Carolina Ramirez it is “The queen of flow” (Netflix), a global phenomenon, and carries two decades of experience in his native Colombia. She wanted to be a classical dancer until she discovered that her acting would make her fly higher than any grand jeté. She is married to the theatrical producer Mariano Bacaleinik and has lived in Buenos Aires for months, she weaves warm phrases. She says, for example, in relation to living far from her land and her family of origin: “I believe that love transcends, that it does not need a physical presence to exist and, since I am so surrounded by love, since always, because I have I have been lucky enough to grow up in a very supportive family, I have learned to carry love with me and, therefore, wherever I go, I have my home”. For the first time he takes to a stage in Buenos Aires with “Lo que remnant de nos” (Multitabarís Comafi), together with Alberto Ajaka, in a play that “teaches that what we most have to learn is not in another human being but in nature and in its simplicity. Animals take away my anxiety and depression. Depression is living in the past and anxiety is living in the future. When I see them living in the present, it is really a confirmation that this is life, here and now”. Her character, a young girl with big losses, matures and reaches conclusions, which she, Carolina, went through: “We live despite what is left of us, despite what happens, we have to continue living and we have to keep breathing because we have no other”.
NEWS: With a “perfect” professional life, how do you not get lost in the past and the future?
Caroline Ramirez: I am well aware that I am very imperfect. It has been my imperfection that has given me all the material to be able to work. There is a dispossession, which I have learned over the years, and that is generosity. If you are not generous, it is impossible for you to succeed in life because if you are not willing to give up anything of yourself, you have no way to climb. I think that in me everything is very instinctive because I have had a very normal family.
She considers herself a lucky girl, lucky to have a very good childhood. And she clarifies herself, it is not that she was a millionaire, on the contrary, her parents lost their jobs, suffered economic shortcomings and had to leave Cali to seek sustenance in Bogotá. But, again, on one side or the other, there was a home. “Even in those hard times, with my brother we were very aware that what we had was enough. That is why it is so important that our children know love. One does not need things, nor trips to Disney, I did not have them. Until I was 15 years old, I vacationed twice in my life, twice! ”, She tells.
NEWS: Even with the sporting past of his father (Hernando “Melo” Ramírez, who was part of Deportivo Cali in 1977, directed by Carlos Bilardo), which could have given him more financial comfort.
Ramirez: Those were other times, it wasn’t like now when soccer players are mega-millionaires. But the fact that my dad was an athlete was beautiful because he taught us and instilled in us a lot of discipline, but also the game. I think I was the oldest in the family.
A careful ballet student since she was 8 years old, she was strict and demanding with herself. “I was very disciplined. The first party I ever went to, I was 17 years old. Self-demand at that age is very difficult. Let’s say that a hard moment in my life was that, that I looked at myself in the mirror and hated myself because I didn’t have the body of Sylvie Guillem, which is how it is, ”she says as she raises her little finger and remembers that French dancer. She was able to start accepting herself and knowing her potential when she got into acting.
NEWS: Did you mourn the end of your relationship with dance?
Ramirez: No, because when I started acting, the directors and the partners I worked with very much treasured my journey through dance. I started doing theater when I was 19 years old, with huge, powerful companies, with actors I’d seen on television since I was a child. And she entered those casts for being a dancer. It’s like now, I couldn’t be here talking to you if I hadn’t been through La Reina del Flow.
NEWS: A success like that, that transcends borders, does it become a kind of karma, a character that you have to take care of so that it doesn’t take you completely?
Ramirez: No, no, that is an impressive dharma, it is a gift from the universe, because the truth is that I have always longed to fit in a place. Here (in Argentina), for example, where they are very jealous of their artists, they have already asked me the typical question of whether I came here to take people’s jobs away. NEWS: Did they ask you that? Ramírez: But joking! I’m dying to work with everyone, because they’re great, I need to meet them all to have the privilege of working. Even when I started acting, I was a little embarrassed to jump in line with a bunch of people who had studied acting to get where I had. But I didn’t take anything away from anyone. I arrived by my own path, which was dance. But he had to convince me of that, because I don’t want to go over anyone, because I believe in processes, in flight hours. That is why I receive with great humility, for example, the fact that my season (in Buenos Aires) is limited (for only three weeks). It happened that way because we were short on schedule, but I receive it as a gift and as something fair.
NEWS: How was the internal arm wrestling that you had to do in the second season of “La Reina del Flow” regarding feminisms and finding that your character took a turn that you yourself could not digest?
Ramirez: Yes, my character had to fall in love with his executioner. It cost me a lot because I can’t perceive this profession as something merely for image. Beauty ends and one day they are going to see me in photos and they are going to say: “How old is she”, because that is the exhibition and it is the price that must be paid. But deep down, if I have nothing to show, if I have nothing to contribute, I stay at home. Being famous or not doesn’t move me. I am interested in people approaching with the affection that is approaching, to thank that, thanks to that character, he was able to forgive someone.
NEWS: And that happened to him?
Ramirez: All time.
These days, a lady who spent about three months in the hospital with a very hard illness approached me, thanking me because thanks to those 80 episodes of the first season and the 80 of the second, three months passed and she alone had a good time. But that is thanks to Caracol (Television). But, well, that your character transcends; that a character that you defended so much, that you worried so much, because I was very careful and did not conceive anything, obviously I was already inside, I had to accept the product, well, then, how do we build this forgiveness? Let’s go forward, and on that train, Carlos (Torres) and Andrés (Sandoval) were very generous, it’s a combination of things.
NEWS: It wouldn’t have mattered to him to get there anyway.
Ramirez: No, it doesn’t work out for me, it would be a lousy actress, horrible, I would recite, there would be no truth, I don’t know, I find the truth in the consequence, if there is no consequence, where do I hold on. That’s it, I act accordingly. The inconsistency stops me.
NEWS: In that sense, she is also very committed to the realities that happen around her. Aren’t you afraid of losing popularity by positioning yourself on a political or social level?
Ramirez: The only thing that really scares me is that they do something to me or do something to my family for establishing a position, because in this world there is everything. lose popularity? It’s just that popularity is so ephemeral, one day you’re here, the next day you’re there, one day they recognize you on the street, the next day they don’t. It is very difficult to sustain a life of lights. I, Carolina Ramírez, need consequences, you need to speak up when you feel that something is unfair, you need to ask yourself questions and make people wonder things and establish a position when yours are being massacred, violated.
NEWS: Based on the latest electoral results in Colombia, you have hope in relation to the fate of your country, right?
Ramirez: Yes, but the hopes are not in the name of a candidate, they are in the set of actions and sacrifices, of what has happened to reach this point in history. They are 60 years of conflicts, of repression. A year ago the social explosion began and it was where I established my position. Before that, it scared me, because they scare you. I carry the same fear but now I can’t be inconsistent. I think of my brother, my cousins, my country, so many peasants, deep in Colombia, the victims… eight million victims is a lot of people; 6 million displaced… If we remain silent, we are accomplices.
NEWS: What’s left of us, right?
Ramirez: Exactly, I think we have to keep breathing and we have to continue inhabiting this planet as responsibly as possible.
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