Daughter Greta Fernández: "It's a shame what rents cost in Madrid"
Barcelona, 1964. This man with a thousand faces, like the title of that film in which he starred, is now
Oscar Camps
, founder of the NGO Open Arms for the rescue of immigrants. 'Mediterráneo', which is the name of this feature film starring
Eduard Fernández
, is presented this Wednesday at the San Sebastián Film Festival and is one of the shortlisted titles to represent Spain at the Oscars.
What a good swim you have, right?
I am runner-up in Spain for youth water polo. I love the water. I was happy in this movie shooting in the sea all day.
But the water in this movie is death.
I am from the Mediterranean. For example, I come to the Basque Country and I don't go inside. Those of us who are from the sea know that it is dangerous. The shore is fine, the beach is fine, but inside ... And in this movie, yes: on the one hand, the sea is a very beautiful emotional landscape, but also where all those many people end up dying, and this It's incredible, they get into a boat without knowing how to swim. Then they give them some foam vests that what they do is suck the water and that sinks you.
You play Óscar Camps, a living person, just like Paesa, whom you also played. Do all the living cope in the same way?
It's very different. From the outset, I don't know Paesa. And Oscar yes. In addition, he is very close to me by age, by origin from Barcelona, concerns, ideology ... Physically, even. We took photos and we looked like brothers. What's more: for the movie I grew a beard and that's it. We have become very good friends. We are very similar, it was nothing strange. And on the other hand, he is very close and was very supportive of the work. He was very interested in it and he only told me one thing: "I don't have such bad temper." Let's see, is that the film does not tell many jokes. But he is delighted and happy. Instead, Paesa was a pure mask, you had to guess what he was thinking, see what was behind it. He is a great manipulator and a guy incapable of emotion in spite of himself.Each one has motivations to behave as he does or handles human relationships with a series of conditions.
You always repeat that you do not judge the characters. How do you do with Millán Astray without entering into evaluations about him?
To play Millán Astray, despite what is said and the image it gives, I went inside so as not to judge him. And he was very smart. I always say that the key is above all between what the character knows about himself and what the actor knows about the character. That 'décalage' that the character does not know about him, but the actor does. The character can laugh a lot when you make a joke and not be aware that it is in defense.
And how do you deal with doing Óscar Camps without the portrait coming out too positive?
I think it is pointed out in the film that Oscar has a past, as we all have. In his case, a little darker [in 'Mediterranean' a substance abuse is indicated]. And there is some motivation that I have invented and that Óscar may not agree, but that does not matter, to focus those impulses that he had on saving people, putting him positive and dedicating himself to it with a certain compulsion.
What is the deep message of 'Mediterranean'?
This is the result of European action in countries like Syria. Nothing is disconnected. What Europe cannot do is sell arms to a country, in theory so that it protects itself, just like what happened in Afghanistan. And that later it turns against, that there are people who flee from that country and then do not let them enter because it does not suit you.
But that gives to go even deeper.
We generally think they are poor people. But many were teaching at the university, as a professor or professor, and now they are at sea. You put yourself in their place because it can happen to all of us, we are really privileged living where we live. And, having the privileges that we have, we are also responsible for inequality elsewhere. Money is finite, you can't always grow like this thing about savage capitalist society says. And it is absurd to always grow; let them tell me, that I'm short.
And in something like that, how do the personal and the social intermingle?
Pere Casaldáliga is the character that has touched me the most in my entire life. He was a saint, and he said that what is not essential is stolen. Yes, as a country, we have more, because it is stolen. And if those we rob are fleeing death, something must be done. Oscar says: I only save people from dying in the water. When you see it or imagine it, you say: host, what they do is very beast. And sometimes he doesn't have time and they drown in front of him. Therefore, you have to have a certain parapet. As he said, you cannot be intimate with them, you are going to get emotionally involved and that is going to go against being able to help them. He also tells his daughter: "The main thing to save someone is you." You have to be okay, if not, you can't save anyone. Therefore, privilege yourself always. And if you have to give a host, it is given.
What do you think about Óscar Camps being accused of trafficking in people?
It's stupid. Let's be honest with the language and with the logic. Let's not be demagogues. He is dedicated to saving people from death, who are about to drown. I believe that the vast majority of Spaniards are social, whether they are on the left or Christian. And no one with these ideas can be against saving a life of a child, a woman, a man, whatever. From there another problem arises, but as a consequence of saving people. It leaves them on the ground. What is there to do on land? Does it cause a call effect? No, that is to try to destroy it with words that are not true. It has nothing to do with it. Then if people go more to the water or not is something I do not know. He only saves lives. The question would be: Are you in favor of letting them die in the water?
Some would answer: "No, but ..."
