He arrives late, without his clothes for the photos. He makes a guilty boy’s face, but quickly fixes it. Someone searches for his clothes, and he listens and responds to everything, and more. In gushes and without ambiguities. How is his style? A head that is thinking, and a lot, while he says. Without filters. Although sometimes he repeats himself, as if to convince himself, or contradicts himself, to get confused. There is an excuse. He was rehearsing until dawn. And for that side of the artist who talks about respect for the public, you have to understand that Bossi is capable of dedicating all the hours of his day to him. And more. Unlimited self-demand. Or not. Because he also likes to taste every moment of this “party” that for him is life. One that he revealed when he was big, when he decided to kick the board, at a time when artists were frowned upon, and curtailing the expectations of an Italian family from Lanús that was waiting for his “son of his doctor”. But not. He was the man with a thousand masks. Impersonator, comedian, singer and artist who became a showman. Always putting his talent in the shoes of others, “M. the impostor ”,“ The passionate impostor ”, until a decade ago he gave his shows his own name, and put on the shirt of honesty, brutal? And the “Martín Bossi Shows” and even the cross-dressing of Lola from “Kinky Boots” came. The risk of being or not being loved by identity. The man who questions, challenges, doubts, but does not lie. Or he tries.
News: A new and different one-man show, why?
Martin Bossi: The show has a basic approach, which I am not going to spoil, in the form of a show, which talks about the rituals that have been lost. You had to change what was wrong, not what was right, and that’s what the show revolves around.
News: What is wrong for Bossi?
Bossi: They took things out of us that were very good for us, which are basic needs, such as romanticism, melodies in music, comedy. Let’s get them back for one night.
News: You have a reputation for being a methodical and hard-working person. Very perfectionist, obsessive, OCD?
Bossi: Nothing of that. If you say: “How beautiful you are”, they tell you that you are romantic, if you ask: “How are you?”, they say that you are toxic. They tag you. Are you obsessive, or do you have a Toc? No, I am very hardworking, very passionate and very committed to people. God gave me something, and I have a moral obligation, in my contract with Him, to give back every day of my life what he gave me. And that is a big demand.
News: He always put on the mask or in someone else’s skin, is he now Bossi for Bossi?
Bossi: It was always me. It was the Calamaro that was in me, the Tato Bores that was in me, the Macri and Cristina that lived in me. People saw the characters through me. It’s not an imitation, it’s an opinion. Over time I saw that there was no need to hide, and I began to feel that it was very dangerous to be applauded for not being me. And I said to myself: “If I want to be remembered I will have to get away from this”, and I began to have a much healthier career in that sense.
News: You seem to put time into things in your life. When he turned 40 she said he was going to stop lying. We are reaching 50, what do you have planned?
Bossi: I remember Cacho Castaña who sang: “I’m on my way to fifty, semicolon of life.” I don’t think 50 changes me as much as 40. From 30 to 40 it was strong. But now things start to cross your mind that you didn’t even think about before, like it was a very short party. When I was born I knew there was something weird. My family marked me a lot. I knew there was a very big disagreement. And I began to notice when I grew up, that disobeying was the best thing that could happen to me. In fact, thank God I disobeyed, because it was the foundation of my success.
News: However, he began to rebel almost at 30.
Bossi: At 23 I started studying theater. My father died, and at the wake I said to myself: “This is the saddest thing that happened to me, I would give my life to be here, but now the party begins.” It was time to start my journey. But the truth is that I rebelled very early.
News: And his mom?
Bossi: My mom didn’t understand what son she had. She thought he was disobedient, but he was a kid that she was beginning to think. I went to a priest’s school. Everything was very difficult, that they questioned my way of combing my hair, everything. I used earrings in the 90s, you had to have balls to wear them, now you get a tattoo as if nothing had happened, but it was the post-dictatorship era.
News: One-man with a lot of demand, an expert tennis player, a sport that requires repeated practice. Was there a path of self-demand?
