the clock of Juan Grandinetti marks four hours more than the one in Buenos Aires. Three years ago he settled with his girlfriend in Madrid and, shortly after the decision, the panorama of the usual changed completely with the coronavirus. Still, he put down roots. After the pandemic, he was part of the series “Los hombres de Paco”, very popular in Spain, set the standard and successive works appeared.
On March 2 it opens in Argentina “The Invented”, a film, awarded at different international festivals, in which he stars and which has the particularity of bringing together three directors, Leo Basilico, Nicolás Longinotti and Pablo Rodríguez Pandolfi. He tells that he has just returned from Buenos Aires. He had not planned to travel but had gone to visit his father (Dario Grandinetti) to Rio de Janeiro, where he was filming, and was tempted to do a few more kilometers. They were a few days and he had a lot of people to see, although he got the taste. He knows in depth that of going and coming back, of spreading love and emotions on different continents because his mother is Catalan and his father is Argentine. Although somewhat repeated, he is not enough to be used to.
News: How did you live those days in Buenos Aires?
John Grandinetti: I really enjoyed them, but sometimes it’s hard for me to value what I’m going for and you always end up missing it. When I was a boy, my family already left and it was the joy of going to visit one part, but the sadness of not going to see the other for a while. I live with that feeling, trying to appreciate more where I am and not regret where I am not.
News: Did you learn it over time?
Grandinetti: Well… no, that’s what I try but it’s difficult. At times yes, but there is always the other, it is a bit inevitable. Yes, I would tell you that I already got used to that dynamic. But there is the contradiction of enjoying it and also of what one is missing, what do I know.
News: The pandemic broke out in force in Spain shortly after it arrived. At that time, did she regret having chosen that destination?
Grandinetti: I think that at the time I didn’t even think about it, in theory, it was all so short, at first it was 15 days, and then 15 more and so on. Now I think it’s a good thing that I came just before because if not, maybe I would delay my coming. I know it was super heavy for a lot of people, but I was able to get a super positive part out of all that and the truth is that at times I even enjoyed it. I feel that at some point I was able to capitalize and even take advantage of (the pandemic).
News: Do you feel in constant search, as if you were under construction?
Grandinetti: In part yes and in part I am very down to earth, like I am comfortable with what I know. It is a balance between the two things because I also have curiosities. But I couldn’t define myself by either of them. I think that one of the things that was transcendental on a personal level in recent times was removing a little importance, relevance or expectation from work. I am aware that I live from that and that I like to live from that because there is a language that I understand and know, but well, I am prioritizing the other part much more… I could calmly tell you that it was from the pandemic.
News: What did you discover in that other part?
Grandinetti: I don’t know, a lot of things, in terms of the people I want to be around, other things that I like to do and that have nothing to do with purely work, that maybe I had a little more left aside due to an agenda more marked by work than for what continues to happen in spite of him.
News: “Los inventados” contains the question of who is one and how many characters inhabit us. What would you answer to such an existential question?
Grandinetti: I don’t know the truth, it’s like the eternal question. I am many at the same time, this also happens in the movie with making friends with being able to show another facet but the truth is that I don’t know who I am (laughs). There are many things I know, but I cannot define myself and I would not like to define myself either.
News: We are in a society that tends to define identity by work.
Grandinetti: Yeah, well, for me it’s the opposite. The concrete things of what I know I am are things about my family, where I come from, who my father, my mother, my sisters are, that makes me have a vague idea of who I am; instead of something that I have been since I was 19 years old, which is something built. Obviously I feel like an actor, but I don’t define myself as an actor in life or by beatings. I see that answer much more reflected in my family and in the people I choose to surround myself with.
News: What challenge did “Los inventados” bring you?
Grandinetti: It brought me very good things, first something on a personal level. We shot in Tandil and it was super good for me to be installed there. It was a moment in which I was a little bad, a little emotionally unstable, as it continues to happen to me and has happened to me throughout my life, nothing serious, quite the opposite, something positive, I think; and the truth is that it came to me like a glove because it was a kind of royal retirement. It was a bit like what happens in the movie (in which a group of actors do an acting training retreat), I went with a lot of people I didn’t know, and I didn’t feel like I was selling someone I didn’t know. was. In these circumstances one relaxes a little more and can show things that perhaps in the most intimate circle he does not do because he already knows that they are going to judge him or point him out or whatever. I think that in those circumstances one can play much more and that was something that the shooting itself gave me. Also allow yourself to show other facets and perhaps conceive of yourself in another way and not in that routine in which one is always a bit similar. And then it was a very nice experience working with three directors, that was one of the things that caught my attention from the start, because it can be something very spectacular or very chaotic. And the three of them were very defined in what each one had more experience or felt more comfortable with and that made things easier for everything to go well and chaos to be avoided.
News: When did they shoot?
Grandinetti: It was at the beginning of 2019, before Madrid, put it in March 2019, I didn’t even know it was coming.
News: Maybe that’s why the emotional instability, maybe the decision to leave was brewing.
Grandinetti: Yes, there was something to that. That is why I tell you that on a professional level it was a very good experience, but also on a personal level. Getting a little out of Buenos Aires and finding myself more anonymous, I liked a little. And maybe the seed was there, surely.
News: How do you see Argentina from a distance?
Grandinetti: Being at a distance, I prefer not… it is one thing to be informed by what one sees in the news and another…
News: But he has known people living in the country.
Grandinetti: Yes, but they are versions of people who live the way they live and they are still my interpretations of what they tell me. The truth is that from what I read at the news level, I have been doing the exercise of not getting too involved for a long time because I also there is a lot of evil in the way of reporting, a lot of misinformation, a lot of information based on discrediting the information from the sidewalk across the street, so… yes, in the circle that I have, I can tell you that there are people who could have the possibility of leaving and leaving. is left over. Me every time I go, and I tell you this with all the respect in the world because I know I’m not living day to day there, but every time I go, I enjoy the city and the people. Despite the problems that exist and have always been and probably always will be, the human warmth that exists in Buenos Aires is of great value, and I always enjoy that, the way that people bond, to get on the same page side in the face of adversity.
News: You must see many Argentines settling in Madrid. There is an idealization that whoever leaves has it easier than whoever stays. Is it so?
Grandinetti: It depends on the priority that each one has. I don’t know, my priority at the time was to come because I wanted to be close to my family (his mother and a sister live there with their family), I wanted to see my nieces above all, and the truth is that it continues to be one of my priorities, be close to my family. And of course the context I’m in helps me want to stay here, because I’m comfortable in this department, because I’m comfortable with my partner, with my circle, with my work.
News: Are you still in a relationship with Cala Zavaleta?
Grandinetti: Yes, it was a nice test, the vertigo of moving with someone, I had not lived with anyone, and also choosing to do it in another country. It was challenging but, at the same time, super spectacular. Returning to the other, I believe that nothing is easy, neither deciding to move nor deciding to stay is easy. It depends on what one is looking for and how things turn out based on the decision one makes. Everyone has goals and everyone has a lot of difficulties to achieve them and a lot of tools too. If I hadn’t had family here, I don’t know if I would have left, I think it’s a very beautiful city and country. But right now I’m happy to be here, to be close to part of my family. When that changes, I’ll see where I want to go.
News: Being in that internal dialogue is enriching.
Grandinetti: Yes, because it is also easy to be guided by other people’s experiences, and each one has the experiences they have. So, from what they tell me, I listen, I understand, I accompany, I empathize, I understand but I would never use someone else’s thing to give you a conclusion, or at least I try not to, it’s the job, it’s the attempt.
