Carolina Yuste.
Badajoz, 1991. Since he won the Goya in 2019, he has not stopped, but his vision of success, although he has it, is not the standard.
Tomorrow he premieres
The Cover
, where he nails Amy Winehouse, and continues to go to every battle.
What do you sing in the shower?
A lot of flamenco, to Beyoncé and Amy Winehouse, like in the movie. Before it was one of my Top-3 of life. I love her, adore her and I always feel deeply saddened by everything they did to her and how it ended. There I take it, well inside.
The movie talks about the fear of failure. Do you suffer it or have you suffered it?
It is something that is there all the time in this profession because we have statistics that are dire for those of us who dedicate ourselves to this. The other day it was out again: 92% of actresses and actors in Spain cannot make a living from it. I am a privileged person and I know it. Anyway, with this success I think we are educated and educated in an idea of success that has to do not with personal success, what we really want, but with success within a system, what others expect from U.S. We try to be successful within this system all the time and we listen very little to ourselves. If you do it a little, maybe you will come to understand that your success resides in another space and does not imply having dresses from big brands, an incredible house, millions of followers and being the
protagonist
of Hollywood movies. Maybe success can lie in doing something smaller and building a family or building yourself. What happens is that the social pushes us to the other.
Are you feeling pressured?
Yes, there is pressure. We live in a tremendously capitalist system that is increasingly individualistic, we are increasingly separated, and there is this thing of wanting to reach the top of something that does not even have to do with you. You are being pushed towards that supposed success all the time by others and that is where anxieties, fears and the feeling of failure come in. We have not been taught to deal with this. They told us that if we studied I don't know how many careers and we did I don't know how many
masters
We were going to find a great job and now we see that this is not being the case for many people. In this society, success is viewed from a prism that is too individual for my liking. I do, I achieve, I win. We do not value the common good as personal success.
Since you won the Goya, have you been pushed towards that more conventional stardom?
All the time, of course. All the time. So I try to listen to myself again and understand what what is happening to me implies for me. We have too much information and they constantly compare you from the outside with what you should or should not do now, what has worked for other actresses ... When they gave me the award, what I conquered was a space. My space. It was: "Host, I'm Carol, I'm from Badajoz, I've been studying this for I don't know how many years, I've done a lot of theater and, suddenly, I've just conquered this space in which many professionals and spectators know of my existence." Obviously, on a social level it implies success, but for me success rested in the fact itself of conquering a space that I had worked for and that I wanted to have, but that's it. The award is a beautiful recognition,but they won't pay you or give you 200,000 contracts for it.
You won the Goya at the age of 27, it didn't take long to conquer that space either.
What happens is that since I was little I was already involved in this. I am a bit restless ass, I was very close to dance and my father always took me to concerts and plays. Since I was a child I knew that I would probably go there. And at 19 or so I found an acting teacher who motivated me and I said, "Wow, I'm going to try this talking thing." And here I am ... for now. I don't know if this will last long, although I want to create my own projects to talk about what interests me and put the focus where I want. Many times I think that I could do many other things, but this job gives you a speaker, be it this interview or a movie, that you can focus on where you are interested and that is what I have always wanted: to work socially, to aim to the voices that we never hear and the spaces that we do not look at.That is what interests me and, if I had not come out as an actress, I would be a social worker or an anthropologist.
Do you understand art as a social and political agitator?
Yes, I think it has two functions, the entertainment and the mirror, and the entertainment can be a great mirror. Sometimes we assume this convention that commercial theater or cinema should not shake and it is a lie. Entertainment can be a very powerful shaker and sometimes we leave that limited to indie movies. It is a total error because the interesting thing is to reach increasingly wide audiences and that young people or those who would not generally approach a theatrical space, can access this. The public is not an idiot.
What job are you most proud of?
Prostitution
[Andrés Lima's play that he has been starring in for a year and a half with Carmen Machi and Nathalie Poza] has probably been my most revolutionary work. On a personal level, what I have experienced on stage and in all those clubs I went to to talk to all those women and prepare, opened my mind. I want us to evolve towards a more careful society, in which we look a little better at the other, especially the one who is more different. Those are the projects that interest me, the ones that give that battle.
