Pepe Lorente, winner of the Goya for Best New Actor: “If the driver is sticking to the ass of the person in front of me, I say: 'Stop a second, kid, I'll take the car'”

“From the lands of oblivion came to deliver my pain, flag of distance, I am a handkerchief of farewell.”

Mauricio Aznar

These words correspond to the last song composed by the poet and musician Mauricio Aznar, before his final farewell, back in 2000. With each chord, he leaves us a little piece of his spirit, a reflection of his struggles and dreams. Recovering his essence, his emotions, his moments of light and shadow is a gift that the wonderful actor Pepe Lorente (Zaragoza, 1980) has given us on the big screen.

The Blue Star is not just a film, it is a pilgrimage into the unknown, towards a new way of looking at the world. Through the eyes of the actor, we witness a profound and moving transformation. This project, so full of life and emotion, has a soul of its own, it has touched the hearts of those of us who have been lucky enough to see it and has earned Pepe the well-deserved Goya for Best New Actor at the latest edition of the awards.

His interpretation is a journey that goes beyond words, an invisible bond that connects us to a world full of pure emotions lived in every moment.

But today we leave the Goya on the shelf to focus on Pepe, to get to know him in a much more personal way and to discover the journeys of transformation and mobility that have marked his own life.

Pepe, what did you wear to the Goya Awards?

We went in a production car, from the same organization: the director of the film, Javier Macipe; Mariela Carvajal; Nacho Blasco, the editor; and my partner, Olaya Caldera .

You got your license when you were 21. Why not at 18?

My friend Jorge Aliso, alias El Chino, got it quickly at 18 and that seemed to me the paragon of maximum freedom. He took his girlfriend to the movies and even went skiing!, while I thought: “bastard!” Meanwhile, I was at home, with my little motorbike, with which I couldn’t leave the city and, almost, not even the neighborhood.

When I graduated, I was doing professional theatre in Zaragoza and I waited until summer, when I had the most gigs, to buy some cymbals for my drum kit and pay half of my driving licence. My parents paid the other half, saying, “We’ll help you, but make an effort”.

I got it at a driving school called Facultad and, among those of us who were there, I felt that I was one of the old people for being 21 years old. Today I say to myself: “Angelico, how could I think that about myself?”

Who taught you to drive?

My instructor was a man called Santiago, and I have fond memories of him. He didn't talk much, but he always said things that made a lot of sense; that man helped me a lot.

I know you like driving, how do you handle being driven?

Well, although I take it better when I know the person. If, suddenly, I see that the driver is right next to the car in front of me, I say: “No, stop for a second, kid, I'll take you.”

You're calm, confident, but what drives you crazy?

Those who invade your space, that very aggressive attitude of a car that gets behind you, very close to you. There are also drivers who, in an attempt to show off absurdly, endanger the lives of others. That attitude seems terrible and very dangerous to me.

What car do you have?

A very old Seat Ibiza that Olaya's mother gave us with only 20,000 kilometres on the clock. She used it to go to the doctor every two weeks and, since she spent her life in the garage, she gave it to us. I love that car.

You live in Madrid, which, like any big city, is difficult to get around by car. Do you like using the metro or the bus?

Yes. Although we live north of Madrid, in the countryside, we are only 20 minutes by bus from Moncloa. Sometimes I get off on the bus and then take the metro. There are a lot of cars in Madrid.

The subway driver slammed the door in my face and it was another seven or eight seconds before he came out: “Why are you using your power badly? Use it for good!”

Pepe Lorente Actor

We are still on public transport, where we live hundreds of stories, with very different characters, which makes us occasional witnesses or, sometimes, direct protagonists. I am going to tell you about several feelings and you tell me about the last time you were a witness or were the protagonist on the bus or the subway.

Goodness:

Two days ago, on the subway, going to the theater, Olaya got up to give her seat to an elderly lady who no one was paying any attention to.

Anger:

The subway driver slammed the door in my face and it was another seven or eight seconds before he came out. I thought, “Why are you using your power badly? Use it for good!”

Laughter:

The other day I was coming back with my friend Raúl on the subway and, talking about the food we had, we laughed a lot.

Envy:

The other day I saw two boys and a girl, very modern and young, and I thought: “Oh, you bastards! You are so young and you don’t realize it!” Their youth, their innocence. Life, I don’t know.

Love:

A father with a daughter. How he played with her, how he covered her, how he looked at her… She was a baby in her stroller.

