A restaurant on Costa Rica Street serves as the setting for the meeting with the actress Brenda Gandiniin full promotion of “Escape room”a theatrical success in Mexico and Spain, which in the local production has her as the protagonist along with Benjamín Rojas, Sofi Morandi and Gonzalo Suárez.
In a relaxed atmosphere, Gandini talks with NEWS. He is going through a great professional moment, managing to build a career with a harmonious coexistence between cinema, theater and television, as if it were a puzzle where everything fits together, beyond chance, misunderstandings, imponderables and coincidences. The titles follow one another in selective memory.
Memories travel from “Floricienta”, “Stolen Lives”, “La Dueña” and “Singing for a Dream” to “Mala”, “Morir de amor”, “La cage de las locas” and the recent “Desnudos”, passing for “Malparida”, “Sos mi vida” and the still current “Good boys”.
Gandini savors a coffee with milk and begins the conversation with concern, curiosity and good disposition.
News: How did you become part of “Escape room”?
Brenda Gandini: The project came to me and when I read it I was fascinated by the story. I knew the repercussions of the work worldwide and it seemed to me that beyond these two couples who meet to play in an escape room, with the comedy and suspense it has, it is a work that speaks a little about the tolerance that we have towards the truth. When should it be said? To what extent is it necessary and how much can we tolerate the thought of the other without taking it as aggression? These are all questions that lead us to think about what we are capable of locked inside that room. How that more animal side comes out to be able to resolve situations and escape.
News: Her character is an actress. Is it difficult to be an actress when you are one?
Gandini: I wanted to get away from that exaggerated way of acting that is sometimes used to embody an actress. Actors are people who put their bodies into telling stories and living the lives of those characters. This actress that I play is someone who wants to attract attention all the time, she is with her director husband with whom they work together on her films. They have a very nice relationship, but in this confinement that is happening, a couple of truths will come to light that will go through and modify their relationship.
News: Benjamín Rojas works here. Could it be that her first kiss was with him?
Gandini: Yes it’s true. My first job as an actress was with Benja, I was always very grateful because it was my first time in the profession and he was very generous, it was in “Floricienta”. Cris Morena discovered me and I started working with Benja with whom we had a love bond in the strip, it was a very beautiful experience indeed. And today meeting us again on stage after so many years was very nice because we already have a long way to go and another maturity. Oh, but I didn’t tell the anecdote about the kiss… We played two people who didn’t want to kiss, but they were dying to kiss each other even though in theory they were cousins, but later it turned out that they weren’t. So I put my mouth and my teeth accidentally collided with his. I chipped my tooth! I acted like nothing had happened and he never found out. I was silent the whole time touching my tooth (Laughs), after several years I finally told the anecdote and he found out.
News: A rough kiss
Gandini: Very, because the public sees those scenes and says “Look how they kiss!”, but it is very inorganic, it occurs within a situation with many people around that can even become uncomfortable. Generating those spaces is not easy, but In this case there was a funny story to remember.
News: Reviewing some data to do the interview, I saw that he lost the final of “Singing for a Dream” with Tití Fernández. How could that happen?
Gandini: (Laughs) Tití Fernández beat me! He was very crazy, during my time at Cantando they always sent me to the phone because I didn’t have a great show in the preview. I just went and sang, for me it was an intensive singing school and it was beautiful to meet Pablo, my dreamer and teacher. There was a lot of rehearsal and work, people voted for me to stay. In the final there were four of us and I went through until it was Titi’s turn, who is a wonderful being. When he became champion he hugged me and told me: “You won too,” and I answered: “Of course yes, I have been nominated since I started more or less”, it was a lot, it was a really nice experience.
News: Now we are seeing you in “Good Boys”, you have two still small children with Gonzalo Heredia. What is it like to put yourself in the role of mother to a daughter who is already a woman?
Gandini: Well, I am the mother of a 12-year-old teenager who is entering a stage that you can imagine (laughs), I also love working with Luciano Cáceres with whom we made three films and “Desnudos”…we are now brothers. It was something new having to play the mother of a girl who is already a woman, she is involved in a gang and these parents don’t realize what is happening. Something that happens, because children logically have to be given freedom and sometimes you may not know what they are up to when they start to have their life. I like to do new things, projects that propose more of the same no longer appeal to me. I am very happy to make national fiction, it is a space that perhaps due to technological evolution and because people can choose to manage their times and ways of consuming entertainment has changed a lot. Today perhaps the public does not necessarily sit down at “novel time” but rather watches it more on platforms, but it is a space that I would not like to see lost. I am part of that world of novels and it is very beautiful, it is like having dinner with the family, entering their house.
News: “Good Boys” has a great young cast, does it remind you of your beginnings?
Gandini: The truth is, yes, but I think that today they are more relaxed, they experience things in a less intense way, the guys in this cast are calmer. They are all very responsible, very good actors and each one told their story, but it reminded me of the adrenaline that you experience when you start recording a strip, there are many hours that you have to spend.
News: The current public is very aware of Mirtha Legrand as a host and not so much of her career as an actress. He worked with her in “La dueña”, what can you tell us?
Gandini: It was beautiful, first because it was a unitary and we were not running with the times of a novel. Mirtha has always been very generous with us, she laughed with everyone. I had just become a mother, I took Eloy who was one year old so I could share time with him since he was so little and she was very loving. The whole group was spectacular, “La dueña” was very good.
News: “La dueña” was on Telefé where she also worked on “Morir de amor” with her mother, Daniela Cardone. That must have been an experience unlike any other, right?
Gandini: We had done some things together, but more as models, when I received the proposal from director Anahí Berneri for us to be mother and daughter in fiction I told her, “yes, I love it.” It was a challenge, because although there was already a bond built, there was also the difficulty of putting oneself in the shoes of another mother-daughter relationship. My character was very complex, he had a disability and he had a very sick relationship with his mother. We laughed a lot because my mom is very funny, happy and fun so she flowed quite well. She had to do a complicated scene where we half had a threesome with Esteban Bigliardi and that was the only moment we said: “Hey, what happened?” (laughs) but everything was so careful that it was very good.
News: I understand that you have studied several things and that you are especially interested in photography. Did he ever fantasize about a Gandini director?
Gandini: Yes, I like photography and I once thought about directing. It’s all very related to what I do, I don’t like to stay still, Alfo (Alfonsina, her daughter) is older and more independent and I love that space for creativity and search. Several branches arise from my passion, such as astrology, for example, which interests me to understand the characteristics, the ascendants. There is like a whole parallel universe if you see it in perspective, it is very interesting. Regarding photography, I took two courses to study light and how images are edited. That’s where I end up being a photography editor, who tells you?
News: What does an ideal day look like when you’re not working?
Gandini: The ideal day begins if there is no alarm clock. And then, the four of us being in bed, with the sizes of the children we almost couldn’t fit in. A Sunday like this in my home is undoubtedly the ideal day.
by Leonardo Martinelli
