• Newspaper. All Chimpún interviews by Iñako Díaz-Guerra
  • María Pedraza. "If I want to show myself naked, who cares? Whoever is scandalized by the sight of a breast or a bit of an ass is an old man."
  • Florent Muñoz. "The 90s were the last gasp of freedom, then the euro came and put an end to drugs and partying"

Things start off regular. I ask Miguel Ángel Silvestre (Castellón, 1982) the typical first lane question to break the ice... and skated. He stars again, in its second season, 30 Coins, the insane (in the best sense) series by Álex de la Iglesia for HBO Max, and I ask him if he appreciates such a character, shy and discreet, so far from the stereotype that accompanies him.

Sly. With exquisite politeness, but mischievous: "That stereotype doesn't exist, it's in your head because you compare it to a specific character, The Duke of Sin tetas no hay paraíso, which I did a long time ago and I haven't repeated. I don't think you have seen any more of my work."

And he smiles at me because, above all and even shaking you, Miguel Ángel Silvestre is a charming guy.

Yes, I've seen more, but you can't deny me the tough and handsome guy profile. Honestly, I would never say that's my record. I work on all the characters based on the script and, at least from my point of view, they don't have that many things in common. Do you know what's going on? Honestly, I think sometimes the people doing the interviews haven't done their job well and go to the easiest question. I've been working for many years now, but if you haven't seen me as Pablo Ibar, if you haven't seen 'Sense8', if you haven't seen 'Scorpion in Love' or if you haven't seen 'Velvet', you still think about El Duque. So I think that maybe you haven't done the work and I have to tell you with transparency so that we can talk openly. You're probably right, but when you become so famous because of a specific character, it's hard to get them out of the collective imagination. You are right. It remains in the collective memory and in mine. It's a character that I'm dying to do again and if they tell me tomorrow that El Duque is coming back, I'll sign running. I don't hold any grudges against him, on the contrary, I love him very much. I've never taken the issue of pigeonholing seriously because I studied at Juan Carlos Corazza's school and we always stick to the fact that an actor has to work tenaciously based on the script, that you are an instrument within an orchestra and it's very important that you play the character as it's written because, if not, the orchestra doesn't sound good. So, trying to vary a character's behavior because you don't want to be pigeonholed is an egocentrism that doesn't suit me. I work for a man who has written a color and you have to represent that color. Period: Do you manage to park the ego so much? I've been lucky enough to meet great directors like Almodóvar and, when you see those masters create a whole, you realize how little importance your ego has. It would be very daring of me to try to manipulate the color of a character. The most important part of being an actor is understanding what this scene is written for, what your character is written for, what dish your character serves in this movie, and what the movie is about. And sometimes that requires you to stand in the shade so that someone else looks better, and other times, you make the handstand-bridge and look believable. It's very difficult to get a film right, almost a magical act, and you can't be the piston in the gear that spoils it. You're not that important. I've been told, "You're so good in this scene!" And I replied that the credit goes to the director, who has had very good taste to choose just the moment where I was not lying.

More chimpanzee interviews

Manuel Jabois.

"I've only experienced four mournings and they were for four relationships with which I aspired to eternity"

"I've only experienced four mournings and they were for four relationships with which I aspired to eternity"

Miguel Bosé.

"I got out of the system and I'm preparing to be self-sufficient: I'm a master baker"

