Andreu Buenafuente to Berto Romero: "Hot champagne saved your life and our relationship"

• Andreu Buenafuente "I'm a comedy junkie, it's my vice"

• The 30 years of Andreu Buenafuente in El Terrat "When I came to Madrid, in Catalonia they told me that he was going to kill me"

Andreu Buenafuente and Berto Romero.

The most stable discontinuous couple in comedy brings to HBO Max the television version of

, their SER program.

To be honest, the interviewer is superfluous.

QUESTION.

Do you remember the first time you saw each other?

ANDREU:

Before I saw it, I heard it.

I was driving along Paseo de Gracia, oddly enough I remember that, listening to Radio 4, which is Radio Nacional in Catalonia, and there was a program by his group,

.

I said, "These guys look a little like us."

And that's where it all started.

BERTO:

Then we met when you went to see us at the Teatreneu.

That is the first time we spoke, we had a drink together after the performance, but I had already seen you in passing entering his production company.

I was on the street, I saw him from afar and I thought: "Look at him, he walks like a normal person, he doesn't float or anything."

I had gotten to know people from El Terrat, like Corbacho or Santi Millán, but I didn't know him.

In my group we always said among ourselves: "Let's see when they bring out the Sant Cristo Gros", that is, the fat saint in the procession.

"Let's see when they get the big one and show it to us."

Q. So...

A:

Wait, wait.

Speaking of curious origins, on Catalan television we did a program for Berto and his group and things didn't go well.

B:

Two.

I did two editions of the show and they kicked me out.

I presented it.

A:

Well, that already felt bad to me, because without meeting him in person I liked him.

And I asked my producer: "Hey, what happened to these guys? How are they? They're going to be sick, right? I better not call them at all."

She thought that this setback would sour their character, but she replied: "No way, they've come with hot champagne to toast."

So I said, "Oh, they're cretins, they're just like me."

I have it recorded because, if they don't go with hot champagne, I would have thought that we couldn't continue collaborating, but with this we already called Berto for the Antena 3 program. That hot champagne saved your life, man.

Your life and our relationship.

Q. Can you imagine that life without Berto?

A:

Yes, but it would be a bit more boring.

B:

Just a little bit?

Anyway... I can't imagine it without Andreu and I don't want to imagine it.

I do not need it.

A:

I have always been very associative, very collective around me, I have never worked alone since the 90s. My environment has always seen how people came and went and I remember they said: "Well, Berto is your little friend now, will change it."

And those people are freaking out that we've been together for 17 years now.

I carry more with you than with my wife.

B:

I've been with my wife longer than with you, but little more.

Something very similar happens to me.

I have always been very team-oriented, very family-oriented.

For example, Rafael Barceló is the screenwriter I have worked with all my life and I met him at the Faculty of Journalism.

He is like my brother.

I've also been with theater people for 20 years.

I am very loyal, I really like if a relationship bears fruit, continue in it.

A:

If it goes well and there is desire and health, it is bullshit not to continue.

B:

But people are always surprised, huh.

When he began in

, all the questions from the journalists went in the same direction: "Well, when do you take the program? Is Andreu afraid that you will steal his chair?"

Confrontation is always sought.

Q. You have always been seen as Buenafuente 2.0.

B:

Yes, at least at first that was what was sought.

Now I think that, finally, people have understood that I had no interest in being one.

A:

Well, well... I sniffed it out and said, "I'm going to neutralize it."

Just in case.

P. You are like a romantic comedy couple: a thousand vicissitudes, but you always end up together.

A:

It's that we don't want to separate, but we respect each other's fields a lot.

He has made his fiction career, I was delighted that he made his series (

), I continued with my daily program and he continued to help me in the hardest stage.

There has always been a link and, at the same time, an independent development on both sides.

And now it has come back to be together.

B:

It has always been very natural.

We have gone through times when we saw each other less and had less relationship.

Nothing happens.

It's one of those friendships that doesn't suffer times of distance, you miss each other and as soon as you get back together you say: "Holy shit, we're so good!".

B:

When you see little of each other, the relationship lasts longer too, huh.

That has to be said.

P. Not a crisis?

Not even a fight?

Give me something, dammit.

