that and not to pour more gasoline on the fire. I see the world tense, not only Spain, and I feel very sorry. Notice that I thought that after the pandemic... "Would we come out better? Were you one of the optimists? Yes, I thought at least a little better. The great virus that afflicts humanity is the fucking selfishness and in the pandemic we realized that together we go to many places and separately, not even to the sidewalk in front. So I thought that the pandemic was going to bring out a little bit of the best version of ourselves, that something would remain. And no. Nope. The capacity for forgetfulness of the human being is brutal. We should take into account the lot of generosity that has been poured out in the pandemic by third parties towards us and be grateful for the rest of our lives. That unrepeatable generation of parents and grandparents who have fallen by the wayside because of this shit and who gave their lives for us: they have lived through a Civil War, a post-war period, hunger, they have worked all their lives so that today we enjoy the privilege and dignity we have. We owe the life we have today to them and we forget. Never has a generation given so much having received so little. I believe, call me crazy, that people really want to hug, but something is wrong with social mechanisms, something prevents that hug from occurring, but people want to love each other. What do you think is wrong? Among the thousand good things that we Spaniards have, we have a Cainite and self-destructive gene that also defines us. I don't know why we need that self-destruction. Before starting, you told me that, at least once, we should have the opportunity to rewind to the point of life we wanted and start again from there. Where would you return? Last night I had dinner with Santiago Segura and Florentino Fernández and we talked about how the pandemic has turned the clock on everything, how time has passed faster than we think at first glance. We can put it another way: the pandemic has robbed us of two years by face, by face, and time is sacred. I would love to rewind until I was 30 years old, here in Madrid. That Madrid that was different, different, happier perhaps. You have to assume that everything is a permanent change and the art of life consists of knowing how to swim according to the times without losing the thread that brought you here, the grounding that serves as a compass and guides us in this confusing world. But hopefully I will catch those 30 and that Madrid again. If you went back to 30, what would you change? Of my life? I would go shoppingA brake on time. I would say, "Please, where is the tent that makes me spend the six-month summers I spent as a child?" Are you nostalgic? Do you look back a lot? Yes, I always have been. When there is great nostalgia it is because life is deeply loved. With all the imperfections it has, it is a wonderful adventure, but when you pass 50 you begin to realize that time goes faster and there is less left. I long for the eternal summers of when we were little. I remember them perfectly. Then time accelerates, it's like a pyramid and as soon as you reach the top... Ahhhhh! The fall. For a few years now I have the feeling that the days fly by, they escape. Maybe it's the least ability to surprise us at things, when you're a child everything is about to happen... In short, I have consumed more than half a ham. Have you lost the ability to surprise yourself? Do you feel like you've already told everything? No, there are always things to tell, there are always things to say. But there is a very popular phrase in our profession that says: "Everything is already done." For example, the comedy that is what has brought us here: the funds of comedy are already all visited. The miseries, the human ruins, the surprises, the things are already counted... But they change the ways we communicate them. The forms of comedy change with the times, but the essential themes remain the same. Mainly, the miseries and ruins themselves seen through the opposite. With the reflection of the neighbor we laugh at ourselves. The great success usually distances the comedian from what he enjoys most: when he is a mere collaborator who only has to go for a while to a program to make the cafre. Does it happen to you? Of course, because you miss full freedom and less responsibility. What has brought us here? Fundamentally, the child who wanted to play. I was brought to Madrid by the boy who wanted to have fun because I saw Pajares, Esteso, Tip and Coll, Martes y Trece on television, and I arrived here with that illusion before which nothing and nobody could compete. As you abandon that child you begin to feel more slave to the profession. Some capon you took as a child for making you funny. A few at school, yes. I discovered humor early in Natural Sciences class when they asked what bones are for and I said, "To throw them into the stew." And I caught. They gave me two scolds in my hand and from there it follows that I am in the mood for revenge because I promised myself that the end of that story of the bones in the stew had to be another, it had to be an ending of laughter and not two reglazos in the hand. Revenge was not bad. I've taken revenge in a big way. I have a good time, I have had a good time and, God willing, I will always have a good time. You say you long for eternal summers, but you don't stop working. It's a bit contradictory. Now, I think about it sometimes, but the limited time we all have has to be divided into priorities and the reality is that I enjoy my work. I have been fortunate that in my work I have always felt free and I still feel it. That is my great fortune. There is a colleague and friend who tells me that you have thrown me too many years locked on a set, but he is wrong: I have done what I have always wanted. I have been very fortunate that I have deeply loved my work. Do you agree with those who say that there is less freedom now than 20 or 30 years ago? Well, these are different times.s. You have to be more careful with what you say, but in return there have also been achievements and social conquests that have been well worth it. It's true that with social media anything you say or do is subject to public judgment, but I think humor and comedy always make their way because, dude, comedy sets us free. Not to the comedian who performs it, but to the society that receives it. Comedy is a social good that we need like the water we drink. You can't live life without humor. In fact, that debate about the limits of humor, which seemed like the apocalypse, has ended up diluting itself. Exactly, because it coincides with what I tell you. In the end, humor makes its way and putting limits on comedy is absurd. You cannot put doors to the field: let everyone freely determine the limits they want to have. Humor does not admit general limits. They are marked by every comedian, every moment, every context... What limits do you have? Everything that at the certain moment of doing a sketch makes me feel bad or does not vibrate well or I feel that it is not funny. I don't, but because I don't feel like it, not because someone comes to me and says, "Don't do this." I don't believe in prohibition. As my good friend Luis Piedrahita said, humor is a weapon of mass construction above all. Comedy always builds and you have to know how to distinguish when you are in a comic tone. It's a wink, it's a complicity... It should not be necessary to make the gesture of the quotation marks with your fingers when making a joke. In the time we have been here, you have been approached several times with a familiarity, from my point of view, excessive. Doesn't it bother you? No, it doesn't bother me because people are usually friendly and part of your job. When you choose this you know what it entails. There are days when you want to wear sunglasses because you have not slept well and you do not want to see your dark circles, but little else. Once I went shopping and in the supermarket something curious happened to me. I remember perfectly what I ordered: "Please, do you give me a kilo of table oranges?" And there was a lady next door who said, "Oops, how serious, I thought you were funnier." "Madam, what do you want? Ask for the oranges by rapping?" I replied. You understand it, but it's still funny what it costs people to distinguish tones and moments. That lady has consumed me in sequence shooting comedy all the time and it does not fit her to ask for oranges like a lawyer. Having to always be funny is the curse of the comedian. They don't take you seriously. You get a heart attack at a dinner party and everyone starts to think it's horny and they don't call the ambulance. Comedy is the best travel companion one can have in life, but from time to time you feel like drinking coffee with reflection or memory. Life is made up of more things than laughter. Are you taking notes during the year for the New Year's Eve special? I visit and check the reality, but I don't go down the street jotting down in a notebook. Somehow, you wear the automatic and yes that thought comes up from time to time or a friend tells you: "This is a good idea to tell later." What I try to do on New Year's Eve is to use comedy as a social service, trying to use the tool of comedy to raise things that with another tone would be digested worse. I try to denounce what assaults us and tear out a healing smile. Comedy is one of the few things that dares to take the tongue to death.

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