What conversation with a taxi driver will you never forget?

It happened to me in Paris. The guy opened up to me and asked me for advice on what to say to the girl he liked, because he wasn't capable of it and he had never had sex. I thought there was a hidden camera, but it was real; within 15 minutes he had told me about his life.

Pepe, what was your first big trip?

The first significant trip was when I was 18, when I went on Interrail. It was an initiation trip, with three friends; we got on the train at the Portillo station in Zaragoza, did an exchange in Hendaye and the next morning we appeared on the Champs Elysees in Paris. We got out of the metro and said, impressed: “Wow, what dimensions, what beauty!”. Also, it happened to me that, on the streets of the area, all the people I saw were very handsome, both women and men, and I thought: “What's going on here? What kind of people are we?”. Later we found out that there were about six or seven modelling agencies on that street.

You have just won the Goya for your performance as Mauricio Aznar in La Estrella Azul . A film that, as I said at the beginning, is a journey of transformation, a journey into the unknown. What was La Estrella Azul by Pepe Lorente?

For me, the Blue Star is the star that guides me, the one that shows me the way to my own light, to truth and authenticity in the artistic field, which has to do with deep humor, with the joy of being and celebration. A star that separates the superfluous from the important and that, sometimes, is more obscured by the clouds, sometimes it is clearer, but it is always there. It is the star that leads me to the essential, to what makes sense and to what nourishes. In addition, I feel that it has always been there, that I have never lost contact with it and that it is what has allowed me to endure in this profession. In me, passion, love, the desire to give and the desire to experience have been much stronger than fear. The bright part is what has always prevailed without losing sight of the other.

Playing Mauricio Aznar is an impressive journey into the essence and soul of a person. If they say that there are moments in life that mark a before and after, how did you come back from that journey?

I have returned from the trip enriched spiritually, artistically and humanly, more stripped of the somewhat circumstantial trappings of noise and I have returned more silently, which is something wonderful in these times. Javier Macipe and I, along with the entire team, forbade ourselves from having our cell phones during filming. It has been a journey into silence, because only in that silence have I been able to listen to Mauricio himself, to the story itself, and have I been able to separate the wheat from the chaff. When you are in the waves of the sea where they break, or on the beach itself, you have to wait for the wave to fade away so you can see the bottom.

I have returned in peace, because for a long time in the film I was not. I suffered a lot, not on a physical level, but on an artistic, intimate and anguished level, because when I read that script, which was the most precise I had ever read, my great concern was whether we were going to be able to give that high C, when it can imply a falsetto, or to play that note truly as it is written, and that, of course, artistically caused me a lot of suffering. Also, when one is a real character, one has a much greater responsibility, because, in my case, I have met his mother, his friends, his family… I wanted to be able to walk the streets of Zaragoza without being called a fraud and to be able to do something that would bring light to the hearts of so many people who had been left with that opacity of the pain of someone who left too soon, in very tragic circumstances.

With the work we have managed to do, and seeing how it has been received, what it has left me with is a lot of peace, the most precious and most valuable feeling, peace with what we have done. Playing a character that transforms you and teaches you like Mauricio Aznar is something very beautiful for which to be grateful.

In this sense, the Blue Star journey comes from afar; in 2019, you travel to Santiago del Estero…

Javi gave me the role in March-April 2019 and in September I traveled to Santiago del Estero, a couple of months with him. First, I was alone for fifteen days: I went to Buenos Aires, I went to Cerro Colorado in Córdoba and then to Santiago del Estero, where I spent fifteen days alone making the trip that Mauricio made, with my guitar and seeing myself in the same problems that he had. In Buenos Aires, I felt what Mauricio said in his letters: “Damn, they want to steal my gold and the Moor”, although there were also wonderful people. In Cerro Colorado, I traveled to Atahualpa Yupanqui’s house and met his son and, in Santiago del Estero, I stayed a month and a half trying to learn to play chacareras in what was a beautiful trip, but also very hard. Mauricio made a lot of impression there because he sat in the patio, with his white shirt and his rockabilly look, searching. In fact, it is something that children and adults tell you: that “Mauricio was looking for something”. When I got there they told me “you’re going to play Mauricio, you don’t look like him”, and I said “no”… “But, are you a musician?”... “Neither”, I replied…

During the trip I read, like him, the book El canto del viento by Yupanqui as part of the entire artistic process in which it was normal to be a little lost.