A:

There is no crisis, man.

B:

Unfortunately, as far as news is concerned, we can't give you anything, there hasn't been any problem.

A:

I think that life is already hard and threatening enough, both on the job and outside, to get into trouble with a colleague with whom, on top of that, you are doing well working together.

It would be bullshit.

If one of the two had done something a little petty, that complicity would have been eroded, but... I don't know, we're just good guys.

B:

I also have a highly developed instinct to get away from toxicity and stay close to the people who make me better.

That suits me very well.

A:

Not me.

I have worked with so many people that I have already seen the entire human condition.

Q. El Terrat is a bit like the Rat Pack of comedy in this country and you are Sinatra.

B:

Can I be Sammy Davis Jr.?

A:

Go ready.

Sinatra, even without a toupee, is a comparison that is great for me, but it is true that many people have passed through the production company.

I haven't done the numbers because it makes me dizzy, but we're talking about hundreds of productions and already almost hundreds of colleagues.

So, as I was saying, I've seen everything and it would be an anomaly if some idiot hadn't seen it.

But you take the average and say: "It has been a wealth and I have learned a lot from them."

They tell me many times that I am a discoverer of comics, but I feel it as a joint journey and a great symbiosis.

I don't see myself as the great guru who comes in and creates careers.

It's just that I like being with people more than alone.

People freak out that we've been together for 17 years now.

I've been with you for more years than with my wife

Andreu Buenafuente

Q. When did you discover that you were funny?

A:

At the school, La Salle de Reus.

She wasn't a very good student and I had a better time screwing her up and causing little things to happen.

Actually, more than funny I started being a producer.

I thought that I had to do an end-of-year festival in the 3rd year of BUP, the lie and I ended up saying: "Holy shit, this thing about going up on stage is really cool."

That's where it all starts.

B:

I have always been more creative and restless than funny.

It wasn't the explosive boy who attracted attention, but he was plotting my things and, suddenly, he appeared with something.

He drew comics and when he let my classmates read them I would stare at them very intently while they read to see if they laughed.

I liked watching more than acting.

But I had an Epiphany moment at my neighborhood grocery store when I was about six years old.

It was a stretch that I could walk without crossing streets and my mother sent me to buy very finely sliced ​​cheese.

The request was very specific: "Give you so many grams of very finely sliced ​​cheese."

José, the one from the store, may he rest in peace, did not have a machine and used a large knife to cut a huge block of cheese.

He tried to cut it so thin that the knife slipped away and he made flakes.

And at one point I told him, without wanting to make a joke: "José, my mother told me that she wants it finely chopped, not grated."

There were a lot of people there in the store and they started laughing.

I didn't understand it.

I realized that something had happened, but I did not understand the mechanism of the joke.

For days my mother met people on the street and they told her about it and I saw that, if she learned to make it work, there was something there that would make me the center of attention and someone special.

A:

My mother also sent me shopping and once something happened to me that is not funny, but curious.

B:

There would be no knives then.

A:

No, it was with flint, with flint stones.

I got to the store and asked for a gram of starch.

And the man told me: "Let's see, it will be more."

"No, no, my mother said a gram."

And the man, like cutting cocaine, put a gram of starch and when I got home everyone peed with laughter because they had ordered 100 grams and I misunderstood.

But this shows that I have always been very responsible and have never let my mother down.

Q. Are you sick of people expecting you to be funny all the time?

A:

The expectation always disappoints because you see the comedian acting.

They tell me: "You are very serious."

Yeah, if it wouldn't be an asshole.

If he was always out on the street or at dinner parties like the guy on stage, he'd be tiresome.

That there are, we are not going to give names, but there are.

I have the reflex act of "I'm going to be normal" and I always disappoint.

B:

There are two types of comedians, without going into whether they are better or worse: those who know they are funny and those who think they are not.

I am definitely one of those who think they are not.

Many times I am funny in spite of myself, I try to be serious and people laugh.

Obviously, I am 47 years old, I have already understood what the mechanisms are and I can put myself in a funny mode perfectly, but it is something that occurs more in people's heads than in mine.

Inside I don't think it's particularly funny, and if I started thinking about it, I'd lose.

