The actor José María “Pepe” monkone of the best of his generation, has an extensive artistic career. Married to Valeria, he has two children, Felipe and second, and a granddaughter, Amelia. He approached the performance, through the mythical Lavardén Institute, where he entered at 6 years and learned declamation and diction. There he had contact with recognized teachers such as Ariel Buffano, creator of the Titiriteros Group of the General San Martín Municipal Theater.
His professional debut occurred in 1982, at age 15, with the play “Periphery”, by Oscar Viale, at the San Martín Theater, in which he worked with Leonor Manso, Ulises Dumont and Mario Alarcón, under Alejandra Boero, legendary figure of the performing arts. The following year he arrived on television with “Miss teacher”, along with Cristina Lemercier. In 1983 he participated in Cinema in “El Arrangement”, with Federico Luppi. He never stopped getting on stage to impress with works such as that of the Palestinian terrorist Hassan El-Fawzi in “Tierra del Fuego”, Mario Diatment’s piece that starred with the remembered Alejandra Darín.
Now, in “The debate”directed by Manuel González Gil, gets into the skin of José Ignacio Rucci, a fundamental reference of the labor movement in Argentina of the seventies. His counterpart is the actor Gabriel Rovito who embodies Agustín Tosco, union leader of light and strength and one of the main leaders of the Cordobazo, in 1969. Both recreate in the multite the meeting of February 13, 1973, in the program “The two bells” issued by Channel 11 and led Gerardo Sofovich and Jorge Conti. There, two antagonistic positions were clear since Rucci represented Peronist verticalism and a combative left tendency roughly.
Monk, of amazing resemblance to the character he represents, meets news in the Felipe Vallese de la CGT room, ideal scope for this talk.
News: What attracted him to “the debate”?
Pepe Monk: Do theater again and work again with Manuel González Gil. And, obviously, embody a protagonist who is not closed in history, like Rucci. I was very seduced by the possibility of embodying a character with a great need for knowledge and having the possibility of knowing him from the inside. Internalize with this man, commit and reflect. What happened to him? Who killed him? Why did they kill him? How was your life? What was your way of thinking? Anyway, diving in the skin of this man who starred in such an interesting stage in history. It is an important challenge.
News: Did you find things in common with Rucci?
Monk: Yes, of course, we are both parents. When one can see in images of the time the gaze of admiration of Claudia and Aníbal (the children he had with Nélida Vaglio), he realizes the love with which they looked at him. One intuits that there was a “good wood”, someone complete and with convictions.
News: Did you have to prepare physically?
Monk: I knew I had to go behind a mustache, a jopo and look for weight. With a nutritionist I managed to lower twelve kilos because I knew that the physical image was going to be very important. I even asked the production that we did not take diffusion photos until it reaches the right weight. It is a significant detail because with that abracadabra you already have the spectator connected. Then there is what the actor, dramaturgy and direction completes because it must be taken into account that the actor is nothing more than a pixel in the final painting.
News: I intuit him very passionate about his work.
Monk: It is that I have to defend my role from passion, beyond you agree, with what I thought or say. It is a commitment to interpret a true character because it is not copy and paste. I am not an artificial intelligence. I am an actor giving the body to someone who had his own life and soul.
News: Is it always meticulous when facing a job?
Monk: I try to do it from every point of view. Gustavo Daujotas, a professor of the UBA who teaches Greek, always shows him the texts and he tells me what is the myth that appears in history. Bobby Flores, a man who has an important heart rate, suggests the music of the character or the time in which the story takes place. With these two foundations I lack a third party that is in the development of the character, always thinking about the viewer. With the viewer the party occurs and the cycle closes.
News: Do you think it is worth reviewing that past from the beginning of the seventies?
Monk: I think so. The same system is anesthetizing and putting us in a place where we believe we are committed. Over time it is like the utopia run, that about which we were fighting. Today the actor struggles from a poetic space, from a stage because they are cornering us and entrusting us more and more. It seems to me that it is very necessary not to forget what was as covered. At that time I played at the Lavardén, where I studied theater and was not connected to what was happening because I was very small.
News: People, in general, seem disenchanted with politicians and trade movements.
Monk: I can’t speak for all the people. Yes as a reference and observer. I see that we stop listening and we are a bit disenchanted with everything. But there, just around the corner, there are still ideals. They were disguised or covered as those figures they hide under fabrics. They can hide them, but they are still. We are alive and I think we still have the possibility of continuing to fight it because we are whole and with much more force.
News: Ideas do not kill.
Monk: No, they don’t kill themselves. They are segments in time and we had to go through transiting. Therefore, when I read the text of “The debate”, it was like an oxygen injection for me. The possibility of preparing for a character with the characteristics of Rucci and having the satisfaction of doing so is a unique opportunity, beyond the final result.
News: How did it arise to be a voluntary firefighter?
Monk: Well, many said: “You have to put the body.” And the stage did not satisfy me, I was not fully satisfied so I went to a fire station to see what could be useful. I left the ego a little aside because cockroaches, flours and ego will stay with this world (smiles). There I learned a lot and I am from what is called an operational body. If there is a big fire I have to go and accompany my comrades, whether watering them or putting a cone on the street to limit the passage. Think that there are people who are on duty many hours per week and it is very sacrificed. Almost 80% of the country’s barracks are volunteer.
News: Is it involved in other solidarity causes?
Monk: Yes, I participate in different foundations and put my philanthropy to help the one who needs it. But I don’t like to flaunt or proselytism with these things.
News: Is there something that unites the firefighter with the actor?
Monk: What a good question! (Think) The firefighter always goes straight to the focus, from darkness and the actor always seeks light in a metaphorical sense. The firefighter with a mask and in the middle of the smoke seeks the light exposing himself. The actor has a little more protection, more containment networks and makes a whole periphery of the conflict. You can even stop to eat and resume your own. Both firefighter and actor have a release date, an expiration date, they are very prepared, they have trade, work and a lot of discipline.
News: What is required today to an actor?
Monk: I always tell young people who are smarter in their preparation, they will be better actors. Intuition has already passed to another plane. Today the competition is so that it requires you to eat well, think better, rest, program, choose the projects well. Teaching is passionate because I believe in going on the information to those who come. With the same love with which they taught me. I multiply that possibility of thinking and saying, to see, how we solve this together.
News: Where do you teach?
Monk: In Tigre in a place called Sum that is in Rincón de Milberg and I also have my study, called Monk. I also give seminars in the provinces.
News: How does the lack of fiction live on television channels?
Monk: Well, I can’t say anything because fiction does not own television. No? I can’t say that spaces stole us. I think there was a time of bonanza already know that we lost international market, fiction went on to copy and paste the same molds. We went quite towards the brilliant and the fluo and we did not understand where the entire market was going. The consequence is that it ate Latin America. Some had rating, but it was bread for today and hunger for tomorrow. You have to recover the spectator who already has the possibility of seeing series at any time, even with a phone or tablet.
News: What would be the means to reverse the situation?
Monk: I think that fiction will return from regional productions, from the provinces, counting local stories. Maybe that will allow us to tell stories back in another way. But if you still have a blender in Buenos Aires, which receives all that so beautiful, with a way of saying proper and all its history and liquefies, you will have exactly the same pasteurized tomato juice, mixed with a little ginger to give a pleasure to the right. We have to realize that we are alive and get out of this fight that it is not a definitive knockout.
