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In 2014, Andreu Buenafuente filmed a documentary that did not generate too much noise but that worked, in its own way, as a small cry for help in the middle of the crisis. THE CRISIS. After failing in Antena 3 prime time , the Catalan comedian had run out of the program for the first time in 20 years. Those were the days when an industry manager said he was a television corpse, so Buenafuente went to The Ass of the World - that's what the movie was called - to look for the purest sense of comedy as if it were Uma Thurman preparing Kill Bill's revenge at the Pai Mei Temple.

From that walk by the well, the comedian came out with a first failed attempt called La Resistencia (do you know?) And with a long list of projects that ended up landing in Late Motiv , "the program," he says, "with which I regained my dignity and direction . " Also with a deep reflection on the laughter that has overturned in a book that seems to definitively close the wound.

"It is a kind of self-therapy", admits Buenafuente, who has gathered in Laugh is the only way out (ed. HarperCollins) his personal diaries written between 2016 and 2018, his drawings, his photographs, his fatherhood and, above all, his musings on humor as salvation. "A lot of things have happened to me in the last few years and, perhaps now, from a certain professional well-being, I forced myself to record it."

How hard was the journey? Like all human beings I erase the bad. Punset said (and imitates Eduard Punset's voice) that we have neural mechanisms that make us erase the crappy. So even though they leave a notch, it's never too much. It is true that the time of the crisis screwed us up a lot, but the passion for the trade always remained, sometimes incomprehensibly. They were falling to the ground and I said to myself: is it possible that I still like this so much? Has comedy cured him? More than cure, comedy is palliative, it is a refuge. My trade is my vice and that is lucky that I have had. I remember that in the hardest moments it was as if there was a man in the production company with a violin playing a sad song. But I entered the set and there everything was clear. It was full of wonderful companions, of dedicated people who had come to a polygon at 11 at night, and I was having a great time. Even I was surprised. Then the violin finished and played again, but I saw clearly that this was my refuge, so I said to myself: I stay here and I go on shooting. Have you ever doubted? Not even when the TV corpse thing? There were a few years when confidence began to crack a little. I looked good but this is a profession very dependent on support. We are very vulnerable. If a manager tells you that you are a corpse, dammit, that affects you. But more than licking my wounds, that caused me a reaction of rage. They were flushes that activated me more. And when did you discover that laughing was the only way out? It is around this time. Everything was falling apart like a sandcastle, society, industry, capitalism ... but I entered a set, people laughed and we were throwing. It was always an outlet for me. My father was the crudest post-war son, but he was a hilarious, immature guy who always made jokes. And he went hungry! Many times when I am overwhelmed by first world problems, I ask myself: what are you complaining about, uncle, if your father went hungry and went out every day to work at 8 in the morning whistling?

This is the most screwed up time I've lived to make comedy

Buenafuente responds to the other side of Zoom sitting in the same corner of his house in Madrid from which he has recorded his program the last few weeks, so the feeling when talking to him is that of talking to TV, as if Andreu did not come out never out of the box , like he's been trapped on screen all his life. "The first weeks were very hard, of tension, of latent anxiety, but then the head calms down and I think I have become accustomed to this new life," he says of this heavy joke called confinement. "I am a person with a quite complex inner world , who needs silence and to be left alone. I can easily adapt to this. I went on a hyperactivity diet myself and in the end I found some peace within the hustle and bustle."

Last week the Late Motiv team returned in shorts to the set, a set still without an audience and converted into a provisional camp devoured by weeds.

