Although he has been working since adolescence, Micaela Riera has begun to be a constant presence in the last year, with notable participations in “The Manager” or “Good Boys”, and mainly for her magnificent characterization as Fabiana Cantilo in “The love after Love”.
He was also encouraged to enter the theater with “The Divorce”, alongside Pablo Rago, Luciano Castro and Carla Conte. Since January 12 she has been one of the protagonists of “Porteñas”as a member of a powerful female quintet composed of Cecilia Milone, Julia Calvo, Romina Richi and Andrea Politti.
The intimidating stage of the Astral Theater serves as a setting for the meeting and conversation with NOTICIAS, in an afternoon full of camaraderie and enthusiasm that the actresses experience as a kind of graduate trip, with jokes and knowing winks in the face of this possibility of facing a theatrical season in the middle of the Buenos Aires summer.
News: Were you born in Santa Fe and did your family move to Buenos Aires for work?
Micaela Riera: Yes, I was born in the city of Santa Fe and we came with my mother and my older sister when I was four years old. My mother came to study elocution at ISER, so we accompanied her and we stayed here.
News: His mother, Cristina Clement, is an entertainment journalist. Did that help you understand how to handle yourself?
Riera: I think it helped me to have a mother who was involved in the media and to know how it moved, to have an idea of what it was like behind the scenes, especially in my beginnings. I started working at 14 as a model and having her back accompanying and advising closely was important.
News: I read somewhere that he didn’t enjoy that stage as much.
Riera: It’s just that I never wanted to be a model, it wasn’t something I liked, I didn’t have that much fun. I think that today modeling is seen from another side because luckily we managed to evolve in the fact that bodies are all different. At that time, being a model pigeonholed me into having to be skinny, beautiful and many other labels that are very difficult to fulfill, I really didn’t feel comfortable in that place. I always wanted to act, but that experience served me well.
News: Was it a step but the goal of being an actress was already in your head?
Riera: Yes, I was already studying theater and I asked my representative to please send me to castings, I wanted to work on a novel, to experience that path. The first casting he sent me to was for “Consentidos” and I stayed. I played a beautiful character with a lot of prominence that allowed me to understand that I wanted to dedicate myself to this for a lifetime. I found what I was looking for and luckily I was able to keep it, it is a very difficult career, with ups and downs. It’s good to know that there are no fruits that fall and you eat them. A lot of things happen, hard times where there is no work and also of course the situation, it is a screwed up career.
News: He achieved what he wanted and it is no small feat. What is the best thing about being an actress?
Riera: In my case, I really enjoy being able to express all the feelings and emotions that I have inside through acting, without having to release them on a daily basis. There is something very funny that happened to me as a child, but it is something essential in me: when I was little I had a lot, a lot of energy and at home they told me: “Calm down, don’t shout, calm down.” She played characters, she imitated my great-grandmother, she had those things and my family had the clarity to say “let’s send her to theater classes.” She came from a place where they told me not to shout and I entered a space where they proposed the opposite, to express myself, to get all that out, to say it. I still remember the feeling of when I did an exercise when I was 6 years old. The teacher had asked me to say “No.” I answered her timidly and she asked me to raise the tone, we ended up at a level that I didn’t know because I had never screamed like that in my life, I wasn’t allowed. That is the most beautiful thing that has happened to me to date, feeling that acting is the place where I can play, scream, be a girl again and experience emotions in a way that you cannot in society.
News: At the moment Valeria Bertuccelli is making a film with Fabiana Cantilo and Cecilia Roth. Do you think that somewhere the series “Love After Love” could have contributed to this meeting?
Riera: Oh, I wish! (laughs) I would never attribute that to myself, but I would love for my existence to have contributed to these powers coming together. Fabiana and Cecilia have already gotten together, they are friends, they know each other and they have their history. They alone can do anything.
News: He won a Silver Condor with the Fito series. I’ll be curious, where in your house do you have it?
Riera: Next to the television! (Series). I have it on the rack, so I always see it. There I also have a recognition from the Chamber of Deputies of the City of Santa Fe that I think is the nicest thing they could have given me, because being recognized in my city and in my province is something that fills me with pride. The day they awarded it to me I was very calm and there were a lot of people and photographers in the place, it was crazy. So I have the Cóndor, this one and I’m missing another one that they sent me because it’s international and I have to go look for it through Mandarina, which is the producer of “Love After Love”, it’s a Produ Award. We won several with the series.
News: Beyond the awards, what did the series leave you?
Riera: It was a beautiful, unique experience. Because I was always a big fan of national rock and for me to have been on stage experiencing something that I could never have experienced in any other way was incredible. I am not a singer, I have sung for several projects, but I will never forget certain moments with Andy Chango being Charly, Ivos Hochman being Fito, with all the musicians playing an iconic song and me suddenly saying: “How crazy this is I’m living”. That was a gift that I will not forget. I didn’t know Charly in his golden age, I never saw those shows and thanks to the series I not only lived them but felt like I was part of them.
News: Let’s go back to the present. What can you tell us about his character in “Porteñas”?
Riera: I don’t want to spoil it because it is a beautiful work to discover, all the characters are very different, each one represents a social class. Mine is working class. “Porteñas” talks a lot about Argentine history, it starts in 1909 and ends with the return of Democracy. It tells the lives of women who went through the 20th century being modified by the history of our country, it was a very important century for women because it begins completely overshadowed and silenced by the figure of men and suddenly something like the female vote begins to take shape. It is the century where there are the most female conquests in all of national history and it is very beautiful to be able to tell it.
News: And in addition to acting and occasionally singing, you are a ceramist, right?
Riera: Yes, I am a ceramist. I always liked to draw, in 2016 I was looking for a place to study Drawing because I wanted to perfect myself and I found the No. 1 Ceramics School very close to home, so I ended up getting into Ceramic Techniques and I found a wonderful world. I had never touched clay in my life and it was an instant pact of love. In 2020 I had already received it and with the pandemic I opened my workshop to work, I bought an oven and set it up in my mother’s house. It was very funny because we couldn’t even get close, she greeted her from afar, but she set up not only the workshop but my online store. He sold retail and also wholesale. Now I have the workshop at home, it’s been a while since I’ve been dedicating myself to it because all my time is on acting, but it seems spectacular to me to have these two careers that I can balance so as not to have work bumps, that brings me a lot of peace of mind.
News: The second season of “The Manager” recently premiered and there is already talk of a third. What did it mean to you to have participated in that series?
Riera: It is one of the series that I like to watch the most because I love the product itself, it is spectacular. I would tell you that it is the best Argentine series we have and that is having an impact on the world. It was nominated for very important international awards, for me it is a pride to be there, surrounded by great actors and with such directors who have directed Robert De Niro. In addition to being very good, she has such a dark, subtle humor… and Francella! There is no better actor for that role. We have already recorded the third season and then we will see if more come, the ending always remains half open.
News: In “The Manager” she plays a doctor and in “Good Boys” she played a very long-suffering character.
Riera: It’s true! He suffers, but despite having a lot of pain, he goes through them with a lot of light, he is not very dramatic nor does he make so many problems for his health, I liked that a lot, that he says turn the page, I live in the present, this is my life. I really enjoyed doing it, I am very happy to be able to support national fiction. Our soap operas are fading and I think it would be great if they continued, it is a lot of work for many areas, not just for the actors. A lot of families depend on it, I hope they don’t end.
