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María León (Seville, 1984) is very nice. "It's the excitement," he laughs. El hijo zurdo, the series by Rafael Cobos that he stars in and can already be seen on Movistar +, has been awarded at Cannes and accumulates splendid reviews. Her role is anything but cheerful, a mother whose son becomes a neo-Nazi and is run over by life. "She is a woman who is very lost, she has many shortcomings, she is not a heroine ... She is a real character and a gift as an actress," she explains and, to prevent the topical question, she finishes: "But we are nothing alike, I am anything but lost."

It's a fictional series, but the rise of the far right is very real. I agree with you that the far right is really making a comeback now and it's cool to invite society to reflect on why. It is a movement that harms us all, but the series poses it as one of the many movements that exist in the street and in which young people can enter without having adults or idea how. When you're young, you're looking for a place to belong, an identity... And if at home you have nowhere to see yourself reflected, you will look for it outside. That is why it is so dangerous that these types of movements that are dedicated to making noise for making noise and do a lot of damage return. And that's why it's important that we have references. Did you find the references at home or did you look for them outside? I had my moment of looking outside the home, what happens is that I have had a rather anarchist mother who has always loved us and has made us see that we can be whatever we want, although we will make mistakes along the way. He instilled in us some basic values: love, respect and non-judgment. Carmina has never judged her children, whatever we have been, and that is a learning that today I thank her very much, because that has given me the opportunity to discover many things for myself. When did you test your mother's ability to not judge the most? When I dyed my hair black. He saw me and said, "You motherfucker, you look like a fly in milk." That was the literal phrase, huh. As I was very white skin and such... (laughter). But I was looking for my place, I wanted to be older and I dyed my hair to look like Monica Naranjo, who was doing it with I will survive. I also bought boots that destroyed my back, they didn't make any sense. Snow boots in Seville in summer. I loved them and my mother: "This little girl is subnormal, the poor girl is half dumb." And he said, "You'll notice." And sure enough, I've noticed (laughs).

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Culture.

María León and the mother-son fight club

  • Writing: LUIS MARTÍNEZ Madrid

María León and the mother-son fight club

Cinema.

María León: "The woman's body is still beautiful with one less breast"