I have the intimate feeling that if one day I go out on stage thinking "Wow, you're the shit, they pee with you all the time", something will break.

A:

I don't feel very funny either, what I am is very lacking, maybe I'm a little more forward than Berto.

My way of relating is by making jokes to people, commenting on their wardrobe... I'm a bit of a mouthful, that would be the expression.

And sometimes the

leads you to a certain humorousness, but I also have a part of modesty.

Buenafuente is expansive and has no borders, but at the same time it is very Catalan, that is the essence of El Terrat

Bert Romero

B:

There is a beautiful journey in relation to our entire career together and what it means

that is related to what we are talking about.

When I started on the program with Andreu, I played the role of him coming to break things, the thug, the young man who enters with a lot of energy and says dirty things.

That forced Andreu to always be in the role of the serious one.

As I have progressed, now

is a space in which he shows himself with much more freedom and you can see better what each one is like.

And in reality, he is much more of a thug and I try to bring order.

A:

Yes. When we started I was older than him and now he is older.

The nephew has married, he has found out and I have become the bachelor uncle.

P. Is it frustrating to have to hold back while the other enjoys doing the cafre?

A:

I was already a little tired of so many years of being a retaining wall while they released their prepared rolls and were provocative.

All this has expired and now on the radio I fart lumbar.

That for me is a liberation, you can not imagine how happy I felt that day.

Gave me shame?

Nope.

B:

When I was in the first stage of Andreu's program and they asked me if I didn't want his chair, I thought: "Isn't it obvious that my place is much better? I come here for 15 minutes to mess it up, I go home and he he has to stay to prepare everything for the next day".

Q. It's been six months since the cancellation of 'Late Motiv', does it still hurt?

A:

No. I'm very fond of him and he's very good in my memory, really.

It is something that I like to highlight because there is no painful longing of "oh, this gave meaning to my life".

It filled me up a lot, it was the continuation of other

that started in the year 2000, so it's been 22 years of my life doing this type of programs.

Okay, you've already told a little about what you wanted to tell, it's time to change.

So all good, great memories, great experience, it made me a better professional, life in Madrid opened other doors and other possibilities for me that I now enjoy from relative calm, because I'm already in another mess.

P. You are not going to give me meat with this either.

A:

It's just that I generally like to watch controversies with popcorn at home.

I understand that the cancellation was a source of intrigue, but it is nothing more than a company that decides to end a production and life goes on.

This business is like that.

P. Berto has already told that his first time lasted two programs.

B:

And the second time, three.

A:

It has gotten better.

Anyway, don't let it seem like I'm taking cold stock of things.

I do these programs with my gut, with my life.

You come to live in Madrid, you bring your family... Be careful, one thing doesn't take away the other.

We have to assume the end of the stages, but we live them to hell.

P. The Terrat has been a wonderful link between Barcelona and Madrid for 20 years.

Have you felt that way?

A:

I like that you say that because it has always made me feel good to create communication, bi-capitality.

When we started on Antena 3, which was done in Barcelona, ​​I used to say: "Good evening from Barcelona".

It wasn't by chance, what I wanted to say was: "Hey, it's a comedy, it takes place in Barcelona and nothing happens, right? You're laughing in Madrid just the same".

It turned out that nothing was wrong.

Territories, at least in our creative head, do not exist and what we can contribute to that understanding and relationship will be welcome.

B:

I speak from an almost external perspective, because people have considered that I was a director of El Terrat since 2008 because they always saw us together and in reality I have been autonomous all my life.

I have been part of El Terrat for a year, but it has never seemed to me that there was a political or social will to do that.

It is simply a company that is an extension of Andreu's character.

And Andreu is expansive and has no borders, but at the same time he is very Catalan, he has a very marked character and that is the essence of El Terrat.

A:

Yes, but note that now El Terrat opens offices in Madrid.

When I came to set up the program in 2016 I had a micro-panic of "I've done my career in Catalonia, what's going to happen?".

Well, it was a pleasure and people came saying: "Holy shit, how I love being able to finally work with you."

It was like reaping the fruits of that non-identity and it was a very nice lesson.

In general, the world of the arts gives many lessons in this sense, another thing is that you know how to read them.

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