What battles do you care about the most?
Right now there are so many balls at stake ... In recent weeks we are seeing how everything is becoming more violent and aggressive. I think that if you start to break down each of these isolated cases, the origin is the same: the capitalist hetero-patriarchy. There it is. We have built a system that is not working and we have to assume it. Look, if that capitalist heteropatriarchy worked, I'd say, "Well come on, let's live here." But it does not work and everything we are seeing, all the homophobic aggressions, how we are loading the planet and the resources of the most impoverished countries, how a man comes out saying that we must reduce the consumption of meat and people crush him, despite because it is made of a pine wood box because we are going to suffocate in 30 years ... All of this shows the failure of this model.We have managed to generate zero listening and zero empathy towards absolute realities and turn them into something ideological and of sides when they are common sense.
They are movements that should be transversal.
Exactly. Feminism, environmentalism and anti-fascism should be cross-cutting themes that unite us all. I go very crazy when I talk about this and suddenly they tell me: "You have a very left-wing thinking." How is it possible? What does eating less meat have to do with an ideology? If we do not reduce the consumption of meat and if we continue to pollute as we pollute, in 30 years half the Mediterranean will go to shit, our children will not be able to breathe and we will have a very bad time. Those on the left and those on the right. It's science! Listen to the scientists and stop politics! Annoys me.
Are you worried that positioning yourself in such a clear way affects your career?
They tell me all the time that this can happen to me. I do not know. I have a position of having read a lot, having looked at the person in front of me, understanding what is happening to him and trying to generate a common good. I am a privileged person, but it is not an individual privilege for me. I think you have to position yourself because you have to generate references and I don't want to be an actress to heal my ego. It is beautiful that people tell you how well you do, give you very cool jobs and be able to pay your rent calmly. Is beautiful. But I want something more. I have a 13-year-old sister and a 20-year-old brother and for me it is important that what I say helps them to become better human beings tomorrow. That's it, that's what I care about and not an ideology. Of course, I have it and I review it constantly, because I do not plant the flag for anyone,but I think that if we only and exclusively use the word "care" as a vital objective, we should all think the same.
It doesn't seem like we're doing well in this ...
Yeah, it has to do with fear. Fear of losing your privileges and assuming your responsibilities. When there is some unpleasant event related to machismo, racism or homophobia, I hear a lot that comment of "man, this is not my fault." Okay, darling, don't be overwhelmed. You don't have to go home whipping yourself, but take responsibility. As a straight white man, take your responsibility. Nothing happens. Check yourself, talk to your colleagues and understand that patterns are changing, just like I do with my friends. As a white woman, I assume my place of privilege with respect to a racialized woman and nothing happens. Let's
shake
hands, girls, boys,
girls
; Let's try to understand that diversity is the beauty and that's it.
It sounds easier than it is.
Yes, it is that for me it is. It seems so obvious. Respect for nature, not throwing a cigarette butt on the ground, not making a bottle and leaving things there ... Damn, it's just two plus two. Honey, we live in a society where you don't have to eat a steak every day. It is not good for your health and it is not good for the planet. Nobody wants to make you vegan, like I am, just reasonable. I don't know where the problem is. But it is, it is evident that it is.
You turn 30 next week. I do not want to make blood, but here the crises already begin.
Impressive, huh.
Thirty years in the world, living each day.
And they have flown by.
You are no longer a twenty-something, pretty, mature (laughs).
The truth is that I have always related to people much older than me, so I saw this coming a long time ago and at the moment I have no crisis.
At the moment.
We will see in a month.
The 30s are fucking great, listen to me.
The raw comes later.
The 30's are cool because you're already a little done.
You have been learning, you have been cooking and you begin to understand which foot you are limping on, what are the little things that you have to work on.
I face them with optimism.
I am feeling more and more comfortable and I have understood what are the wounds that I have had to clean.
I feel peaceful, I feel calm and I surround myself with amazing human beings.
I am on my way to being the person I want to be.
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