Until February 13, from Tuesday to Sunday, Fernanda Metilli she gets back on the Gran Rex stage with a carrot-colored wig and the loveless stridency of being Matilda’s mother. She says that assuming that role was a leap into the void, due to the demands of a musical that involves not only composing a character and providing one’s own edges but also singing and dancing. She lives this second (and last) season of “Matilda” like a revenge with extra amounts of enjoyment, because he already has a clear formula to regulate the energy and not end up at zero in the first scene, as once happened to him. He now knows how to get the right point for each frame. “The stage is where you have to be at your best, in reality it’s not ‘you have to’, I get it; the scenario is the expansion of energy,” he assures. Energy is not a topic that is limited to the challenge of this character.
News: It always looks like it has a 100% battery. Was graduating something you learned or does it come easily to you?
Fernanda Metilli: It comes easy to me, but because when I’m not working or socializing, I am very inward, I can sit for three hours looking at the grass, painting, still or playing with the dogs; I kind of have my share of a lot of loneliness. It is the one that helps me to be 100% later. Agus, my partner, my boyfriend, always says that he recharges his energy by socializing, he is the type that you turn around for 5 minutes and he organizes a barbecue for you; and that I recharge energy by being alone.
News: Agus is “Soy Rada” Aristarán, with whom he shares the stage in “Matilda”. They have been together for 8 years and still have their own houses. How do the couple deal with these specific situations: if he organizes a barbecue, don’t you go and be done with it?
Metilli: Of course, this month when we have performances I came to his house, which is a little closer to the theater and has greenery. The other day we had a dinner with friends, but if he wants to have another one and I’m more inward, I go back to Capital (to his house), I say “I’m sleeping there today,” and that’s it.
News: Is it something he had to learn?
Metilli: Yes, of course, because I understand that it is not normal for someone to be laughing and at one point their computer turns off, as happens to me. Because it’s from one hundred to zero, I have no more social battery, let everyone go. And since it doesn’t matter to kick them out, I’m leaving (laughs).
News: Is he in the best moment of his career?
Metilli: Yes, it may be, but I always hope that it continues to surprise me.
News: That’s a spark not to be lost, right?
Metilli: Of course, when they tell me what I want for this year, I want to continue surprising myself. Because sometimes you plan to star in a strip and it doesn’t happen and it’s all frustration. So let it continue to surprise me, like “Matilda” was: in my life I would have thought they were going to call me to sing in a musical. It was an absolute surprise and to be able to do it, too.
News: When it seems that everything works and flows with the power of a torrential river, you can wear that force too. Does it complicate it in the sense of those spaces of calm that you need or have you managed it?
Metilli: I have it handled. 2023 was a year in which I worked a lot, I had four jobs at the same time and all four were equally important and some more demanding than others, but I could still do my little time and also being aware that our profession has a very great instability. As if he said: “This moment is great, I like everything and it’s good that I do it.” Obviously you also learn to say no and lose the fear of saying no.
News: When did you learn it?
Metilli: Agus helped me a lot with that, because there are also not the same possibilities and opportunities for men as for women.. With Agus we always talk and debate this topic. Because he suddenly tells me: “Well, I said no for such a thing.” And I tell him: “No, stop, look, they don’t usually call women for things like that.” So, as a couple it is great that we both learn to see each other’s reality.
News: What things do they still not usually call a woman for?
Metilli: Well, for example, in the strip “Good Guys,” which we finished filming in November for PolKa, the only funny, comical, humorous character was mine and it is a role that the man always had. I thought it was great, and I told Adrián Suar, and I thanked him again, because you always think of a guy for that role. Or to conduct an event, it’s always like the man comes first.
News: There is still a very strong weight in how the body and age impact a woman’s possibilities, right?
Metilli: Yes of course! Age still clearly has more weight for women, and not only in the workplace. On a physical and maternity level, for example, also. Today I tell you that the truth is that I do not want to be a mother, that I do not have that desire. And maybe he wants to at 45, and unfortunately he may not be the same. But a guy out there who is only 55 wants to be a father and he can!
It gives the impression that she aligns herself with her desires and goes for it, from supporting her non-desire for motherhood, knowing that in a few years that can change and can have consequences, to when she left her native Tandil at the age of 23 and settled in Buenos Aires to grow professionally, despite his father’s refusal.
Metilli: Beyond that episode with my dad, I also had a lot of support and enthusiasm from my mom, huh. It was: “Come on, you can do it,” and from complete ignorance because my mother traveled to Capital for the first time to see me at 60-something, she got on the bus and came to see me. My old man doesn’t know Capital.
News: Why didn’t he come visit her?
Metilli: Why not, because they are from Tandil and then my dad got sick and now he can’t travel for health reasons. But mine was very much about innocence and not knowing. And so, with that unconsciousness, I would tell you, we are where we are.
Say what “The Guilt Girls” It is a battle won in the perseverance of being a female comedian. The group that she integrates with Malena Guinzburg, Connie Ballarini and Natalia Caruliase became an expansive success. They just toured the United States and Europe (although Metilli couldn’t be on the latter due to other work commitments).
News: It’s part of two sold-out shows. What does it mean that there are full theaters in the midst of this economic crisis?
Metilli: For me, people want to laugh, especially it was seen long after the pandemic that comedy shows are the most popular. They want to have a good time and go laugh. With us, with “The Girls of Guilt”, there is a self-confidence and a breaking with the taboo that women do not talk about certain things, that they cannot believe it. And the beautiful thing is that the grandmother, the mother and the granddaughter come.
News: What things scare you?
Metilli: Look, it’s a bit of a chicken or the egg… fear of fear. I have had panic attacks for many years. And I realized that it is fear of fear, because I am leaving something known, because I am facing something new.. And I simply accepted it, that just as there are people who, when they are nervous or when faced with changes or grief, an ulcer appears, I am afraid of fear, we are afraid of the mind, of the fact that I beat you. Obviously I had no problem going to therapy or seeing a psychiatrist, because mental health is essential.
News: When did panic attacks appear?
Metilli: Just ten years ago. When I was in Carlos Paz doing the “Stravaganza” season, I went there. It was the first thing I had done this big in commercial theater and there was something about that greatness that made me feel uncomfortable. But Agus knew about the issue because it had happened to him and I immediately attacked the problem to find a solution.
News: From your own experience, what would you recommend to someone who is experiencing a similar situation?
Metilli: Let him take care of himself, for me the best thing is to take care of him, to welcome him, to understand that in any case you have to be grateful because if that had not happened, something else would have happened, something physical. And it’s still the body that tells you that something is not right. And then each one has their specific case, if it is chemical and you are taking a pill, take a pill! Why suffer the fart? I take medication and I am grateful for the medication. I left it for quite a few years too, but when I understand that I need it, that’s it.
News: She gives the impression of being a woman making her way. That framed in panic attacks has even more value.
Metilli: Okay, yes, I feel very brave, but at some point weakness had to appear.