Bossi: I inherited tennis from my dad. The phrase that I am going to tattoo is: “Repetition is reputation”. One day my dad opened the door of my room, and I was taking a nap, I was a beautiful bum, and he told me: “What a pity, if I were your age I wouldn’t sleep anymore.” And many years later, like yesterday, I am coming home at 4 in the morning after rehearsing for 12 hours. I got up at 8. I don’t drink food, I don’t drink anything, just Peruvian maca. I sleep, but I understood what he was telling me. That the only way to achieve something is to do it relentlessly. I appreciate the hunger that keeps me standing, because I am hungry!
News: What do you want to eat?
Bossi: The world. Because for my aspirations, this is a failure. You will say, how if you are successful? But it’s for your perspective, and I appreciate it, but I expected more from myself.
News: Where was it seen?
Bossi: I don’t know. I didn’t see myself winning an Oscar or filming with Penélope Cruz. I have the theory that one does not learn, that one remembers. Me too I know that I am a bad version of a great artist that I was in another life. That he went washing himself with the lives and this was left. That for this life is enough and plenty. But the truth is that I expected more.
News: How did you feel you failed?
Bossi: It’s not a failure, but at this point I would have to play the piano better, dance better, do many things better.
News: In this new revelation that he had, what was he lying about before he was forty?
Bossi: That of “the impostor”, the masks. In friendly ties, in love. I think the last thing I tried to rebuild my head was love bonds. I had conventional, classic relationships and there was something that made me noisy. “Why if I’m in love, do I want other things?” And there the world helped me, because today the younger generations when I propose this type of love…
News: Polyamory?
Bossi: No, that seems way overdue to me. It’s actually the kind of love that many people feel inside and don’t cheer up. There are many ways to love. Many types of contracts. Between two, or three or more. I began to perceive love as an act of freedom, and then with each person I meet, with whom I fall in love, we agree on the type of relationship we want to have.
News: And before, what did you do?, did you cheat?
Bossi: He promised something that he couldn’t deliver, like most people. No one is going to recognize it obviously.
News: Now he is more willing to comply
Bossi: A while ago. I re-bank it. I have divine loves. They accept me as I am. That they can calmly take my cell phone, that I no longer have to lock myself in the bathrooms like a criminal.
News: Did telling the truth bring you fewer or more problems?
Bossi More! There are people who can’t stand being told the truth. I got a lot more alone since I’m honest.
News: And you are able to bank the truths?
Bossi: I bank them like a bull. In fact, when I have companions on the road, I tell them “be free, commit the world, your sexuality, your desires, I will accompany you, I will not restrict you.”
News: How are egos managed?
Bossi: It’s that the ego dropped a lot. I already know that I am going to die. I am delivered, I already know what awaits me. Death makes me curious. I’m not going to chase it, because I want to continue enjoying it, but since I’ve been around for 50 years, you want to know what happens next.
News: What made you so fatalistic?
Bossi: I’m a realist, not a fatalist. The world did not become what I dreamed of. I had other expectations of the world in which I wanted to live. I don’t like what I see. There is a bad smell.
News: Do you believe in another life after death?
Bossi: No. But I want to believe. Sometimes I think one thing and sometimes I think another. It is very strong to think that everything goes out, that everything ends. More when you reach 50 and you start to take stock.
News: With this somewhat apocalyptic vision of the world, do you think about having a child?
Bossi: It is not apocalyptic but realistic. Seeing the wars that are going on, seeing the pandemic that was so strong and that nobody wondered anything. It is that we are so uneducated that no one has the ability to wonder or wants to do so. If with what happens in the country, and in the world, I am happy, I am an asshole. Only an unconscious or elevated can be happy. You would have to be very selfish to bring a child into this world.
News: But with this show he’s going to give us back our love and some hope…
Bossi: Yes. I die there every night. The artist is born and dies on stage. And I love dying there.
News: Any pending?
Bossi: I have more than I thought I was going to have. Throughout. I fulfilled dreams, I did more than I thought, I played ball, tennis. I had sex, a lot. Everything went big. I lived the party intensely. But I am open to life surprising me with more.
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