On the second trip, the one for filming, almost three years later, everything was different because I had already learned to play the guitar quite well and when they asked me, “Do you know this song?” I quickly replied, “Yes!” so the relationship with the people there was already different.

I have the feeling that, as an actor, you have lived Mauricio Aznar with great intensity... During the filming, was it possible to enjoy Argentina as Pepe having to share your stay with Mauricio?

I didn't enjoy the first trip as much because I was afraid and somewhat anxious. I had to create a friendship with the indigenous teacher Cuti Carvajal and they told me: "You have to be friends," but, although he is a very generous person, friendship cannot be forced, they are not actors and it is difficult.

On the second trip everything was different because I had lost weight; I felt that I could take Mauricio out almost at will, I had anchors to go shopping like him and I dressed exactly the same. I played at evoking him and, when I grabbed the guitar, I could spend the afternoons playing in the patio or in a river, with a mate by my side. I would say that I was able to enjoy Pepe with Mauricio.

I didn't enjoy my first trip to Argentina as much because I was afraid and had some anxiety about playing Mauricio Aznar well."

Pepe Lorente Actor

What role has Enrique Bunbury played in this trip?

A very important one. Also, there is an incredible story behind this. Javier Macipe, the director, sent the script to many producers, who never responded to say whether they liked it or not, and a few of them will now be tearing their hair out, and he said: “I have to do something so that someone who can help the film reads this.” Like Enrique Bunbury, with Héroes del Silencio, who made popular the song Apuesta por el rock 'n' roll by Mauricio Aznar, whom I know he admired a lot, he thought: “I'm going to Enrique's house, in Los Angeles, to give him the script.” He got the address through some friends and he went there. When he arrived, he knocked on the door, nobody opened it and, when he returned to his pension, a friend called him and said: “Bunbury is live on the Buenafuente program, in Madrid.”

He stayed there for a week, surviving on hamburgers; then he returned to Spain and, this time, he sent him the work by email, like normal people. Very strangely, after two days, he received a reply from Bunbury: “I thought the script was spectacular, how can I help you?” Although the first answer that crossed his mind was “Paying for the film?”, finally, he asked permission to tell the producers that Enrique Bunbury was going to support the project in the promotion. With this truth everything changed; he presented himself to producers who read the script just by saying his name. It must be said that, in addition to this, his voice is heard on the phone during a scene, he attended the screening we did in a cinema, to the point of getting emotional with his wife, he went all out on social networks giving support to the film and he has been a sponsor and a very important part of all this.

Pepe, I always ask this question: What is the place you always return to?

My town, Uncastillo, in Aragon. It is very pretty and it is the place where I first came. I spent every summer there until I was 16 and it has a small chapel, that of San Cristóbal, which always provides shade on one side in summer. There is a stone place where you can sit and contemplate the town and where I find a peace that I only feel there. That is the place of my childhood.

Speaking of returning, when was that time when you had to return from a trip and you considered not returning?

My partner, Olaya, and I often go to Cabo de Gata because we like it a lot and, once we are there, we never want to go back. It is a place where time stands still and, on occasion, we have even managed to take an extra day.

If you could travel to any time in the past or future of your life, when would it be?

My father is no longer with us, he died in 2014, and I would like to travel back to a time when we were both walking along the beach promenade. I was walking on the wall and, as I didn't want to hold his hand in case I got lost, he explained to me what a reference point was. He said to me:

“Do you know what a reference point is?”

I told him no.

“Look: a reference point can be that mountain because it will never move from there, it is fixed.”

Pepe, any plans for today?

I'm going to go over the repertoire for the concerts we give with the Blue Star band, which has transcended the film, and later, I have to run some errands in the village.

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After speaking with Pepe, it is impossible not to be left with the feeling of having witnessed a transformation process not only as an actor, but also as a deeply human being. In his words and reflections, one can see how each step in his life, each journey, has been an essential piece in the construction of his identity as an artist and as a human being. His story is full of moments of struggle, learning and, above all, a sensitivity that is reflected in a way as genuine as that of Mauricio Aznar.

Beyond the Goya, what really impresses me is his ability to convey deep emotions with astonishing naturalness. Talking to him has been an emotional journey, a reminder that art has the power to touch the most intimate parts of those who receive it. His humility and his vision of life invite us to look at the world with different eyes, to connect with what really matters, without ever losing sight of the essence of who we are. A journey, in the end, that goes far beyond any stage.