The actor departs from his usual role in the Amazon Prime Video series, the translation to the screen of the novels from the trilogy ‘Verses, songs and pieces of meat’ by César Pérez Gellida
TO Yon Gonzalez He usually plays roles as an upright and seductive young man (‘Gran Hotel’, ‘The Heirs of the Earth’, ‘Under Suspicion’). But in ‘Memento mori’, the translation to the screen that Amazon Prime Video has made of the first of the novels in the trilogy ‘Verses, songs and pieces of meat’ by César Pérez Gellida, the actor departs from his usual register and the result is surprising. He plays a disturbed sociopath who will leave a trail of corpses in Valladolid while being chased by an inspector (Francisco Ortiz) and establishes a peculiar relationship with an enigmatic woman (Olivia Baglivi).
Did you know the novel or did you rush to read it when you were given your roles in the series?
Yon González: I didn’t know her. I preferred to read the scripts first and then the novel, to incorporate the data I was missing for the construction of the character and to see what my imagination had created and could contribute to the book.
Olivia Baglivi: My case was similar. I read the script and then the novel, not only to get more information about the character but also to imagine the atmosphere and immerse myself in the universe that César proposes. I think that in the series you can breathe the essence of the novel.
Francisco Ortiz: They told me about the project before the scripts were ready, so I was able to enjoy the novel as a mere reader. Thanks to that I fell in love with the character.
Precisely yours, Inspector Sancho, that most upright police officer?
Francisco Ortiz: Yes, I felt very close to him from the first moment, I think we agreed on many things. César has a way of writing in which you even come to empathize with the murderer because he leaves out any type of judgment regarding what he is doing. He tries to make you understand the origin and the germ of why each character does what he does.
Yon, has it been a challenge to play a psychopath?
Yon González: Yes, I usually get to play the ethical, moral protagonist, and suddenly being able to play a character with so much space on an emotional level, where they give you some scenes to see how far your machinery can go, has been a pleasure.
Was it based on a particular psychopath? Because Augusto, his character in ‘Memento mori’, has a lot of Patrick Bateman from ‘American Psycho’.
I love actors like Christian Bale in ‘American Pshycho’, Anthony Hopkins in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Jocker’, and I like where they work from. But for this character I haven’t thought of anyone. Of course, I spent three and a half months preparing the character at home, absorbed only in the series. I was listening to ‘Bravo’ [de Enrique Bunbury y Nacho Vegas] all day because every word of that song has a lot of meaning in my character.
I would have to work a lot on facial expressions too.
Yes, to tell that helplessness, that pain, that hatred, that frustration, that fear, that anger that you feel. So that the public understands where all the psychological and physical torture that he has suffered has placed him.
Would you say that Valladolid is another character in ‘Memento mori’?
Yon González: Valladolid and the rain.
Francisco Ortiz: Yes, Valladolid is another character and a great city to tell a story like this. Its geography, its climate, the Pisuerga… give it all the necessary ingredients to embrace a ‘thriller’ like this.