"I got out of the system and I'm preparing to be self-sufficient: I'm a master baker." I don't see myself, but not because of suffering but because of laziness. I know, I've seen it and I like to sleep. If I have to see myself, let it be in the morning and if not, I prefer not to see myself. That way I sleep better. I set a time limit on myself. In addition, there are exceptions where the director, along with a brutal team, the music and the editing, do something special, but the vast majority of the time seeing your works causes great frustration because what you imagined is very different from what you see. I've been told that from the first season to this one there is a rush of requests for interviews with you. Do you notice? I'm flattered, but I didn't know this. I haven't been told. It will be so that you don't get too upset. Sure, they'll think that, as soon as I find out, the next time they take me to a hotel I'm going to demand that the whole room be painted pink [laughs]. Look, I think you have to look at fame in the rearview mirror because it's not entirely true. I live in nature, and nature has a much greater force and truth than the lights of the system. I'm not even talking about fame alone, but about the tempting lights that the city offers you, about the day-to-day life and the polite personalities, about what you're supposed to say so as not to disturb. Nature is much rougher, a wild boar is much rougher than all that. What exactly does it mean that you live in nature? I live in a forest. In the middle of the forest, with minimal services? Yes, but very minimal. I am self-sufficient in many things and I find many animals, more or less large, but we live together in harmony. Nothing mystical, it's just who I am. I'm a Valencian gardener, I've always been and I'll always be, so that's my best habitat, where I get along best, much better than in the city and the society of lights. I've changed a lot since my teenage years, and thank goodness. I don't measure change as the loss of essence, but as having achieved greater peace and greater joy of life. It has to do with self-confidence and acceptance of someone who was afraid of life. It's wonderful, it's the beauty of growing up and overcoming a fucked up adolescence, wanting to belong and losing yourself. Losing your authenticity because you want to belong to the system and because you are afraid of loneliness. Everyone lives their own journey. There are people with a lot of authenticity from a very young age, but it was hard for me. I was very scared. Everything. When I was a child, I was always afraid. I don't know if it's my setup, my astrology, my I Ching, which is the Chinese oracle... I don't know, there are different personalities, there's Messi and there's Cristiano Ronaldo, they both have a gift, but each one exploits it from a different place, neither better nor worse. Everyone has their own journey.

The actor from Castellón, at the Villa Magna hotel.JAVI MARTINEZ

The series is about religion and the paranormal. What relationship do you have with both? I'm very spiritual. I really like the afterlife and I always look up at the sky just in case I see a UFO. I love that. It's what I search for the most on Google: documentaries from the afterlife, UFOs, black holes, astrology... It's the part that fascinates me the most and worries me the most. The afterlife. Going back a little bit to the beginning and your image, have you felt objectified? Can you define what objectification is? Do you know what happens? They are such global terms that spontaneity dies with them. The nuance of a compliment goes much further than such a global concept of right or wrong. You have very nice hair, for example. I'm clarifying from above. What I see in you, with this backlight, is beautiful hair. And I'm telling you. Man, is that objectifying someone? I highlight something about you because I think it's really beautiful, as it seems to me when the sun rises on the mountain and you see the sky clear, the sun rising, the clouds below. There is beauty in nature and in your hair. You've got a lot and that beard... There is something virile and resounding about you that is admirable. Am I objectifying you because I verbalized it with respect? I don't know, it's just inevitable: you have beautiful hair and I like to see it. I don't know what they're talking about when they talk to me about objectification. For example, that the valuation of your work depends on your physique. It's a constant denunciation of actresses your age that, when they're over 40, everything gets complicated for them. Don't you think that's part of the past? I don't know, if they say it it's true for sure, but to me the wisdom of Monica Bellucci or Penelope Cruz, the know-how of an older woman, that serenity, that capacity they have to be more sensitive and more empathetic and, at the same time, have the strength to be able to move the world, It's something that seduces me a lot and I need to see it on screen. I read that you've been to anti-machismo seminars. I've had the chance to go to talks where they talked about the decoding of the genre and where we come from: a period, a place, some jokes, some stories on TV... A lot of things that, without you wanting to offend anyone, we all have inside and they are wrong. We travel with the weight of all that knowledge and it is very important to decode where we come from in order to evolve and travel with the new generations to a time where the lexicon has changed and energy has changed. We don't have to define in one word who we are, we can be much more than masculine, feminine, heterosexual or homosexual. I think it's an interesting process to understand that you're not talking, it's the system you come from and to have the responsibility with the lexicon, with the gesture and with our energy to be much more inclusive. I'm working on it. Many times I see examples of people who, without being sexist themselves, have been labeled as sexist because of a comment and I think: "How interesting". I observe him without judgment and I see that he doesn't speak, the system speaks, the dishes on which he fed and the system in which he rode speak. That mistake is your chance to reflect and assume that we are in 2023 and many things have changed for the better. These are small details that we talked about in these seminars: my soul is inclusive, it is totally connected to love and empathy, but coding, the hard drive that I have in my head, is different.

  • Series
  • Chimpún Interview
  • Articles Iñako Díaz-Guerra