If we are going to talk about Natalia Oreiro Let’s go to what is not counted on Wikipedia. The little gestures, their relaxed way of chatting in times where vertigo tries “The woman in line”a moving film by Benjamín Ávila that will premiere on September 4, based on the real history of Andrea Casamento, renowned human rights activist and founder of Acifad, civil association of relatives of detainees. There, Natalia plays a middle class mother who must fight her own prejudices when her son falls prisoner, discovering some unthinkable forms of love.
And while commenting on the huge actors who are his companions Amparo Noguera and Alberto Ammann or how he crossed her together with the true mothers of detainees who are part of the film, her gaze turns on as the first time she had a script in her hands.
News: You had already played another mother who lives a limit situation in “clandestine childhood”, also directed by Benjamín Ávila, but his character in “The Woman of the Row” had other demands such as filming in jail, why did he say yes?
Natalia Oreiro: You tell yourself a little: “Why can other things do you like there?” (laughs) The truth is that I believe in the transmutation of situations. Entering Ezeiza prison, where much of the film was filmed, and being in contact with the energy that is there is strong. Transforming that is not changing a reality, but it is to understand that we are all part in some way, listening to those mothers, looking them in the eye, that feel how important they are, that they are part of the movie is my role too. Because as an interpreter I am at the service of telling stories that have a meaning.
News: Part of society has a very little pious look with the families of the detainees. Does that prejudice lead to a great “that fuck”?
Oreiro: I am fully aware of how those in prisons are already judged and their relatives, there is: “It will never happen to me.” What do you know if it will not happen to you? This society works a lot to feed the prejudices between the inside and the outside, because also when my character comes to the visit, his son is the chetito and they send it to the bottom of the row. It is very interesting to see how a relationship is being built and at the same time destroying preconceptions in the wake of sharing horror and also the moments of joy, such as celebrating a birthday. When he went to the Tuesday meetings in Acifad, many said that they had killed their children inside the jail or that the kid was imprisoned for the third time and she kept going to see him, some lose the jobs and even their homes. There is also a great guilt for leaving aside other children because all the attention goes to the one who is imprisoned.
News: You have lived a thousand lives throughout your career. He was a soap opera actress, comedian, diva pop and also managed to consolidate drama. How much does it cost to get out of the labels?
Oreiro: I think what costs the most is deciding to leave, we really put it on. The known is a comfortable place because the change is never accepted, doing something that is not what the other expects of you is not usually welcome, so you are afraid of rejection or or run out of work. That happens above all to women and many times they end up putting us instead of the stereotype. There you have to play your conviction, I wonder all the time: “Che, are you happy with what you are doing?” or “for what?” This is how at one point I said: “I don’t want to sing anymore, it’s not my desire to become a pop singer or travel the world. I want to be an actress, make dramatic characters. They don’t force me!” And I called that the price of my freedom. I love doing something like “Camp with Mom” because I have a son of that age, a comedy like “Reloca” and also a Chiquita movie directed by María Laura Berch and that she premiered in the BAFICI called “A night without me” because I think we are in many ways, not one.
News: Before there was this concept that some actors were cinema and others on television, right?
Oreiro: That’s right, I started on Channel 9 of Gelly, imagine, there was not even Dorrego’s! (laughs) I started in “High comedy” and at that time they told you: “Don’t make a soap opera, huh!” It was “high comedy” and from there to theater and cinema. What I always wanted was to act, I didn’t care where, I didn’t believe that if you were a singer you could not be an actress “really” because the instrument is the same, what change are the techniques. Everything is in your desire to learn, in the talent that you can develop and to let them teach you. I had great teachers in my peers.
News: Do you remember anyone in particular?
Oreiro: To Susana Campos that taught me a lot in “Dulce Ana”, also to Lydia Lamaison, Arturo Mally, María Rosa Gallo … Even with Darío Vittori I came to work. I was raised, I was a firecracker, imagine! (laughs) they had a speech and I realized that I was not a good actress. He was a girl, I had a lot of personality, but I knew I needed to learn a lot and I wanted. I discovered how to handle myself, what roles to accept and what to let go, not to repeat myself. Because in this profession you have to plant yourself and know how to say: “I already did this and I don’t want to return there.” All that took me a long time and a deep conviction until at one time it ceased to be a novelty. Now the question is when I am going to do theater, today I had it answering that! (Laughs) I am not prepared yet to disarm the family routine, I like to be with ATA on weekends and get up every day to take it to school.
News: This movie is hard, but it is also very connected to life, will your son see it?
Oreiro: No. it was only seen “Camp with mom” Because he accompanied me throughout the filming. For me, childhood is a time where you have to be very careful with what you see, because the boys are in training and can impact them badly. In fact, it costs me a lot to work with children actors, it will be because I started at 12 and I do not think it is an environment for children. It is true that some have an unstoppable vocation, you realize that they have it in their blood and that they will follow all your life in this as happened with Pablo Rago. But I prefer my son playing, making a pijamada and learning the letter only from the school’s work (laughs)
News: In “The woman in line” there is a scene around Sandro’s song “In the end life remains the same.” How do we get Argentine cinema to remain alive?
Oreiro: I know that we are going through a very difficult time and perhaps from the comfort of this armchair it is not understood, but we need the new filmmakers to find a way to make cinema, the generational change of directors, actors and stories is essential, even if it is filming with a phone. I want it to be able to return to that cinema we always had, I am not putting it in a place of privilege because I know there are other urgent things, but the culture of a country, its idiosyncrasy, its own history, is what constitutes a nation as such. And that is the language of independent cinema, because today only those who have a platform behind and are always the same, I am criticizing something in what I include. It is very good that there are many popular actors that people have wanted over the years, but there is also another cinema that has represented us in the world and that moves the industry.
News: It seems to me that some people forgot that the cinema is emotion, the tickets do not move you. How do we recover the symphony of a feeling, as Leonardo Favio would say?
Oreiro: It is that some touched the tickets, that is the truth. I believe that at a global level we are living in a very hard and individualistic world and people are very afraid of losing how little they have, but empathizing with the pain of the other is something that we cannot afford to lose. Cinema and music have the power to connect, nor can we stop expressing or lose joy, because if we have more possibilities we save ourselves alone. Seeing what artificial intelligence believes that we like it, we stop registering the different and really become human only in the difference. How nice to return to that emotion that made Leonardo Favio’s cinema feel, I would have loved to work with him!