  • Writing: LUIS MARTÍNEZ Madrid

María León: "The woman's body is still beautiful with one less breast"We are all half fools at certain ages. Absolutely, but the good thing about my mother is that she didn't tell me judging me and so that I wouldn't do it. I let myself be and discover it by myself. She always gave me the decision to take the risk and I think that thanks to that, as restless as I have been, I have been a very responsible aunt. Series aside, you are in a tremendous moment and you have shot with Victor Erice his first film in 30 years. It was amazing when my representatives called me to tell me that Victor Erice wanted me to do a character. I said, "What? How? I? Really?" I loved it because it's also a completely different role from Lola in The Left-Handed Son. He is a super luminous character, with a lot of freshness and that serves as a transition at a very important moment in history. I was very excited that he remembered and thought of me. I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie because I have no idea what it will be. The first cut was four and a half hours, we know it's already going for two and a half hours. Show me... The good thing is that I know he can't cut me because my plot is important to the film (laughs). The actor's panic to editing. You see. I swear I thought about it, but it can't cut me because everything I do is key in the film. I've been twice as lucky: working with Erice and being untouchable. I had a very nice relationship with him, because he is a man of few words, with a very inner vision of life that at his age he can afford. If not him, who? So I spent a lot of time observing him: how he got behind the combo, how he decided through shooting and, after eight takes, the ninth was the one I wanted, but I had to do the eight before to know it. A very old way of shooting, very different, because he does not have the times of now: the shooting, the pressure of a producer, you have to go fast, everything costs money ... It snorts it. Totally. But completely, huh. One day we shot 17 hours, which is unthinkable today. All those waiting times were super entertaining because I dedicated myself to observe him and see how freely he shot before. Now everything is much more measured. Do you have a director inside? I like it a lot and I'm afraid I'm going to have to get into it just to be true to myself, I've been holding it back for a long time. I like everything: the technique, the interpretation, the script, even the final editing process. I would like and hopefully one day I will dare. Look, I'm quite daring for everything, but directing imposes me. When I love something so much I like to have respect for it, but I think I'll get wet. You know this all too well. (Laughter.) Yes, yes, yes, I say it with modesty, but yes. Does it exhaust that image of an indissoluble clan that you have your brother Paco, your mother and you? Nah, in my house we are very punks and very anarchists. We do not talk about the profession, the theme is very strong. Paco was at my house yesterday and we didn't talk about work, we see each other all the time, but then we are not heavy to tell each other our projects. Nothing at all. At the blacksmith's house, stick knife. It is true that on the street they remind me very often of my mother and my brother, but I like it very much because they make me feel that they really love us. The three of us have races that we have in very different ways and that's cool because we don't have anything that we have.And at the same time, we have it all. Our relationship is curious both as a clan and with the rest. What I enjoy most about having this clan is going down the street and being told, "You're Carmina's daughter." It's that your mother became a phenomenon with 'Carmina o revienta'. Absolute and at that moment, we disappeared. And it's very nice to see how Carmina reaches the public directly and everyone connects with her. It's a learning experience for us. Carmina teaches Paco and me a lot about how to face popularity and people because she never stops being her. We walk through Seville in the middle of Holy Week and we tell her: "Mom, we can't go there because we are known and they are going to sink us to kisses". And she doesn't realize it, she hasn't grasped it yet and she doesn't care. If it is good for them to eat it with kisses, then they eat it, and if you do not feel like it, you say it without shame: "No, not today, forgive me." I love watching it because Auntie teaches us all the time that we are not so important and that we are luckier than we think. With the life of actors there is a strange fixation. Of course, because there is very little culture and awareness. It always bothers me that "is that as he is famous ...". I think, and I say this from my heart, that there is a kind of envy that we have exposure and are popular, but being famous means nothing. You are still a human being whose belly hurts, who has feelings, dreams, loves and heartbreaks. The actors work a lot and most people are not aware of what is behind it. It does not happen to everyone, but many only think of what they see, I feel that they see me as something theirs, as a product. They are people who do not have open-mindedness, who have a very small mind and stay with that, that we live under a spotlight with lights, we get up so handsome and we do not have any kind of lack. And it is the opposite, an actor has to be constantly working with himself and recycling himself because to stay in this profession you have to have a constant evolution and always deal with vulnerability and fragility. Do you say they see you as their own? Exactly. I remember once at the Fair, a few years ago, that a fan took some pictures of me while I was with friends and I asked him please no. And he said, "You owe it to me." How? That man felt entitled to say, "You work because of me, silly, so let me take a picture of you." The poor guy had such a limited brain that I went from explaining to him that this is an industry and that he doesn't pay me, that they hire me for my work, but it's shit that happens often. How do you live with that attention when a situation as unpleasant as your arrest by the police a few months ago is made public? [She was accused of assaulting an officer during an argument in the street, she reported an illegal arrest, but the judge did not give her the reason.] Calm because I know I've always been the person I am, I've never lied and I feel very lucky to be like that. I am very calm because I am going with the truth ahead. If I had something to hide or defend myself against, I would do it and I would be looking for strategies for it, but I have a clear conscience and I have no shame in showing who I am or fear in telling the truth. I am calm about this issue and I will not say anything more. But the versions differ, it would be reasonable for you to give yours. No, I haven't even spoken.Or I'm not going to talk about that topic because I believe that the interests are of others, not mine. I am calm and being calm things will be solved where and how they have to be solved. If I had any kind of fear I would surely have had to write a script to answer this question and give a version, but I don't need it because I trust the truth. You started in the cinema in a big way, with your first leading role you won a Goya and the Silver Shell in San Sebastián... Dude, you're the only one who tells me about La Concha. This is strong because I have won an international award in this country and nobody remembers. Why will that be? People measure in Goyas and in Oscars. What things, with how important our San Sebastian Festival is. I don't say it because I'm embarrassed, but I like to be named. Sorry, I've cut you. I was going to ask you what you've learned since then. Puff, a lot of things. What a tour and how beautiful. I confess that I am now as if it were my first time, I have the same illusion, the same desire and the same feeling. I'm lucky enough to feel completely new in all of this, but it's true that I'm not. I've been working for 14 years, I've done things that I like more and that I like less, movies, series, comedy, drama... And in that journey I have learned a lot about acting and also about myself. At the beginning I did everything, I've done many episodic ones that people didn't know me, and there's a gymnastics, it's like going to the gym and you're doing a muscle with both cool and not so cool projects. I see myself as a long-distance race. In the beginning, I ran a lot and suffocated, now I know where I have to make the stops to breathe, but I have a lot to learn and that's what keeps me completely on. I'm excited not to have it all done. In any profession that is fundamental. And in life, man, and in life. I don't know where I'm going to go in life, I have no idea. I am clear about my values, where I want to position myself and how I want to be facing the other so that the other is equal to me. With age I have been settling down and I make much less effort to appear. Now I dress as I go today, more put, because I have fun, because I like it and because I do sports and I keep myself so that I feel good, but it is no longer a matter of having to appear, figure or demonstrate. I am who I am, I like it and I show it. That's what I've told you before when you've asked me the uncomfortable question from the police... I had to do it to you. Of course you do and I understand it, you're doing your job. What I mean is that I, poor thing, tell everything, I have never lied: love, heartbreak, if I have been sadder ... I go with the truth ahead and I believe that this is a virtue that gives me a veracity that no one can take away from me. I took off my panties and counted it! (laughter). You said that you had collected the Silver Shell without them and it haunted you for years. Yes, yes, but I told it then and I would have told it again today. Being in Cannes I told that my feet hurt a lot because of my shoes and you can see me in the photos collecting the prize with a pair of pants that I have left over, 20 centimeters. It's not because the pants were long, it's that I couldn't stand the heels and I took them off. And I count all those things because they make people feel like I'm no different from them. I tell everything and there are times when I benefitcia and others who do not, but I prefer to tell it than hide it.

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