The "but" denies the above. "I love you very much, but ..." That's it: I don't love you. Camps is very specific on that. In fact, he put Salvini on trial, accusing him of kidnapping because they did not allow the Open Arms to enter Italy and there was a risk that people would die. I really like people who are very good at their profession, a waiter, a lifeguard, an actor or a plumber.
How do you see that from parties that make the flag of Christianity advocate not to assist these immigrants?
No, that is not Christian. It is that Jesus was very revolutionary, in the sense that each one wants. If that creates another problem, then if they cannot enter, then something is wrong, because saving lives is okay. The fact is positive, without nuances. To deny that is to enter into a manipulated dialectic. It's something I learned from words. I grew up in Joglars with Boadella. And Boadella is a very intelligent guy and is very capable of arguing one thing and the other with the same logic.
Can a movie change the world for the better?
When I was asked to do this about Oscar Camps, who I like a lot and who knew who he was and about Open Arms, I said to myself: let's see if it's going to be a pamphlet. We all know that he is fucking great, that what he does is very good. But this movie tells something else.
What thing?
We often say: Yes, this is very wrong. But what am I going to do? Well, this movie shows that a single person can do as much as Òscar Camps. Going back to the question of whether movies can change the world. Yes. And this may be one of them. I think this film is important, that it is necessary and that I would not like it to become politicized. Let's Christianize it.
Now that you mention it, do you think politicization has to do with the current identity fever?
The politicization of everything, legislating everything to the point of slightly absurd situations, such as not being able to smoke on the beach. It gives me the feeling that everyone creates a character to say "I am this and not the other, I have nothing to do with ..." At first, you have to see, because physically you have eyes, nose, mouth , you breathe, you cry, you shit, you pee and you fall in love and suffer a lot for love. Sometimes I say: "As Hitler said, I'm going to piss." Because he surely said it once.
Well, as the kids say: LOL.
You are right or left, okay. But I can agree on one thing that the PP proposes. Why to them no water? I'm not from the PP at all, but there will be a proposal that seems good to me, right? We all have to do with everything. And arming yourself so much is making yourself a shield and when you make yourself a shield you always end up being a prisoner of what you think is your ideology.
In what sense?
It happens to me with bulls. I do not know why. Or yes: it is a pure and hard artistic question. I really liked the human body, mime, art. When I was 16 years old, without having anyone in the bull family, I was not a good student and I fell in love with bulls. So I would go to the Monumental in Barcelona, by myself, to see bullfighting bulls, because it seemed very beautiful to me and it still seems very beautiful to me. A great work of art. And at the same time I am a rational being, I think and live in this time, and it is a savagery, a public torture of an animal to death. An outrage that today should not be done. It is a pure contradiction that I can live with. If they told me that you have to vote on the bulls, then I would have to decide for or against.
Any thoughts on the covid?
The pandemic has done me very, very good, really. I have been very happy in this time of confinement. It was true that there were uncomfortable moments or that you had to bear yourself more or be with your partner for a long time, very locked up and with no way out. In fact, I started living with my girl and after a month they locked us up at home
Trial by fire.
Trial by fire and very well passed. I am very happy in Madrid. Now, to change a bit, I am going to do two things here that interest me a lot. One is, finally, to write and direct a 'short'. The other is a monologue in theater directed by Andrés Lima, in 2023. I am very excited and somehow I am returning to the essence of what I was or I was when I started, mime and all that. There is a lot of body and a way of approaching the profession from a certain place.
Have we changed?
I don't know if it has changed us so much, neither for the better nor for the worse. I get the feeling that in a while we won't remember much. And let's hope it's a unique moment and they won't lock us up again.
What do you think of how we have behaved?
I understand that governments have to organize society with masks, and so on. And I have done it quite naturally. I was walking down the street, I was alone and I understand that they have to say that you cannot remove a mask. I took it off when I was alone in the field. Still, it was scary, as I was scared to get vaccinated. But in the end I did it because it is a social fact for the good of all, to protect us all.
And you, being a smoker, haven't you ever had a 'chicken'?
They have told me things. And I: "Madam, I am three meters away and you have come dangerously close to attack me. Please withdraw, this disease is going to catch you."
His daughter Greta is an actress with a great projection. What do you think of the profession passing from father to scion?
I do not come from a family saga, but I have started it.
And it's beautiful, it makes me very happy.
We are very close, Greta and I.
We talk a lot about the job because in the end talking about the job is talking about life.
How do you understand each thing.
When she was a child, she told him about frowning: that it should not be done as a gesture of support.
Total, that one day I was playing Felipe II, she was very small and was there, and I was in the full role.
And Greta frowns at me because I was doing it.
What a 'motherfucker' [laughs],
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