You would have been naughty as a child...

Naughty, I don't know, but a bad student. I studied in nuns and what that was! I'm the daughter of war, and panic doesn't give a damn if I have a chick in front of me or an old grandfather. I remember, when I was 13-14 years old, the father of a classmate was shot in prison, believing he was the opposite of Franco. Our friend, in the pain of pain, could not even shed tears. Do you think the nuns celebrated Mass for him? Don't even pray to a godfather! “It’s not our business,” they said. All that seemed inappropriate to Franco was a sin. In this sense, the Church is the most shameful institution I have ever known. Imagine that they are also silent in the face of the cases of pederastia that are coming out and going out lately.

Then you would have been the one who kept quiet.

It is often said that one could not speak Basque then, but at that time one could not speak Basque, Spanish or Chinese. You'd have been whispering with a baby from your eit, but what we heard at home was an order from our parents to shut us up on the street. It was horrible. If you add to that, there were all the diseases in the world in the street. Tuberculosis, sarna, lice, hunger... I'll never forget, once I was walking down the street, when I saw a man who couldn't straighten up vomiting blood.

Are there any traces left forever?

They won't stay! It's obvious that you move on later, because whoever doesn't move on in this life has a party. How can you not be marked by the fact that the father of one of your schoolmates has been shot? We all know that what happens to the neighborhood can happen to oneself, and these guys were shot as many times as they wanted. They'll tell me in vain that there were a million dead. There were many more. Why do they get upset when Garzon tries to find each other's dead? But social trends cannot change in such a short time, and in Spain there is a facade movement as abundant as the chronic beetle. At the time I was a little boy who volunteered to invent and prepare monthly performances of nuns for not learning Greek or Latin, but the only truth of the time is that Franco signed death sentences every dinner-after-dinner.

Was there no risk of interpretation?

It depends on what you interpreted. At the beginning, when we were about to premiere a work by Valle-Inclán in Bilbao, the police came to rehearse us. Fortunately, they sent us the following baboons, which only prevented us from being insulted, since they didn’t catch the pulp they thought there was nothing to change. But later, although we managed to premiere the work, we had quite a few problems with the police and the governors. You know, always on the border, always on the wire, don't fall down. That wasn’t my only problem. My dad didn't want me to do theater. I had to celebrate from home and settle down in an old six-story house. There was no way. When I was little, my father used to take us to the theatre, to the cinema or to the opera, but when my time came, he said “let the others do it, not my daughter.” We were reconciled later, I’ve loved him immensely, but it’s amazing how we find ourselves with machismo from the moment we are born. Now these things will tell you that they are much better, but as soon as the year starts, 50 women have been killed. The Alucinant.

Your beginnings were also quite hallucinatory.

We were ready to act anywhere. Imagine, in some places, we couldn’t find a tree to pee in fear before we started! That’s not enough and everyone who smells poor in this world is always underestimated. One day we managed to establish a troop called Akelarre in the plant, but despite what they were and what they weren’t, we never got sober. You take one extreme, two, three, four, but at the end of the day, you think it's best to hire a presenter and get him to look for work for you. You can't imagine how many high-end actors have quit their jobs because I didn't give them enough to eat. Now the situation has improved slightly, but outside the capitals, there are hardly any companies, there are hardly any optimistic prospects. If you’re born in Bayonne you have to go to Paris, if you’re born in Bilbao you have to go to Madrid, but when you’re young you don’t know that, and all you want is to do theater, create, feel, live, and they don’t even let you do that.

Have you had the feeling that you were crossing the desert?

The only thing that has ever crossed my mind is that I had to move forward somehow. You can’t think that you are not lucky, that you are very bad, that you have failed, that the effort has been of no use... You have to be constantly closing old folders and opening new ones, you always have to go looking for the next step. For example, now that everyone has TV at home, you can become famous thanks to TV, but you should never forget that for these people you can disappear from one day to the next. There are not a few wonderful actors that we have forgotten, who are selling medicine to be able to eat today. These things happen in every business, but they see our faces, which is very dangerous. In our country, yes and no are given with all the consequences. It is true that if a director has a real interest in working with you, he will make efforts and two to bring you to his command, but every time you say no, you open the door to another, and if that other does the job well and makes it more satisfying than you, yours has done it. The law of the jungle rules in the jungle.

