There aren’t that many character actors left, but he is one. Francis Orellafigure of the theater, cinema and series, was a president of Barça who dragged an eternal short circuit with Diego Maradona in “Blessed Dream” and will become Pedro Ara, the doctor in charge of embalming the body of Eva Perón in the series “Saint Avoid” surely always will be Merlithat endearing Professor of Philosophy turned into a global phenomenon thanks to the affection of the public.
Purebred Catalan, owner of a sharp humor, master of good words, spoke with NOTICIAS about his new series “Better days” Available from Paramount+. There he plays Luis, a tough and selfish businessman forced to be part of a therapeutic group for parents who have lost their partners. The scenes of him with the recent Goya winner for Best Actress for the film Maixabel, Blanca Portillo are anthological (the leading quintet is completed with Marta Hazas, Alba Planas and the Mexican actor Erick Elías). This unmissable Spanish series has it all: it’s bittersweet, sensitive, funny, smart and funky.
How to learn to listen in a deaf post-pandemic world, the new links that fictions reflect, the role of the media, fear as a weapon of political correctness and an inexhaustible rebellion in this talk.
News: “Better Days” is a series about surviving grief. How do you think it will impact the public after these years where so many people lost their loved ones?
Francesco Orella: It is true that the series touches on the theme of mourning the loss of a partner, but I think it will come in an interesting way because “Días Mejor” has that bright and positive tone, despite the hard moments. The viewer will be able to see an image that somehow reflects their own shortcomings and anguish. But always keeping in mind that this side exists, knowing that there are alternatives in life and that one is not alone. I think that the series, because of its different tones, because there is a lot of humor despite the dramas, is like life. There are moments to laugh and to cry as happens to all of us, in that sense it is very realistic and close, the public will find warmth and tenderness through the characters.
News: Speaking of warmth, you became known worldwide for playing the most beloved philosophy professor in the Merlí series. In “Best Days” he composes Luis, a selfish businessman who manages his family life as if it were a company. How do you manage to make such an unpleasant guy lovable?
Orella: (laughs) Well, it’s our job. The actor’s job is to put himself in the skin of the character, give him body and soul. Luis is a guy who is very far from Merlí, which I like. He is a man who finds it difficult to empathize with his family, with the problems of his daughters, with the difficult relationship he has had with his wife. It is clear that he misses her, but he is a selfish man, with a conservative structure, a bit narrow-minded. He has an idea of happiness based on materialism, on ostentation, he has very old mental schemes, but something is going to move in his life.
News: Now finally there is talk of mental health, a topic that has always been hushed up as if it were embarrassing and that is central in this series. How does your character face that generational prejudice with psychological assistance?
Orella: He will come out changed. He starts therapy forced by work issues after having suffered an anxiety crisis and starts off on the wrong foot due to a difficult relationship with the therapist. The man does not understand what he is doing there with the other fellow patients, but he is going to learn to listen to others and for them to listen to him. At first it will be very difficult for him to tell his private life in public, he is that type of closed character. Apparently very safe, but with feet of clay. The structure is going to be dismantled and that is what interests me most about him.
News: In “Best Days” there is a great diversity regarding the ages of the protagonists, ranging from adolescence to adulthood. His character has a contemporary lover, escaping the cliché of the executive and the young lady. Are better roles coming for actors and actresses over 50?
Orella: It’s possible, although age-gap relationships still work a lot on screen, especially if he’s older than her. But it is true that there are more and more mature relationships between characters that make up a couple, as in the case of Luis and that relationship with the lover he already had during his wife’s life. They are changing paradigms in society, but in different directions. The range of relationships is broader, families are structured differently, people need to share emotions but also share interests, tastes, hobbies… and Luis is the example of the guy who needs a woman to give him a little cane, as we say here. Someone who stands up to him, he deserves it. As does his eldest daughter with whom he will also have an interesting story. Because he is oblivious to the problems of his daughters and facing single parenthood, there will be more than one lesson that will get him out of the state he is in.
News: You said “status” and it is necessary to ask you, do you still have the phrase “stop banning that I can’t disobey everything” in your Whatsapp status?
Orella: I have seen that phrase on many instagrams because it has made fortunes (laughs) I read it in graffiti painted on a wall and that is why I used it, commented on it in an interview and photographed it to put it on my account. It was during the toughest stage of the pandemic when the logical health measures were mixed with other controversial prohibitions that affected freedom of expression and assembly. It’s been two years… what can I tell you, complicated. And that phrase seemed very resounding to me, with that almost English, ironic humor that I like and that reflects a critical state of mind. Because we need a critical opinion towards what surrounds us and above all towards the powers that control us. We must be able to discern and be rigorous with what happens to us or with what is imposed on us. That is why the phrase seemed so accurate and lucid to me.
News: How do you get along with the so-called political correctness?
Orella: How do I wear it? Good question. On the one hand, in general and regardless of what has happened with the pandemic, the times we are living seem very complex and hard, in general with limitations of freedom, of ways of thinking. There is a lot of control and manipulation in the information that reaches us. We have to be very alert, more than ever. My Merlí character talked about living questioning yourself, haranguing you to doubt everything. Doubt does not define a lack of character, it is a concern, asking questions about our surroundings. Now are times when I doubt more than ever. I really don’t feel very comfortable with the society that I seemany things continue to piss me off, I remain rebellious with various issues that affect not only politics but social relations.
News: So that phrase that appeared on cups or posts and said: “We’re going to get better from this” wasn’t true?
Orella: I think the pandemic has changed interpersonal relationships, I see people very closed in on themselves, with a great presence of fear. Fear, of any kind, is always negative and castrating. It is not only the fear of the disease but also the fear of saying what you think, of the other, of what is different. Seeing how racism, xenophobia and intolerance are growing in the world worries me. I try to adapt but these are difficult times.
News: The latest… Maradona’s Barça also lived through difficult times. You played the late president of the institution, Josep Luis Núñez, in the series “Blessed Dream” and you are a fan of the club. Tell me, how did we survive Barça without Messi?
Orella: What question! I think the club has to get used to being without Leo, there is a generation of young footballers that the President has invested in and who inspire good confidence. Messi has been a school, a teacher for many young players and I trust this Barca of the new names that are joining the team. We are in a moment of transition.
