Comment
Esther Mucientes Madrid
Photographs: Javier Barbancho
Madrid
Updated Saturday, March 9, 2024-02:20
Interview Jorge Javier Vázquez: "I give an interview to 'El Mundo' for promotion, because people read it"
MomenTVs Survivors 2024, in panic before Carmen Borrego's dramatic helicopter jump
"Look, I'm going to tell you because I know that he's not going to think of telling you. Wherever you see him, this man studies everything, he sees all the finery, he watches all the videos and he learns everything to the millimeter. what happens on
Survivor
."
The speaker is
María Zambrano
, the director of
reality
and
dating
at Mediaset.
The man she refers to is - although he denies it - the authentic survivor, at least the authentic survivor of the crazy and deranged world of television:
Jorge Javier Vázquez
.
-The first thing I have to ask you is, how are you?
- I'm, I'm... like very nervous.
But not like those nerves that betray you but like those nerves that keep you tense, but in a hyper positive way.
Nerves that concentrate you.
It is not for less.
After exactly 160 days - he has not counted them, but he has read them in he does not remember what news - and a quick, but painful departure - the cancellation of the program
Cuentos Chinos
due to its low audience ratings -,
Jorge Javier Vázquez returned on Thursday to its natural habitat, to its television
.
And although he doesn't like bullfighting terms one bit,
his return cannot be described better than with "a portagayola"
.
Four days before the premiere of
Supervivientes
, the presenter was enjoying the pleasures of Colombia.
It was his decision not to grant interviews, not make presentations or press conferences.
More than the fear of everything they could ask him, there was the fact that his return would steal the spotlight from what for him is the star and the reason for his return:
Survivors
.
However, he did grant a 'papal bull' for EL MUNDO to become his shadow in the hours before the premiere.
Also before and after the first broadcast.
He insists that he is not the star, but no one is bitter about a sweet treat
.
To know more
Interview.
Jorge Javier Vázquez: "I give an interview to 'El Mundo' for promotion, because people read it"
Editorial: ESTHER MUCIENTES Madrid
Editorial: PHOTOGRAPHS: ALBERTO DI LOLLI
Jorge Javier Vázquez: "I give an interview to 'El Mundo' for promotion, because people read it"
Mediaset.
Jorge Javier Vázquez leaves television: chronology of a "see you forever" in five chapters
Editorial: SARA POLO Madrid
Editorial: ESTHER MUCIENTES Madrid
Jorge Javier Vázquez leaves television: chronology of a "see you forever" in five chapters
"I'm receiving a lot of messages from colleagues, from people who are wishing me good luck and I feel very fond of them. It's clear that after 20 years of giving it a go, if I come back no one cares, no one cares, damn it, well "I may not come back!" he says while gobbling down his dinner.
"Have you seen what I have for dinner?" He tells us as he grabs the plate with the four grilled chicken breasts he brought from her house.
"This body has a price
. "
And she laughs out loud.
She will laugh like this many times throughout the night.
He picks up his cell phone and sends an audio to Cristina, his assistant: "Cristina, please, bring me something delicious, some of those things that I like, because with this I'm going to die of hunger."
Cristina is on the other side of the script room where the presenter is having dinner.
"I do it to sting her .
"
And she laughs out loud again.
When you hear her say that "something delicious" you think of a bun, a sweet, a culinary pleasure.
Well no.
Two jellies with 0% sugar and two packages of toasted whole wheat bread
.
"How are you staying?" she repeats.
And he stands up, grabs her bag and turns to Cristina:
"Then you can take me to the set for two more jellies
. "
"It's clear that after 20 years of doing things, if I come back, no one cares, no one cares, damn it, I won't come back anyway!"
He ate dinner in exactly 15 minutes and 38 seconds, which is how long the interview lasted.
He feels overwhelmed, he seems overwhelmed, but not by facing what he knows how to do best after six months on the bench, but by the affection and expectation that he is generating.
"Damn, before they missed me so much and now they miss me so much. It's so nice...
I'm enjoying it a lot
," he says excitedly.
13 years ago, when Mediaset asked him to present
Survivors,
that emotion did not exist.
Jorge Javier Vázquez was not a faithful follower of the format nor did it attract much attention to him
.
Until the
reality show
hypnotized him and he hypnotized the
reality show
.
Now it is impossible to think of anyone else leading the program's main galas.
In fact, during these months there was a lot of talk about whether Jorge Javier was going to return to the format or whether Mediaset would want to have him again.
The reality is that practically the same day that the audiovisual group canceled
Cuentos Chinos
, the management of Mediaset had already met with him and told him:
"
Survivors
is yours
. "
With that tranquility, "that of a privileged person," he took these six months as a warrior's rest after a hard battle.
"I knew I was going to come back, I knew what my future was going to be, so I took it as what it was, a long vacation after 15 years without stopping
," he says while insisting that this time he It has happened "very quickly."
I was so eager for the door to the set of
Survivors
to open that in the script meeting, which this newspaper was able to attend exclusively,
Jorge Javier reads at the speed of light and turns one page after another as if the spirit of Jesse Owens would have taken over
.