Where's the art in that jungle?

You need an incredible vocation to move forward. You arrive at the office from the beginning, and you take the steps from the office thanks to the conviction. It is this conviction that gives you the love to make things right. Because, as in all areas of life, you have to act with taste and love to get what you have in your hands right. It's kind of like falling in love. One day when you walk down the street you see a girl and you like her. So, you may ask yourself, “How the hell do I like it if I haven’t talked to him yet,” but there’s no turning back. Maybe it will last ten minutes, maybe fifteen days, and maybe a lifetime, but the strength you will feel during that time will be your motor. Then the experience of life helps a lot both on and off the stage. You can't always complain and be resentful that this or that has happened to you. This world belongs to those who have courage, not just to those who weep loudly. That is why many people believe that life is a matter of feeling, that everything is in the heart, but no, the heart is in the mind.

If the heart is in the mind, why is the success of many actors based on their beauty?

This has always been the case, and due to the truth, some yogis are able to brighten the view, haha, haha! But don't think people choose just because they're beautiful. If they're there, it's because they look like a game. The television and film industry is too interested in basing itself on pure beauty. For example, on the other day, at the gathering, who knows where, Belén Esteban was being skinned. “You don’t realize they hire you to do just that, and everyone else has a pepper on them,” I thought to myself. When we realize that all this is just a money-making machine and that the representation of this person makes the benefits possible. That's just whether it's ethical or not, but that woman doesn't have anything of a fool, she's playing a role and that's it.

It seems that the role that everyone wants to play is that of the celebrity.

Fame is useless, it’s just annoying. The press, the propaganda, the galas here and there, the compromises, you can't imagine how many nasty quotes we get. But they are our customers, and since we know that we are nothing without them, we feed them. What are rewards, too? You are rewarded, photographed, applauded, but you remain the same person with your gifts and miseries. When you touch a sculpture where you can enjoy the eye of reproach! What I mean by that is that the actors at the forefront are not interested in fame, but in doing their job well. Then it is true that the baboons are in everything, but rest assured, the people who are moving the threads of the industry are not foolish, and in our world, the useless one is sent very quickly to catch the wind. Even if you have the most beautiful ass in the world!

Why does the actor pigeon mingle with the character?

Because it's basically the same person. Any character you make is you. I've heard a lot of wonderful actors have to get inside the character. That's impossible for me. I have to take the character and get into it. How do you not confuse the actor with the character? Let me give you another example. While we were walking around with a play, an actor's father died, but since the play is a play, he had to come to the performance at night. You won't believe me, but that was the day he performed best. What does that mean? Because you represent a character that doesn’t stop being a person. You are required to be a person in order to represent the person. It's just that the power of TV is driving people into confusion. But that's the way it is and you don't have to turn around anymore. If you’re going to make people smile right now, you have to do two things to make them all laugh, and if you’re going to make them cry, you can’t rest until they’re all soaked in tears. If you do your job well, you will attract people to you. Here is the value and merit of our work.

I have read to you that at the age of 20 a person has a face given by nature, but as we get older, we go to build our face.

He who doesn't build his face is a fool! You can't start crying because you've got a wrinkle, or because you're breaking up. You can't freeze your veins because they've written you a bad review, or because they've insulted you. You have to be clear that many friends love you very much but many others do not want to see you in sight. Excuses are useless, and moving forward is the only decent solution you always have left. Then it is true that you learn to relativize everything to age, that you are not as passionate as you were when you were young, and although it seems to be true of Pernando, the more your face is built, the less you need to build it. Now, don’t think that old people are smarter than young people, not at all, but we’ve lived through more things, and life teaches you to carry what you can’t overcome.