Luis Tosar: "In Spain we are very medieval with manhood"

• Cinema Juan Diego Botto reinvents himself as a director, sincere, irregular and without cynicism, in the soul of Ken Loach

Louis Tozar

.

Lugo, 1971. I won't waste time explaining who he is because they know him very well, although they may not know that, under his famous grumpy face, there is an affable guy who laughs non-stop.

He stars, along with Penélope Cruz,

, the film by Juan Diego Botto about evictions.

Watching the film, there is an almost inevitable question: Have we failed as a society? I want to think not, but I understand that one can feel that way.

A few battles are already definitely lost, I hope not the war, but I've been listening to the news and everything is bleak.

They were talking about the famines that the Ukraine war is causing in South Sudan.

The world is so interconnected and there are so many economies that have been at the limit for a long time that everything falls apart with any change.

he talks about people who have lived on the edge for years because it takes place in 2008, which is when things started to go wrong for many people and have never been put back together.

It's 2008, but it poses current issues in 2022.

Worse, because there has been an accumulation effect during these years and there are people who are already exhausted, they can't take it anymore.

That is where we must keep our eyes wide open and the Administrations have to be clear that there are millions of people in this country who have lived in precariousness for a long time and have no chance of recovering because they chain crisis after crisis.

And that is so even though many of us do not want to see it.

I have conversations with people I care about and I find it very surprising that they are unable to realize that this is happening, because they live in a very privileged situation, just like me, and it is difficult for them to see that reality.

It's awesome, but there are people who really don't see any of that precariousness.

yes

it can, at least, give a little bit of focus to people like that, it will be hell.

We have become a very unsupportive society and kindness seems even ridiculous to us, something from Little

.

I understand that there are ages for everything and, surely, if you ask me this when I'm 16 or 17 years old, I'd tell you: "Buah, don't take it so seriously, you have to get off your ass a little bit of everything".

But even so, I think that when I was that age, there was a brutal solidarity that I no longer see.

At least it was like that in the world to which I belonged, a working-class neighborhood, working class, all with relatively low purchasing power... The loss of class consciousness is key in this, a disintegration was generated that blurred belonging and Then, with the arrival of the internet and social networks, it has already been crazy.

No. It is the total paroxysm of absolutely passing the neighbor.

Everything is interconnected, but empathy does not exist because you are in a state of permanent anesthesia.

Everything on the networks seems to be fucking great, although later the reality is increasingly disastrous for many people.

Seeing that, I understand that there are people who say: "Damn, I don't know what you're complaining about, if everything is fine".

Yes, this is something that is taken from pure reality, it is not something that Juan [Diego Botto] and Olga [Rodríguez, screenwriters of In the margins

, have invented

].

They have been closely watching and collaborating with the people of the assemblies and of the PAH for years and 80 percent are women.

They are the ones who have the singing voice and those who resist family care, while men are experiencing a process of change that, it seems, for many is proving to be very, very, very complicated.

It's costing them.

Some for pure education received and others with a clear ideological component, because they refuse to set aside that bastion of manhood.

Above in Spain, we are so medieval for these things... Now they have taken to resurrecting the Cid.

Suddenly he is the host and everyone wants to be El Cid [laughs].

And in that shit we get a little lost, because then there is the problem that the movie shows and it is very fucked up.

Exact.

When the time comes when the man can't be the provider because he loses his job and can't bring home a dime, he is left with nothing, empty.

There are many men who do not know what to do with their lives and cannot accept that shame, which should never exist.

That misunderstood masculine pride is very harmful because, in part, we have been educated like this: if you are not a provider and you bring home a salary, you are worthless.

It is a process in which many men drown.

I wouldn't say I've stopped, because I already have two children and I can't afford it, but I have managed to reconcile quite well for what could be the matter.

This is a somewhat tricky profession because, with promotions and public appearances, you are very present all the time, but I have periods of quite calm, now I come from one.

Well, right at this point is when I begin to think that I am already 51 years old, that I see a lot of relief and that, oh,

!

[laughs].

Yes, but even there I get the most poisoned of all.

There's no fucking way [laughs].

Damn, I don't have it that much, do I?

At least that's what I thought, although now my son tells me yes and with a beard, even more so: "Dad, when you shave you look less angry."

And I thought that the gray beard already made me a venerable guy, but it looks like it doesn't.

[Laughs] I stopped being a clown because I lost my temper.

He encouraged birthdays for a nutritional issue.

The other day, at a birthday I took my son to, there were some kids doing it and I thought they were much better prepared than at that time, especially in child psychology.

It is a very hard job and I had much less patience, so one day I went completely crazy.

They put three more groups in me than I was supposed to, it got out of hand, they started stealing my juggling balls and it got out of hand, so I ended up grabbing a child by the neck: "Give me back the balls!"

[more laughter].

With this I had a project with Raúl Arévalo, but I don't think it will come out anymore, because the last time I saw him I told him: "Uncle, I'm getting too old to die."

Above all to take them, to distribute them there is no problem, but some always fall and those things are beginning to hurt me a lot.

It was an absurd idea of ​​​​Raúl, a kind of art and essay film all based on hosts.

Told that way, I don't think it's likely to come out, really [laughs].

Not at all.

I really miss being a normal guy, but you can't be anymore.

I understand why they say that about me, but how normal can we be when people recognize you?

It's hard.

I try, and I try to remember what it was like before, but inevitably something has changed.

It's impossible to be who you were before you were famous.

That people recognize you is a fact, not a paranoia that you mount and can eliminate from your head.

It is something that happens and changes the way people relate to you and, consequently, you with them.

You can try to relativize fame all you want, but if it's there, it's there.

You can't help it and things transform based on that.

I try to manage it in the best possible way and not go crazy, but I don't fantasize that I'm a normal guy with a normal life, because I'm not.

No, I think that everything has already come to light, man is haunted by the ghosts of the past.

What I can say about Feijóo, because I was on the board of the Audiovisual Academy for a while and we had some meeting with him, is that in the short distance he is a tough negotiator, very tough.

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