SELF-PORTRAIT OF ANDREU BUENAFUENTE

Do you remember a harder time than this to do comedy? Not at all. It is the most fucked up time I have lived to make comedy. There were days before recording that I saw myself without spirit and that makes me panic, because I am very motivated. But in the end I think that comedy is like a little boat that you are throwing across this sea that is life. The sea is never the same, suddenly there is bonanza and suddenly there are waves ... Now the waves are eight meters long, this has put us all to the test, has placed us all before the mirror, but the boat is still sailing. The years he relates in the book also coincide with his transfer from Catalonia to Madrid and with the most tense moments of the 'process'. How have you lived it? It has been very rare and I have had many phases. Strangeness, pain, perspective ... Things in Barcelona look different from here, and things in Madrid look different from there. And there were times when I didn't feel comfortable anywhere. I didn't see dialogue or path, it was very very painful. And on top of that, in the midst of all that, you create something of a comedy to remove iron from what seems impossible. Do you think this pandemic will help to relativize or alleviate the Catalan conflict? I think we will return ... Conflicts, wounds, they overlap but one does not remove the other. There is a brutal social fracture and if there are no ways to repair it, it will still be there. It seems that a problem of the severity of the pandemic is eating everything momentarily, but in this country we still have a lot of fractures to solve. Will it end up asking for the independence of the country of laughter? I wish it existed. It is a bit naive, but sometimes I like to think that I am in an imaginary country where those of us who take life the same with these values ​​are related.

In this country we still have a lot of fractures to solve

This year will be 25 years since Andreu Buenafuente opened his first late night with a monologue . It was TV3, the program had no title, the set was a terrace and Buenafuente came out wearing goggles, a great coat and Gila's (or Rubianes') red shirt. "Buffff ... I watch those shows and it seems to me that I'm watching someone else. That protoBuenafuente , a 30-year-old guy who looked like he was 18, with that peaceful face, is endearing. I still wonder how that guy could be interested ."

Interested. Aim. After Sense Títol , came La cosa nostra, Una altra cosa, Buenafuente, Buenas noches and Buenafuente, En el aire, Late motiv ... And an inexhaustible quarry of comedians through which Jordi Évole, Santi Millán, Edu Soto, Sílvia Abril, José Corbacho, David Broncano, Bob Pop or Berto Romero , among an inexhaustible etcetera.

During these 25 years, he has defended almost alone a format such as 'late night' that succeeds in the United States but has hardly materialized in Spain. How many times have you been misunderstood? I have always been very surprised how something basic has not taken root in Spain, which is more invented than gunpowder. I do not understand it because it is clear that there is demand. Look at The Resistance . Almost by trade, each TV should have its own late and promote its things, its vision of the world, reduce the saturation of information, but I do not know why ... They say that there is no budget. I remember when I didn't have a job, managers said to me: "You are the best at yours, eh, you are the best". And I said to them: "Damn, then hire me". And they said to me: "No, there is no budget for that, but you are very good ..." What have you learned during all this time? Bufff. It is incalculable ... There are professionals who start out very trained but in my case you can see all the progression of these years, I have aged in full view of everyone. I have learned a lot and I do not stop learning. No one knows anything ... It is what fascinates me about this profession, communication. Even when it's poorly done it fascinates me. That after almost 30 years I am still amazed on the set is something wonderful. And don't you get tired? I think I will always like this, it completes me, it fills me. I'm a junkie of this. Berto Romero said that he continued in comedy out of pure selfishness, for the pleasure of making people laugh. Everyone who dedicates himself to the artisteo world does so out of pure selfishness, is the first impulse. And I think that this should be decriminalized. First you do it for yourself, but then you examine yourself with people and there is the first spark. There are comedians who say that making people laugh is the closest thing to an orgasm. Billy Cristal said that acting is making love with the public. I did not ask him then what he has spent these months locked up and without an audience ... Communicative onanism. Totally ... But for the record, I miss people a lot. If laughing is the only way out, tell me what Buenafuente laughs at. Wow ... I laugh at very strange and colorful things. I am very funny about the unpredictable, which was not expected to be funny. Do you know the last thing that made me laugh a lot? See Miguel Ángel Revilla making some statements and an ostrich appearing from behind. That's how basic laughter is.

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