Marcela Valencia and the peliteñida do not need a presentation, they will always be present in our memory (and in our memes too) as Beatriz Pinzón antagonists, better known as “Betty, the ugly”. Now the actresses who embodied these emblematic characters will be uploaded for the first time to a Buenos Aires scenario, Natalia Ramírez and Lorna Cepeda They will release on April 8 at the Broadway Theater “Dead laughing”. There will be two widows of a same man who led a double life for years. And they will not know whether to cry, become friends or kill him again, but they will be clear how to have fun from beginning to end.
Natalia Ramírez, Colombian actress of great trajectory, protagonist of cult novels such as the two seasons of “Betty” and “Dr. Amor”, Figure of Telemundo, lover of Buenos Aires, unconditional friend, turns on the camera and is exactly the same as when she embodied the promised of the doubtful Don Armando in “Betty, the ugly one.” Some saw Marcela, his character, as a villain, others as a victim of two lazy lords of papers. In any case, he was the executive who loaded a company in a world of men. Women do not cry, women invoice. And they laugh a lot in this interview.
News: In “Dead of laughter”, Lorna Cepeda and you are two women who are in the least thoughtful place, the morgue. The issue is that both are widows of the deceased, how do we get to this?
Natalia Ramírez: (Laughs) Morgue is an unusual place, the truth, but those circumstances exist more than one believes. They are there to recognize being loved, for one is her husband and for the other she is her lover and the father of her children. It is something that generally happens in funeral home, have you seen that some woman who cries with her children is coming and we find out that there was another family? This unexpected encounter is fortunately without children and in the morgue, there is only the individual and we recognize us …
News: And you also find out that you kept that parallel family because the Lord was little affection for work. It just has to say “What’s the unfortunate!”
Ramírez: As is. We end up very surprised with each other, of course, and there are also a number of situations that begin to be generated from this.
News: A few years ago he was in Argentina doing the “Doctor Amor” strip, but I think it is his first time at the Buenos Aires theater. They say that our audience is very demonstrative. Is there anxiety?
Ramírez: Yes, I was in 2003 filming that wonderful series with Lorna too, so happy to be able to return, at that time we were almost a year in San Isidro recording the strip of Raúl Lecouuna with Arturo Puig and a beautiful cast, what better said than to return now and with the theater! We have an impressive expectation with the Argentine public, first because we worship it, we have a relevant cross between Colombia and Argentina, in Colombia tango is very important, I do not know if you know it, but especially in the coffee zone of Medellín and Caldas we are well tangued. I made a novel in 1989, “Quiet, Margarita!” Where tangos, boleros and coplés sang, that cultural exchange that we have with you is wonderful, so the gratitude for being able to present and show you a little of ours is great. The theater allows us to connect directly, I feel that there is the real magic of art. Being live, feeling about being able to breathe the same air, that the sensations and laughter arrive at the time. In addition, we have had a great reception with our novels, I think they will understand us all because although we speak differently through the strips they already know our idioms … I hope!
News: Taking the tango theme, you started your career being a singer. How did you go from music to acting?
Ramírez: It is very nice because what I really like is advertising music, that was my great passion, I worked singing Jingles for 15 years, 7 days a week. I ended up putting my voice to all the jingles of a television channel and that channel needed a person who sings for a novel, but they could not find her. I didn’t act, they called me to do an audition and the week told me: “Oh, you won it!” Thus I entered TV. Then came “Betty, the ugly”, which was a before and after thanks to which I could meet you all.
News: Can we say based on all the dislikes that Don Armando brought in “Betty, the ugly” and the problems that the deceased brings him in “Dead of laughter”, who had more luck with men in life than in fiction?
Ramírez: How I would like the deceased to be putting together! (series). With my husband Ricky Díaz, who is dedicated to real estate, I have had a lot of, but good luck. I think we were very fortunate, we were in very difficult times of our lives and it was very nice to rescue ourselves as a couple, become so strong through these 25 years that we have been together. We have an enviable relationship, we are boyfriends, as Armando Manzanero said in his bolero. One of the successes we have had as a couple is that it is not about making the other happy but to share the happiness of each one. In a relationship it is always important to have things to contribute, to be positive, although of course sometimes being wrong is well. It is nice to be able to build two.
News: Not everything is love, the time for the complaint came. His great friend and companion Lorna Cepeda has complained that when she met her, she was not the most sympathetic of the kingdom and did not give her a ball. Do you confirm or deny?
Ramírez: I am not the most sympathetic, I confess! series). Lorna transcends everything, I do not consider her a friend but part of the family, she is my sister. Life has always put us together, it has been a very strange thing. Notice that we finished “Betty”, then we went to work on Telemundo, we made a series called “My little mom”, then we recorded in Argentina, we do theater. Before “Betty” we had already shared a novel, there we met, since then the two always, as you say “the blonde and the brunette.” We are like water and oil, but together we explode as a bomb, not only in the professional but in emotional, we have supported our entire life in all aspects, it is a very close relationship that we have and on stage we get along very well.
News: When the new season of “Betty, La Fea” was released, Ana María gave an interview with News and spoke with much love of her teammates. What is the great trick of that novel that unlike others never expires?
Ramírez: I think that one of the strengths was the connection between all of us, in the original we were working two and a half years in which we shared 15 hours a day, we were very consumed and we are a very important family, dysfunctional, but finally family. I feel that the author, Fernando Gaitán, demolded a novel prototype that continued to perpetuate paradigms, breaking that mold was what made it totally disruptive, changed all the parameters and had an impressive success. Something very important was to give voice to the invisible as Gaitán said, those characters that are fundamental in our lives and that unfortunately end without having the relevance they deserve, such as the messenger, the secretary, the goalkeeper, those sometimes belittled roles recovered a central position in history, Betty included. Everyone could identify with any of the characters. I always considered that mine, Marcela, was a victim not a villain, the royal villains were Mario and Armando with all their handling. In “Betty” there was also an absolute coexistence among all social classes, there was no neighborhood of the poor or the mansions of the rich as it used to pass in traditional novels.
News: Even today it is not as distant as we believe that the man with power is a great and the woman with power is a villain. Is it true that they did not ask for photos like the rest of the cast because Marcela was perceived as the bad in history? What injustice! (laughs)
Ramírez: Oh yes, what sadness! I did not get angry to ask everyone but me, I was weighing. I think Marcela is an intimidating character, the problem is those who confuse the actress with the character. Marcela was the woman who sent and exercised her power with all the capital letters, but I just wanted to be like my colleagues. I was behind seeing how they were photographed and nailed my seen. Ask for photos that I am good.
