Son of an Argentine mother and a Peruvian father—the announcer José Palomino Cortez—and an actor of different textures in theater, film and TV, today Juan Palomino stars (along with Fabián Vena, Guillermina Valdés, Ernestina Pais and Rocío Igarzábal) “The divorce of the year”a comedy by José María Muscari and Mariela Asensio that is presented at the Multiteatro. About this work, his relationship with the singer-songwriter Charo Bogarin and his next projects, the performer from La Plata talks here with NEWS.
News: “Divorce…” talks about the bonds of a couple, the parent-child relationship and exposure on social networks. Did the work make you reflect on these issues in relation to your personal life?
Juan Palomino: Yes, it challenged me as a father, as a member of a couple, and made me reflect on the family structure, where sometimes one selfishly puts one’s professional goals before one’s role as a dad.
News: Let’s start with parenthood.
Palomino: I have three children and I think I was a better father, a more present father, with the last two than with the eldest. I also accompanied Sofía in her growth, but she had to live through my period of great popularity on TV and at that moment I didn’t think about how that creature could be experiencing it. For me, all of that was so much that it was just happening to me that I didn’t evaluate the other thing. Seen from today, I think Sofia was affected by all that. With Aarón, much less, and with Floriana almost nothing, because now people build themselves from a very young age with social networks.
News: On a couple level, how did you feel challenged?
Palomino: Well, we are talking about “Divorce…” and I have two divorces.
News: So?
Palomino: What modified my path, what in some way determined my changes, were the circumstances, beyond what is fundamental in a couple: love, passion, admiration and respect. Both with Adriana, Sofía’s mother, and with Sabrina and Lucila, Aarón and Flori’s mothers.
News: What circumstances are you referring to?
Palomino: Since my parents separated when they were very old, I grew up with the idea that marriage was forever, to have children, that the woman was there to raise them and the man was there to provide. I went through the experience of parenthood, marriage and my profession with those atavistic traits, but art helped me reflect. Now I believe that with time, especially for the children, one can have a large, beautiful and respectful family. Divorces are always complicated, but beyond the conflicts, today it gratifies me to see that when one needs it, that great family is there, like when my father died.
News: The work also talks about public exhibition. How have you handled that?
Palomino: I never got on the fame bandwagon. I always traveled by subway and walked on the street, I never lived in a country house. And this is because my desire was always to be an actor, not famous. In that, unlike my fatherhood and my partners, there were no changes.
News: Now he has been with Charo Bogarín for eight years.
Palomino: Yes, we were brought together by cinema and before being a couple, we became friends. Charo helped me understand the logic of the couple and today, at a mature age, we can get together with our respective children and even with the mothers of my children and her exes. One can build that from love and respect.
News: What was it like to go from friendship to love?
Palomino: Uh, what a question… I already admired Charo as an artist, especially for her way of fusing folklore with electronic music. If I were a musician, I would have liked to do that, a real discovery. This, plus his view of women, of the empowerment of a woman of Guaraní descent and with a father who disappeared a few days after the coup of ’76; who knew how to bear that pain with nobility and review his own history through art.
News: Sometimes he usually accompanies her in her presentations.
Palomino: Yes, I accompany her by reciting or singing together a couple of Afro-Peruvian songs. That makes me very happy and it was also like recovering that Juan from “Negros de Miércoles”, a musical group that I joined.
News: With Charo he also shared “Sex”, his first work with Muscari. Would I have done it without her?
Palomino: No. That was the only condition I put on José. At first I said no, but encouraged by Charo, who was immediately hooked on the idea of doing “Sex” together, and my daughter Floriana, I was encouraged. Flori told me: “Dad, I left your comfort zone. You’ve already played Martín Fierro, Perón, Maradona. Now dare to do something that has to do with sexuality at the age you are. Already away from that ’90s body, from that macho image.” And then I thought, why not? Anyway, it was a more “careful” version of the usual one, more in line with a family audience like that of Villa Carlos Paz.
News: Returning to “Divorce…”, the work also refers to social networks. How do you get along with them?
Palomino: I incorporated them little by little and basically I use them to promote what I am doing; and other times, to act cute (laughs). Although on Facebook I am more direct with what I think about politics and economics. Above all, with this very anti-State government, when I firmly believe in the role of the State and in State policies.
News: Speaking of being cute, it was quite difficult for you to accept yourself as a heartthrob, right?
Palomino: Yes, a couple of years, because I went from making a serious unitary show like “Amores”, by Alejandro Doria, to soap operas like “Quereme”, with Cris Morena; “Zingara”, with Andrea Del Boca; and “Carola Casini”, with Araceli González and with the help of Adrián Suar, who was my brother-in-law and is my son’s uncle. At first I said. “I’m an actor, not a heartthrob.” Until I realized that that was nonsense.
News: Did you have prejudices towards the gallants?
Palomino: No. My resistance was not to stigmatize the heartthrob, but because I did not feel identified with any of the male models of heartthrobs on TV in the ’90s. They were all white, like Gabriel Corrado and Gustavo Bermúdez; So how could a black guy like me be a heartthrob? That thing went away when I realized that the leading man could also do “La Celestina”, by Fernando de Rojas, or “El avaro”, by Molière, at the San Martín.
News: What does it mean to be summoned again by Muscari, a theater director who, with his ups and downs, has broken several molds on the local scene?
Palomino: José has that particularity, that irreverent thing; And although I had just done “Otello” at the Comedia de la Provincia and then in Mar del Plata, I was attracted to the idea of doing a play with such a varied cast, with people who come from different “situations.”
News: Given the current lack of fiction on open TV, I heard him say that the different sectors of the activity should start talking to try to reverse the situation.
Palomino: Yes. We would all have to get together to see how to reduce costs and reactivate activity. The State should also be there, but the State now says “do it yourself”, when Uruguay, for example, returns 30% of what was invested. Carlos Rottemberg has also been talking about the same thing, because commercial theater, which has historically been nourished by TV figures, is also going to be affected. If Brazil, Mexico and Türkiye do it, why not us? Furthermore, fiction on open TV, like cinema, makes our identity, because on the platforms no one drinks mate or makes a barbecue, they respond to a more global reality.
News: Projects?
Palomino: At San Martín they called me to do “The Kiss on the Asphalt”, by Nelson Rodrigues, one of the best Brazilian authors, and I am also preparing a version by Omar Sánchez of “Fuenteovejuna” for a single character. In addition, I started filming “The Future is Ours” for Netflix, a miniseries based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, also author of “Blade Runner,” which narrates a dystopian world in a South America where climate change has wreaked havoc due to the appearance of a messianic leader.
Sergio Núñez / X @sergei_nunez
by Sergio Núñez
