“I was never as happy as I am now, doing ‘Hokusai’ at the Picadero”, he says. And he accompanies with his body the description of what happens on stage, the work is a top that spins in different directions, creation, unforeseen fame, the end of love and the impossibility of putting it into words.
These days we all talk about Ivan Hochmanabsolute protagonist of that phenomenon series called “The love after Love”, but far from being dazzled by Phytomania, he continues with his other projects. He trained at EMAD like his father, the theater reference Gerardo Hochman, won the Nuestro Teatro Federal award from the Teatro Cervantes in 2021 with his play “Saying I love you is an attack”, which he also directed. He wrote “Why are you leaving?” A novel about the art of renting and leaving the parental home.
They want more? She is preparing to star in “Unique Copies”, a series based on the chronicles of Patricio Rago, owner of Aristipo, a used-copies bookstore. And she is adapting one of the great Argentine novels to take it to an audiovisual format. Iván Hochman’s present is a magic wheel.
News: You have devoted a lot to teaching, did your students comment on the series? They should say “Fito is my teacher”
Ivan Hochman: Yeah! (laughs), many wrote to me, they came to see me at the theater, it’s crazy. I have a small group that I also gave classes outside of school, we saw each other grow, we love each other very much and they are always there. For me teaching was not just another job, I liked it a lot, I taught for 10 years and I want to resume at some point.
News: Piroyansky, Korovsky, Zylberberg, Urtizberea, you. Why is Nora Moseinco’s school such a hotbed?
Hochmann: It is a very special space and she too, gives you a comprehensive training that projects you into life, there is something mysterious, unmentionable, alive that goes by.
News: In “Love after love”, far from how imitable Páez seems at first glance, you chose to play him. He achieved something very subtle, in the series he is Fito and at the same time he is you. As it did?
Hochman: For me it was key not to go towards imitation, not to make an empty dollI don’t know if it’s so easy to copy Fito but it’s very easy to make his shapes. He really wanted some of that acting work to come by itself, he didn’t want to see Fito and now he just wanted to convey the emotion. It was a challenge to have a living, highly recognizable and widely seen character ahead of us.
News: And what was it like to put yourself in character in the darkest moments of the story?
Hochmann: We did a lot of research, I found an interview they did with Rami Malek where he said that to play Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” he started working with a choreographer to get the shows out, but he realized that imitating how he moved was not the way, there was to understand movement. So when he put on the dentures to play Freddie, he took his pose and thought, “I’ve got to fill that ugliness with beauty,” and that’s when the Freddie came out of him. I tried to understand what was behind Fito’s movements.
News: He makes the analogy with Freddie Mercury and at one point both he and Fito have a very unique corporeality. What did he understand about that Fito who shakes his head and frantically plays the piano?
Hochmann: What helped me to bring that to life was imagining that Fito is a person who wants to be seen. That he needs to be registered by his father, who cannot accept the fact that he is a musician, he wants to be seen by Charly and Baglietto who are his idols. Charly made him play with his back to the audience, then with his immense movements he caught the public’s gaze. And I think that from somewhere he needs his mother’s gaze, because she died when he was 8 months old. He has said it and for us it was like that, the way of talking about him, moving and attracting his attention was always a way of bonding with his mother.
News: I read somewhere that he came to the casting because he saw a flyer that asked for an actor who looked like Fito and knew how to play the piano. It is real ?
Hochmann: Totally real. My great-grandmother and my grandmother, my grandfather and my mother played the piano, me too, there is something in the connection with the piano that is part of me and also theirs, it is inseparable from their image. In those first days of shooting it was a refuge.
News: How did you recreate the very special relationship that Fito and Spinetta had with Julián Kartún?
Hochmann: Juli is a genius, it was like having Skinny in front of him! He feels the trade, he did an incredible job, he moved like Spinetta and when he arrived on the set it was as if Flaco was there with all his sweetness, his kindness and his calm, it was beautiful to work with him.
News: Speaking of chemistry, if that failed between the characters of Fito and Fabiana Cantilo, everything was shipwrecked, how is that intimacy built?
Hochmann: With Mica Riera we met on the set. She was transformed, she did an immense job. The other thing that I consider very beautiful and that transcends the screen is that we had a lot of fun, we had confidence and dedication, it was a very honest job. Both she and Daryna who plays Cecilia Roth offered themselves to the project and we were able to work in a very personal way.
News: Did you expect such a phenomenon?
Hochmann: It was unexpected. I had never worked in cinema and at the beginning of 2021 I made a list with objectives, one of them was to act in something audiovisual and this was the first casting that appeared. When I found out that he had met, I was on vacation, having dinner with my parents and my girlfriend. I received a message that said: “Can you talk?”, we looked at each other, my heart raced and I felt that the moment was coming. We yell a bit. What happened with the series was incredible, people stop me and get excited because it touched very intimate chords, all this crazy attention comes from love linked to an artistic fact and I am very grateful for that. A few days ago I went to Chapadmalal, some neighbors had their truck left, I helped push it and they told me: “If I say that Fito Páez pushed the car, they won’t believe me” (laughs).
News: Fito received the cast at his home. Is something similar to what happened with Maradona happen, that even the most qualms would drop their socks and come out as a Maradona?
Hochmann: I was able to meet and see him without my socks falling off because I mentalized myself in a professional way, when we got together almost a year had passed. We were at his house and we met a person, I think Diego is called God for a reason and although Fito is a hero he is also more human. Diego was on another plane, he was so unimputable and personal that he generated impressive idolatry.
