Sílvia Bel: "Overexposure burns a lot and there have been moments when I have had a need for introspection"

Sílvia Bel (Barcelona, 1970) believes in authenticity and naturalness, and practices them. The actress, who has graced the major theaters of the Catalan scene and is currently known for her role as Marta in Com si fos ahir, alternates maximum expressiveness –gestural and linguistic– with introspective silence. Bel understands the arts as a space for sincere expression, far from affectations and hypocrisies; and it is also in this way that she speaks of gastronomy and wine.They made a Ribera del Duero for his daughter, Ainara Elejalde. How does Sílvia Bel imagine the wine?

— Let's say that, within the family of wines, I wouldn't mind being a wine from Priorat. From the little I know, they expect the grapes to be very ripe, risking them spoiling, so that they turn out better. And it has a high alcohol content.

He participated in several events that relate poetry to wine.

— I must say that, of the few things I know about wine, they are related to the Vall Llach winery. I have visited the winery many times thanks to my friendship with Lluís [Llach]. There, the Miquel Martí Pol prize for the best musicalized poetry is awarded, and on the jury is Pitu Roca, who often delights us with his knowledge of wine. Also Albert Costa, who is the one who runs the winery. What I know about wine is thanks to them, because they understand a great deal about it. They talk about aromas, depth, texture, many things.

What meaning is found in relating poetry and wine?

— In this case, the winery gives this award because it is linked to the land. Also because Miquel Martí Pol, who was a close friend of Lluís Llach, had a relationship with them. They have some poems by him hanging in the winery. Also, every year they do an artistic action related to poetry... It so happens that I am quite abstemious.

Yes?

— I am not a wine drinker, frankly; I never have been. As a child, I thought: I'll like it when I'm older, because it's something that older people like. And when I got older, I found that I still didn't like it. It is true that, at a given moment, and in a very restrained way, I can have a glass of wine with a somewhat special dinner, but I don't consume it habitually.

For any specific reason?

— It's not that it's a conscious attitude. It's just that I don't need it.

Does it happen to you with beer too?

— I don't like beer. I've never liked it. I have many friends who are mountaineers. We go climbing, we do activities in the mountains, and the first thing everyone says when we finish is: now we have to go for a beer. Me, no, I don't have that thing of... Alcohol also didn't agree with me much.

So what do you take when you finish climbing?

— Basically, water. Or a soft drink. Now, I admit it's quite an art. Talking with Pitu and other people, I've really seen that the world of wine is a very complex one with many nuances.

Is it like with poetry, which sometimes people see as very distant?

— I don't know. If it happens, it's because we ourselves put up barriers, deep down. This phenomenon you explain is related to the complexes we have, to thinking: "Wow, I'm ignorant, and if I go to an exhibition, for example, I won't understand what they've painted." And maybe there's nothing to understand. Simply, it's about letting yourself go: letting yourself go with the taste, letting yourself go with what you see. The opposite can also happen.

What does it mean?

— Perhaps it also leads us to want to talk about topics from a place that is not necessary, as if you had to be understood. In reality, you have to use common sense. If you go to see a play or an exhibition, or go to hear a recital, or go for a wine tasting, you have to let yourself be carried away by what it suggests to you. This idea that some worlds are “inaccessible”, I think one creates it oneself when one considers that there are “the cultured” and “the ignorant”. And in the end, being cultured depends on oneself and on approaching that world without complexes. 

And vice versa? Are they worlds that can distance people, close doors on them?

— Each case should be looked at specifically, but I don't have that feeling. I believe that culture is open to whoever wants to consume it and that there are many possibilities to do so. I don't think that culture generators – poets, actors, artists, those who make wine – don't want people to participate in it. If, from the outside, it seems that there is a certain elitism, it is because there is rigor in doing things. And obviously it's not like McDonald's. I don't think it's that they push people away, but rather that sometimes it's not so easy to end up consuming it.

The example of McDonald’s…

— It is very easy to consume something banal because it is everywhere. It is more complicated to consume those that are not banal, because you have to be more selective and you have to be able to say: I'm not interested in this; this, maybe yes. And in this selection you have to be a bit knowledgeable. No: I don't think people who generate this somewhat more "off culture want people to understand them and feel addressed by them. Now, if you go to one of these places expecting them to give you a hot dog... Well, no. And I think this is necessary for people to develop precisely this critical sense and also be selective about what they consume. I think what everyone simply wants is to get this artistic expression across to others, because it is something that is felt to be necessary. Then the results can be a thousand.

At what point did you feel you expressed yourself best artistically?

— As an actress, I have gone through different stages. In the early stages I was very excited, I was eager to try many things and I thought: “Wow, I hope they offer me work, because I want to live off this”. As the years have passed and I have tried many things, I have already had the experience to know what I like. Not only what type of artistic expression, but with whom and under what conditions. You become a little more selective and calmer.

Has it happened to everyone you know?

— I have had the good fortune to be able to earn a living and that counts for a lot. If you don't have food to eat, your judgment no longer depends on what you would like to do or not, but on other things. I have no patrimony, zero, absolutely nothing, but I am financially calm. In any case, one must always keep one's feet on the ground, and nothing can be taken for granted. Even oneself changes, and sometimes very firm convictions that you had with the years you come to see them differently.

Where have you seen it? 

— I have had times when I wanted to withdraw and not be exposed, and times when I have wanted to expand more and have not been able to. And what you want does not always coincide with reality. Overexposure is something that burns a lot and, over the years, there have been moments when I have had a need for withdrawal, for introspection, to think exactly about where I am in a serene way.

How did you achieve it?

— It is not easy, especially at the moment we are living, which forces us to always be in a different place than where we are physically. Perhaps that is also why I have a great need to be here and now. Professionally, this makes you relativize some things more. For some time now, I have been talking about the concept of abandoning the character. We all have a learned character that we have created for ourselves. In my case, the famous actress. If our ego is tied to this character we have created, we must live up to it.

Doesn't it happen in all trades?

— For actors it is a matter very tied to the ego, to exposing oneself in front of an audience and for people to applaud and for you to be given awards and for them to tell you: “You are very good”. All of this feeds a part of yourself that is like a drug. And this feeding of the ego cannot be confused with what you dreamed of when you were young.

What was…?

— Enjoy it. When I entered the Institut del Teatre, I had the dream of being with people and that it would be a collective creation process and an adventure. 

How is this dream seen today?

— I am very happy and feel fortunate for all the things I have been able to do. I also have to say that I have always had a love-hate relationship with it... I couldn't say hate. But it has been a balanced relationship between wanting it very much and at the same time having to protect myself a lot. I don't know if this has happened to all actors at some point, but I have loved as much as I have "hated" [makes the quotation symbol with her hands] being on a stage: it's beautiful; it's very sacrificial.

Has had difficulty separating work from what is not?

— I believe that, in me, the actress cannot be separated from the person; it is a whole. My life is many other things besides theater or television or cinema or recitals or so many things related to art, but my life is also that. And I don't know if I would know how to live without that; but I know that I don't want to live only with that. As you get older, the scale goes… [laughs and makes a gesture of imbalance]. But the enthusiasm continues.