Charlotte Davies Madrid
Madrid
Updated Thursday, March 7, 2024-9:44 p.m.
Have you ever twerked on a TV set and collapsed live after going too far, only to end up in a detox program?
No?
Neither does Yolanda Ramos
.
Not even
José Corbacho
... Although he almost ended up admitted by mistake.
This is how the character of Candela Nieto, renowned actress and television character and drug addict with
"
social club "
glamour
, was born , and this is also how
A New Dawn
was born , the new naturalistic tragicomedy that arrives at
Atresplayer
this Sunday.
"A few years ago, for a family reason, I visited an addiction treatment center and there was a center worker who thought they were going to admit me there," the comedian and hospital director tells EL MUNDO.
After clarifying that, indeed, he was not going to undergo any treatment, the light bulb went on for Corbacho.
"Whenever I get into fiction I like to do things that are a little based on reality. I fantasize about it a lot. I think there is a question that leads you to the main idea of a script, which is: 'What if?' And suddenly I thought: 'My goodness.
What if someone famous, a popular face on television, ended up in a world like that?
What if this
celebrity
was addicted?'"
Well, in the worst case scenario, what happens to Candela would happen: divorced, penniless, snorting cocaine in her representative's car in the
parking lot
of a detoxification center for civilians.
This after having become a
trending topic
for, precisely, twerking and collapsing live while working as a jury on a
talent show
.
But don't worry, she has everything under control.
And so much...
A new dawn
, an original series from Atresmedia Televisión (in collaboration with Espotlight Media) created, written and directed by Corbacho, who is accompanied by
Belén Macías
in the direction, consists of eight 30-minute episodes in which the viewer will burst out laughing as well as the occasional tear, because Corbacho understands fiction as he understands humor: with a sublime acuity, which arises from the daily situations that the characters live, addressing topics as delicate as mental health or addictions in all their aspects.
And he does so by contrasting two worlds as disparate as that of a detoxification clinic - where Candela, wearing her oversized
sunglasses
or pink Juicy Couture tracksuit, appears like a fish out of water - and the world of television, where An acid vision of this audiovisual industry, controlled by the machinations of the director of a
talent
, is unmasked
.
To achieve this balance between traditional comedy and the sad psychological portrait of the plot, Corbacho was clear that there was only one person who could embody Candela:
Yolanda Ramos
.
"I automatically thought of Yolanda because I wanted to talk about addictions and the problems they entail from humor and for that you need an actress like her, who does comedy from a truth and from such an emotional tone that helps you create a story without frivolize", explains the comedian, who makes his own cameo in the series as a jury for
Tú si tú no
.
Of course, it is not the first time that comedians coincide on a shoot.
A little over 20 years ago, Corbacho directed a young and inexperienced Ramos in the mythical
Homo Zapping
, a television format that was a springboard for hitherto little-known actors and comedians.
It was a bet on her talent, a decision that he has made again two decades later.
And how has this work reunion been? we asked them in our meeting with them.
"Wonderful, wonderful," Ramos intervenes.
"Meeting José again marks an era. It's one of those things that make sense in life and you don't know why, but it seems like a movie script. Before embarking on this project, my mother had just died and there were a series of situations in my life of many changes, so I recovered there with him," he continues.
"With José it has been a very easy path. A path in which I have felt free, directed and listened to."
"And the protagonist," Corbacho proudly interrupts.
"I really wanted to," Ramos laughs, before continuing: "Yes, he trusted me, but more than to be a protagonist - which is the first one who trusted me to do it -,
to be a more risky protagonist in a genre that I don't master
, such as drama. I told him: 'I don't know how to cry, I don't know how to cry', but without giving
spoilers
..."
When you ask them if there were many tears, they don't hide the truth.
"Sick of crying. And without menthol tears," says Corbacho about his partner.
"You don't need it," he says.
Because, although it is true that the series "starts like a comedy", from the third chapter onwards "things get more serious" after Candela decides, with fear in her body, to lower her arms and submit to the program. of detoxification - but without participating in communal cleaning tasks, of course.
A fact that will lead him to clash not only with the director of the center, played by
Cecilia Freire
, and with the monitor, played by
Abril Zamora
, but also with the rest of his classmates while he discovers the origin of his addictions and corrects his mistakes.
Abril Zamora and Cecilia Freire, as the monitor and director of the Un Nuevo Dawn center.ATRESMEDIA
"In the end we all use humor to cover up our dramas and that's what this series talks about, about the things you cover up and how, in the end, everything you needed to get out comes out at once," summarizes Corbacho.
"In the end the protagonist is dedicated to television, but Candela Nieto could be a taxi driver, a doctor, a judge or a minister."
But she is not.
She works on a
talent show
, just like the two comedians have done during their time on
MasterChef Celebrity
or
Tu cara me familiar
.
"Some will ask: 'Is this based on real events?' Man, not that much or that bald. We have done so many programs, we have been on so many sets... In the end, you take reality to tighten it a little more and bring it to life. fiction," emphasizes Corbacho.
"But I did want to focus on how television is capable of exposing you to the maximum, whether you are famous or not, and
how that overexposure can affect you at all levels
."