The actress Carme Elías announced this Saturday that she suffers from Alzheimer’s. The few who already knew the bitter news read his Reception speech for the Gaudí of Honour, just one year ago, in which the great lady of theater, cinema and television spoke of the anguish of getting lost in the woods and not being able to get out. It is now when she takes the step forward, in the Brain Film Fest (CCCB), thinking more of others than of herself.
Is it important to name it out loud?
I think that making it public helps to give visibility to a disease that is locked up inside families. But I thought about it a lot, huh? I have strangeness, but I am still aware of what I do, and showing my intimacy in this way is a somersault. “What moves you? -I thought-. If you are calmer at home, without exposing yourself to people stopping you on the street”. But I decided to take advantage of my status as an actress and show my face.
How long has the silence lasted?
I received the diagnosis three years ago. Everything was uncovered in a terrifying way during the filming of ‘The consequences’ [2019], directed by Claudia Pinto, in which she did not have the leading role. She couldn’t continue the sentences.
“Everything unfolded in a terrifying way during filming. I couldn’t follow the lines”
May I ask how certainty fit in?
I couldn’t believe it! There was crying and gnashing of teeth, and a huge family commotion. I went visiting doctors, to see if the diagnosis was wrong. I couldn’t stop crying. I thought the tears would flow down the Torrent de l’Olla, which is where I live. Finally, you accept the unacceptable.
She live alone?
The whole family tucks me in. Couldn’t be better cared for. Someone is always with me. They come in and out of the house, but there are days when I’m alone and I can’t stop calling them. Honestly, what I want is a dignified death.
…?
I have a friend who suffers from this disease and I know what it is to not be in this world and still be alive. I have it written: I want to die with dignity. I don’t understand why in this country euthanasia cannot be understood!
“I don’t understand why euthanasia cannot be understood in this country. I don’t deserve to be in a chair, dependent”
Maybe a solution will appear.
Now there isn’t, and I don’t deserve to be prostrate in a chair, depending on someone to feed me and do my hygiene. Why? My family would respect my will. It is society that does not allow it. I intend to defend the right.
What memory would you like to keep above all?
That of the 15-year-old girl who, with the permission of Mr. Balcells, went up on stage at the Sant Josep de Calassanç country house. From there I have come to here, and that gives me some comfort. Being an actress has been the greatest gift of all. I’ve lived the life I wanted, even if it hasn’t always been easy.
“I’ve lived the life I wanted, and that’s a consolation”
Hasn’t it been?
There have been stretches of tremendous drama. At one point I worked with stage fright.
You? With a 50-year career, an ‘almodóvar’, a Goya for best actress.
There came a time when I went on stage and had to repeat myself “here and now”, which is what I learned studying Gestalt therapy. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I went through a circuit of psychiatrists and neurologists, and they all told me that I was great. I thought, then, that it had to do with my sensitivity, with the severe self-demand of my being in the world. “Could it be that the sensitivity that helped me build the characters was already a seed of this evil?” I wonder.
“Could it be that the sensitivity that helped me build the characters was a seed of this evil? I wonder”
Is there something good about all this?
I notice an unexpected creativity. At all levels. I write a page every day. It is a dump what is happening to me. They are thoughts around the disease. Sometimes they are funny and sometimes they are not. At times I feel like crying and I say: “But this situation makes us laugh!”.
What is the last thing you wrote down?
I do not know. I don’t even know if I wrote anything yesterday.
“I seem very normal, but in a while I may not seem so at all. My day to day is a roller coaster”
It doesn’t matter, really.
I seem very normal, but after a while I may not seem normal at all. My day to day is a roller coaster. At the moment I lead a more or less normal life. I keep cooking, I dedicate myself to the house, which is getting emptier and emptier… I’m cleaning everything. I am looking, one by one, at all the boxes of my professional life.
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His eyes sparkle, as always.
I miss myself talking to you! But the time will come when you can’t. In which I will leave home and I will not know how to return. I have to live in the present, because I no longer have a future.