A reference for humor in the last three decades, Fredy Villarreal integrates a fantastic octahedron into the play “The function that goes wrong”. Under the direction of Manuel González Gil, he shares a cast with Maida Andrenacci, Victoria Almeida, Gonzalo Suárez, Federico Ottone, Héctor Díaz, Dan Breitman and Diego Reinhold in this hilarious comedy that relies on constant laughter.
It is a clockwork mechanism programmed to awaken laughter throughout a story in which we see how the scenery disintegrates before our eyes. Although it may sound paradoxical, in this case, the bigger the disaster, the better it is for the public. It is as if the spirit of “The Unforgettable Party” by Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers was transferred to the theatrical universe.
Fredy Villarreal looks happy with his current job. He shares a chat with NOTICIAS before entering the scene and reflects his impressions on the matter.
News: Is your name Federico Diego Pérez from Villarreal?
Fredy Villarreal: Yes, exactly, it is a compound surname. We closed the stage name at Fredy because Federico, like Alfredo, have that abbreviation and since Pérez de Villarreal was very long, only Villarreal was left. My mother’s name is María Catalina Romay de Pérez de Villarreal, she opens the document as if she were unfolding a scroll (laughs). I had to downsize, I decided it because I never had a representative, I don’t remember exactly how it was, but I estimate that in the first notes they made me I said: “I put Fredy Villarreal” and it stuck.
News: On top of that, being called Diego Pérez, he had a partner of the same name at the time.
Villarreal: Some confusing anecdotes happened to Diego when he went to collect his salary from Actors and they also gave me his salary.
News: Villarreal has reality implicit in his last name. By having the real incorporated, did you decide to act to fly with your imagination?
Villarreal: Yes, there is something of that, acting is about simulating a reality and well, I am in that town (laughs).
News: If you search for him on Wikipedia it appears: “Comedian, imitator, actor.” Does that definition identify you?
Villarreal: Yes, not necessarily in that order. The first thing that identifies me is the definition of an actor, the basis of dramatic art is acting, moving, interpreting, acting, then the rest is an excellent postgraduate degree that would be meaningless if one is not an actor first and foremost. You cannot be an imitator before being an actor, it is impossible to make people laugh without first being a dramatic actor. When many times they outline denials from some criticism from journalism or from some producer who says: “This is a comedian,” I demystify that. In Charles Chaplin’s films, before you laugh, you see a true dramatic performance, the guy is talking, for example, about the famine that was experienced in his time and yet he makes us laugh, that is very difficult to achieve. As everyone knows, it is more complex to achieve laughter than crying; There is a vegetable that makes you cry, the onion, but there is none that makes you laugh.
News: You are from La Plata, a Estudiantes fan. Did you follow a family tradition?
Villarreal: Indeed, I am a fan of the club because of my old man… returning to the previous question, I am a fan of Estudiantes because I like to laugh and not cry like others (we laugh). I am aware of everything that happens in the team, I follow it, I am a fan. I really like local football, I’m not so hooked on European football, but here I watch the games, I follow all the championships and tournaments, even those of the National B. It’s a sport that I also practice. The truth is that not having become a soccer player is my great frustration…well, that and not having been a dentist or physical engineer, I have those four possible lives, today I am in my worst reincarnation, but I’m going to go for the others (laughs).
News: Speaking of things that do not happen as one expects, something that happens in this work. Do you have to act too well for everything to go so wrong?
Villarreal: Yes, of course, that’s our job, to act well to make the audience believe even the most unusual things, and in this play people have to be convinced that everything goes wrong for us. It never happened to me that I had to sell something saying: “If you want to see a play where things go wrong, come to the theater.” I thought it was going to be the first vote, but luckily it didn’t happen, so you know if we’re doing it wrong it’s because it’s going well.
News: You play the butler, one of the most brilliant characters. Was it your choice?
Villarreal: No, they offered it to me several times! But whenever they called me we couldn’t match the times, the character was always the same and I agreed that it was the right one for me, I feel very happy doing it.
News: In recent years he was in “The 39 Steps”, “The Musketeers” and now in “The Function That Goes Wrong”. Did you decide to prioritize theater?
Villarreal: Yes, in reality I have always considered theater as something important, I have also done works that are sometimes labeled as “summer” and I have been lucky enough to work for 80,000 people throughout the season. And the work on stage is the same, as exhaustive as what cult works or this English comedy ask of you.
News: That we are sitting in this theater shows that there is life after Figuretti, a very strong character. Were you ever afraid of being pigeonholed and that Figuretti would become a kind of curse?
Villarreal: Look, a character like this is a very important theme in the life of an artist and especially in that of a comedian who was fortunate enough to experience that exhibition and to have generated catchphrases that were adopted by people, but sometimes that makes you keep an eye on a very beautiful creation that can be adorably detestable. Luckily I always tried to generate surpassing artistic circumstances that have started new performances and closed previous ones. I loved Figuretti, but I also did characterizations with masks, in fact I became an imitator to stop doing Figuretti. I was traveling all the time and I needed to create a character that would root me more in Argentina, to be close to my family and friends.
News: Your rise to fame is closely associated with Tinelli, but could it be that you started with Pergolini?
Villarreal: That’s how it is! I started with Mario Pergolini on the radio, I had my program called “Del Otro Lado” on Rock & Pop, I also made mobile phones for Mariscal Romero who was a Galician host. One day Mario approached me, he said: “What is that thing you did? Show it to me, it’s great” (imitates Pergolini’s voice) and he offered me to go work with him when “Qué es” started. The team also included Andy Kustnezoff who answered the phones and did production. Afterwards we went to “Turnotardo”, a program on Channel 9 that was a bit of a prelude to what would become “Caiga Quien Caiga”.
News: And when he left with Tinelli, did Mario take it the wrong way or was that rivalry more for the stands?
Villarreal: He didn’t take it the wrong way at all. Mario is a person who has always been very intelligent, that rivalry existed, but it was a healthy competition from television. Imagine that the same Pergolini production made me enter “Videomatch” thanks to the fact that they sent me to talk to Claudio Villarruel. They liked me because I behaved well with them, the channel had given us “Late Shift” and I would have had to take legal action against Mario so that he could take legal action against Channel 9, but I didn’t want to, sometimes things go wrong and that’s it. It is clear that for being in a good mood through life I had my reward, they recommended me. Now Mario is back on television and he is doing very well, we all win.
News: Has the Argentine humor that was previously the heritage of television, to some extent replaced by things that are done on streaming channels like Luzu or Olga?
Villarreal: I can say that I am one of the few who made true comedy programs in Argentina, like “There is no 2 without 3” or “Larisa es bella”, which to this day are shown on Volver, how old I am! I don’t know if streaming replaced that, I think other things took its place because they gained importance. The issue began to get complicated because doing humor was always much more expensive, comedians are expensive, if you want to do it well and not with people parading around a single set, that requires an investment. Between the cost and the fear of some producers of what a comedian might say, the art of making humor began to be highly questioned, I think that little by little that is being rearranged towards a reasonable point. In a Netflix movie, a man is allowed to hit a woman in a kidnapping situation, for example, but it hurts a joke. Maybe the comedian has no problems with continuing to make people laugh even with what is left, in humor there are as many resources as there are stars in the sky.
