It’s like a bulldozer going in different directions. It opens paths, weeds, generates spaces. She is an actress, of course, but also a host, producer, director, manager of her own projects. She is now making her debut as a writer. “That new skin. About motherhood, mourning and her surroundings” (Vergara) is a tribute to her mother, who died a little over two years ago, and also to Ema, her little daughter who was almost 2 and a half. Eugenia Tobal finishes the photos for this note, the girl asks her to go to the square, she must resolve issues of the construction work that she is carrying out in the house to which she will soon move with her family. She while she has an acting project in her hands, of which she could not advance anything, that she will start recording in
a few weeks for a platform. She is tired already a thousand. She is happy.
NEWS: She’s one of those people who does things all the time, isn’t she?
Eugenia Tobal: Yes, it is my nature. I swear that at some point I tried to change and face tranquility, but no, I am very restless, very curious, very proactive. My productivity is more efficient and effective when I’m stuffy than when I have time. The movement generates more mental movement.
I have a very small story…
Then he says that on a very hot day, he looked at the patio of the house where he still lives and thought: “Here we have to put a pool.” He took measurements, found estimates, did the excavation and, in less than 10 days!, it was installed. Destruction, reconstruction, construction. She identifies with those terms, which have been the axis of her story. “Now I was given the opportunity to buy the house and I sent, the same with the work. It has happened to me many times that I think about it and I elevate it so much to the universe that it macerates it, it is unconscious, it is like a process of total attraction, and it is believe or burst, unconsciously everything that happened to me was that way. Understanding the reconstruction, the destruction, the construction, yes, it is part of the whole path, ”she maintains.
NEWS: These concepts also appear in the book. How was the idea born?
Total: It was an almost unconscious impulse generated by some talks I had had with my mom. When she was already hospitalized, and I stayed with her, she told me that she had to write about the B side of her motherhood. It was the motivation, it was a tribute. My goal was to make the book that my mom would have liked to read, I don’t care about anything more than that she is proud. And I’m not ashamed to say that I think I wrote it with her, because I hardly even thought about it and it was a process of a lot of personal journey, although it’s not a book about my mom but I planned motherhood with her too.
NEWS: She says that at some point she realized that she was so pierced by her mother that it was as if she wanted to give her a grandchild more than to have a son.
Total: Yes, and without her asking me. The journey we made with this disease was such that there I began to despair, to have that feeling. Luckily, I was able to discuss it with her.
NEWS: And what did he tell you?
Total: He told me clearly: “I’ve already made my life, now you have to make yours, everything’s fine” (he gets emotional).
NEWS: She looks very proactive, but with a skin-deep sensitivity. It will be a strong challenge to be so emotional in a world where it is dangerous to stay raw.
Total: Yes, I know, it happened to me and I went through it in another situation in my life. That was where they realized what it was like. At that time I was raw and they saw me.
A parenthesis: it will not be the last time that he will allude to what he experienced at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, when he lost a pregnancy and separated from Nicolás Cabré.
Total: But it seems to me that it is the best way to travel the path of life. If I have to hide… I used to cry a lot during my pregnancy because of my mother’s illness, and everyone told me that it was going to hurt the baby. But the doctors told me that they needed me to cry because otherwise it would hurt the baby. Lucía Galán, who is like my sister, told me that she had to tell Ema everything that was happening to me. So it seems to me that the most beautiful thing about human beings is being able to show ourselves like this, with the good and the bad, the sensitive and the strong, because that is what we feed on.
I talk to you, I get excited and I’m not ashamed. I would like the time to come when I can tell it without my heart being squeezed but it is still early.
NEWS: In the book she deals with different duels, such as leaving behind her life as a non-mother, for example.
Total: Grief is also a growth process. The title came precisely from that proposal of starting to have a new skin, which one does not know, you have to mourn the one you were in order to start being born with that other skin, you will never be the one you were, a new woman.
In this matter of setting up spaces, Tobal has his YouTube channel, a living example of his generating capacity. There it goes up, for example, the episodes of the remodeling of the future family home. “I have always had a job but I had to look for it, I have not been chosen by anyone, like they put you in all the movies or they make you star all the time, no. It was just rowing, but I don’t complain and I’m happy. I had one or two leading roles, but all my characters ended up being transcendent because I made them as if they had been leading roles, ”she says. There are also, for example, the chapters of “Rutas solidarias”, a program that she conceived by lunging and that was seen on the Encuentro channel years ago. “That was also an impulse because I wanted to do something that had to do with solidarity, I started to create a program, I shared it with a friend who had a production company and we built this solidarity route. I went to Telecom, to YPF, I got the money and the tickets, and that program came out but nobody knows that, ”she recalls.
NEWS: What happens to you when you invest so much energy and don’t make yourself visible enough?
Total: Routes was one of the best things I did, I traveled the country, I met wonderful people and places. Was it in the year 2012? No, let’s see, before, long before, it was before the management… of that awful situation… 2008, somewhere around there. I didn’t gain a peso but it was the richest thing I’ve ever done. Later I understood, we are in a society that sometimes is not prepared for some things and prefers to be distracted by others. It fit perfectly for Encounter, but yes, practically no one found out…
NEWS: It comes from the experience of “Home Sweet Home” (El Trece), where the rating imposed an abrupt end. Is it already tanned?
Total: Yes, counter. I swear I do. With everything that happens to one, I learned to see the glass as half full. I gave my best. Every time I do something, I give my all. The good thing is that I learned and it made me happy. It was showing me as a driver, I loved it, even if it was short and abrupt, whatever they say, I really don’t care.
NEWS: Where did your decision not to limit yourself to being an actress come from?
Total: I don’t think I even thought about it. Things were happening to me and I was grabbing the roads. I set up a production company with a friend, put on a Gaturro show, directed it and filled theaters. I don’t know if anyone knows either, but it fills me up. With that production company we made a trailer for a series, we took it to Miami, we presented it, we sat down with a lot of important companies, they loved it, I acted and directed it and nobody knows either and yet I did it. I put myself to the test, I’m not showing anyone what I do, the action moves me, if the applause comes later, great but first I do it for myself.
Now, the expectation he feels before the book comes out is special. She says that she wanted those pages to provide a service. That is why she interviewed and included the voices of specialists, in addition to the stories of other moving motherhoods. “And I also want them to understand that it is not a suffering maternity that happens to those of us who are mothers after 40. I want to remove the nickname of “poor” from women who put so much effort and body when they want to be mothers and that sometimes they arrive later”, he affirms.
NEWS: Having (re)built, what do you say to someone who is going through a moment of destruction?
Total: I can only say that going to the bottom was the best thing that happened to me, it was where I found the floor to go back up. I went through the pains to the point of tearing myself apart if necessary and I cried and cried, until day by day I was crying less. With my mother, I keep crying but every time I feel that I am crying less and I am finding more smiles and more happy moments, to be able to honor her, because it is what she taught me when I had that moment. You can experience moments of darkness and falling into wells, but the good thing is knowing that the essence is intact. Then I would say don’t lose hope that the light will appear, as long as you set out to look for it.