Neither María Zambrano nor Raúl Prieto, director of
Supervivientes
after
Cuarzo
became the new producer of the
reality show
, are able to keep up with her pace.
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving, I'm not coming."
"Please, don't arrive on set five minutes before you put my heart on the verge of a heart attack
," Prieto snaps.
"Don't worry, I'm behaving well, but I won't enter until minus 10, you're talking to a star."
...And he laughs out loud.
"A lot of shit, everyone! Let's see how we behave," he shouts as he leaves the script room.
The presenter's time for introspection has arrived
: makeup, hair, wardrobe.
It's her time, no one enters there except Cristina.
"Look," he warns before going to the warrior's rest, "
Survivors
is mentally a grind, and as the years go by I become more and more aware of what the contestants suffer and what they put at risk. It's not "just hunger, it's the cold, it's getting up in the morning and not being able to have a coffee, it's being wet all day, it's not sleeping, it's not being able to shower, it's mental exhaustion."
He gives the impression that he knows very well what he is talking about.
While the last survivor is preparing, the relatives of the contestants are arriving on set number 6 of Mediaset:
Finito de Córdoba
, husband of
Arantxa de Sol
;
Raquel Abad
, wife of
Kike Calleja
;
Ana Herminia
, the wife of
Ángel Cristo Jr...
The set, the new set, is ready for the start.
Upstairs, just a few meters from screens, cameras and councilors, production control boils like a pressure cooker.
It is there that
Ricardo Díaz López
, the director of
Supervivientes
and almost all of the network's reality shows, prepares to become the director of one of the most complicated orchestras: that of coordinating 300 people between Spain and Honduras.
Because the making of
Survivors
has the complexity that there are two locations and, therefore, everything has to be measured to the millimeter.
The previous day the general rehearsal was carried out to calculate all the times.
It must be taken into account that the transfer of the cameramen who are in Honduras from one location to another usually takes eight minutes.
"We have to be Honduras' cushion," says Díaz.
"The worst thing that can happen is that something fails and we don't know how to react," says the director.
"
If the orchestra is in tune, everything sounds good. If the orchestra is out of tune, everything will go wrong. My job consists of coordinating the work of many people
, lighting, sound, cameras, management, even makeup, hairdressing and styling. And for this I have to stay calm because if I am nervous, others will be nervous," he insists.
Does not lie.
In fact, on the opening night, the only one who remains calm, "although the procession goes inside," is him.
They know that they have a lot at stake and that the mammoth work that has been done for weeks, with their nights included, so that everything arrives on time has to be reflected when
Jorge Javier Vázquez
crosses the door of
Survivors
.
"I knew I was going to come back and what my future was going to be, so I took it as what it was, a long vacation after 15 years non-stop"
Do you remember what Raúl Prieto told you before leaving the script meeting?
"Please don't arrive five minutes early as you'll make my heart burst."
There are seven minutes left until ten at night, the scheduled time for the start of the gala, and
Jorge Javier Vázquez
has not yet arrived.
However, that "heart on the verge of a heart attack" does not translate to the set.
Of course, the races take over the
backstage
.
Where is Jorge Javier?
He, who had managed to control those emotional nerves until almost the last moment, is overcome by the straw that filled the camel's back of a night of too much intensity.
"You're going to be amazed by the
look
I've prepared," she tells us before going to the hairdresser.
That
look
includes white shoes so matching
Jorge Javier Vázquez
that they seem custom-made.
Just as Penélope Cruz tries to attract good luck by rubbing her head,
Jorge Javier Vázquez
's superstition is in his shoes tonight.
When the locker room told him that his shoes didn't fit, the crisis that he had managed to control appeared like a ghost from the present.
These are moments when, this time, the heart is on the verge of a heart attack.
But
Jorge Javier Vázquez
has so many boards, so many years of profession behind him, that he gets up, puts on his shoes no matter what and jumps into the void with the only parachute of being him, that of being
Jorge Javier Vázquez
.
"Jorge, Jorge, Jorge, Jorge!"
The entire audience, all the relatives of the survivors, stand up and for almost two minutes - 120 seconds on television is an eternity - they applaud him.
"If you continue any further, I'll cry," he stops.
"I am very happy to be with you again, I have missed you
. "
And he finishes.
Not a word more nor a word less.
"
Survivors
is the protagonist today," he repeats.
Live, already on set, in his element,
Jorge Javier Vázquez once again moves like a fish in water
.
"With this you are either born or you are not made," some said behind the cameras.
As if those
160 days had not passed, crossed out as a prisoner would cross out in his cell
. From him, Jorge Javier Vázquez recovers his throne.
As if he had never lost it.
When the first advertisement arrives and she goes behind the cameras to have her makeup touched up, she changes her glasses - she does this in every advertisement -, picks up her cell phone, answers some message, raises her head and begins to ask: " How do you see it? How am I doing? Are you liking it?"
The insecurity of the veteran.
He eats four hours of live music like it was nothing.
Just a little dark chocolate that he asks Cristina for in every advertisement.
Because she doesn't go, she doesn't even go to the bathroom.
After two in the morning, the work ends.
It is done.
Jorge Javier Vázquez has done it again
.
"In Survivors the contestants get naked, but they get naked in a different way," he says.
He too.