First, Resins appears. He is not present in his body, but in a family photo, hanging on the wall. Without wishing to spoil, he has just died. The start of 4 stars, the new daily series of RTVE for dinner time that has premiered this Sunday, already makes its intentions clear. He wants to return to the past, to the usual, to the Spanish series of a lifetime with Antonio Resines playing Mr. Campechano. To that taste of the productions of Daniel Écija. Normal, is that it is a series of Daniel Ecija.

After several failures with programs in prime time but with the successful antecedent of La Promesa, which has managed to recover the afternoons for RTVE, the public entity has redoubled its commitment to daily fiction with classic recipe. "We return to the costumbrista treatment, to talk about how Spanish society lives and to mix genres: romance, comedy, mystery ...". José Pastor, director of Cinema and Fiction of RTVE, says that they turned to Écija as a "Vietnam veteran", and he took on "the challenge": "It is an extraordinarily competitive strip with a very loyal audience. It's going to be very hard, you have to be patient."

Find out more

TVE.

A day in the ins and outs of La Promesa: the new TVE desktop series that is shot as a 'thriller' of 'prime time'

  • Writing: SARA POLO Madrid

A day in the ins and outs of La Promesa: the new TVE desktop series that is shot as a 'thriller' of 'prime time'

Indeed, 4 stars will start at 22.00 hours and will compete directly with El hormiguero, the black beast of access. And it will do so with a formula loaded with well-known names. We have already said it: at the beginning, Resines appears. But he is not the only old acquaintance of Daniel Écija, Antonio Molero, the mythical Fiti of Los Serrano, and will even make some cameo Luisa Martín. Who does not remember the Juani of Family Doctor?

We return to the costumbrista treatment, to talk about how Spanish society lives and to mix genres: romance, comedy, mystery...

José Pastor, Director of Film and Fiction of RTVE

Martín passes as if nothing behind the press circles and becomes a regular question. We are in a village bar built in an old workshop, with its rock concert posters, its bar and its red leather Chester sofas. In one of them, the protagonist of the series, Toni Acosta, attends to the media. She does not hide that she thought about it a lot before saying yes to a character that would be written for her: "It is a very ambitious project, a daily series is always a challenge, and more with the quality of a prime time production," she acknowledges.

In that industrial estate on the outskirts of Madrid, Daniel Écija has reproduced an entire village twice, Vera del Rey. Don't look it up on Google Maps. Outside, the skeletons of its streets, its portals, its toys on the balconies, and the entrance of the Hotel Lasierra, which receives the fourth star just dead its patron, embodied by Resines; inside, the houses of its protagonists, the luxurious lounges of the hotel and the bar in which we chat with Acosta, that of his love of youth Julio, whom he will meet again when he returns to the town to... For that you have to see the series.

It is an extremely competitive strip with a very loyal audience. It's going to be very hard, you have to be patient

Daniel Écija, executive producer

For now, let's talk about Clara, his alter ego in fiction. We will only reveal that Resines plays her father and that this is, for her, "a settled account": "He was going to be my father in Santiago Segura's film [Padre no hay más que uno 3] but it was when he was sick with Covid, so in this series I feel that life has given a second chance to enjoy it". Second chances goes the thing in 4 stars. Of that, and of four strong and independent women, condemned to understand each other. "Clara is a wonderful character. She is a single mother and pulls forward with humor, with irony, and always without complaining," describes Acosta, and warns: "I have to be careful because her way of being is sticking to me a little and I am becoming contestant."

The cast of '4 stars' poses on the steps of the Hotel Lasierra, the axis of the plot. RTVE

The other three protagonists that make up the plot, the plots, are Ana Gracia, Marta Aledo and Dafne Fernández, wife and daughters of Resines, respectively, but not necessarily sisters of Toni Acosta... But for that you have to see the series. The last few months, the 4-star cast has been a family, also behind the camera. The rhythm of a daily fiction imposes marathon days of 12 hours, 42 chapters open to time, six directors sometimes with three parallel units, 14 scriptwriters and scenes shot in a single take, as if it were a false direct. "You have to be very healthy, physically and psychologically," jokes Gracia.

It's like a reality, like filming life, it hooks you to these characters, to everything that happens to them inside the town and you want to know more

Toni Acosta, protagonist

The result is a mixture of genres between romanticism, thriller and comedy manners that, according to the actresses, goes great to accompany the dinner. "It's a good time to sit on the sofa, it's 45 minutes without ads and it allows you to disconnect," says Dafne Fernández. Well, what about competing with the invincible Pablo Motos? "They are completely different proposals: The anthill makes entertainment, we fiction. There is cake to distribute," says Acosta, "we have become accustomed to the fact that the daily series has to be for after lunch and in France or the United Kingdom they have a very long tradition of daily fictions in prime time."

For the protagonist, the tone of the series can even be a good hook for young people: "It's like a reality, like shooting life, it hooks you to these characters, to everything that happens to them inside the town and you want to know more." Toni Acosta calls herself optimistic, although she adds: "My friends say I'm a shitty optimist." Whatever that means.

  • Series
  • Articles Sara Polo
  • HBPR

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more