Daniel Anglès: "I sang in the street to be able to pay for singing lessons"

Daniel Anglès (Barcelona 1975) is an actor, singer and artistic director of the Teatre Condal and the program Euphoria from TV3. He directs the musical Blood brothers, which can be seen at the Condal from December 10th to January 25th.

He spent his childhood near the Monumental bullring in Barcelona. "From home, I could hear Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson concerts... I couldn't see them, but I could hear them from the kitchen." He went to the Xerric Xerrac nursery school, which is now the Atrium Theater. "They say that's where I started doing theater. My parents' hometown is Calaf, and I remember watching the Pastorets (Christmas plays) every Christmas. One January, at recess, the teachers saw that I had divided the children in the class into two groups and was telling them, 'You are angels, you are demons.'" He attended primary school at the Ramon Llull School and completed his pre-university studies at the Jaume Balmes Institute. "I was one of those kids who didn't need to study at all and got the grades I needed." But recess wasn't easy. "The boys played football or other sports, which I didn't like, and the girls jumped rope. I was always with the girls. Until I was 10, it wasn't a big deal, but after a certain age, it started to create difficult situations for me."

A Vocation for Theater

She knew how to find her way. "When I was in sixth grade, with a group of friends, including Pilar Capellades, we asked the school principal if we could prepare skits during recess and then perform them for the younger children in the cafeteria. They let us, and we created our own theater company."

At age 10, she saw a documentary about Ana Belén. "And I told the school I wanted to be an actress, like her." She knew she wanted to do theater. "Absolutely, but that sounded strange at home. My maternal uncle was a journalist. Ramon Anglès worked at TV3. So I said I would study journalism, and that calmed things down at home."

My father worked at Seat. "He started as an apprentice and ended up in an important position. He's a hard worker, self-made. My mother stayed home for the first few years, but when she separated from my father and became independent, she became a social worker, specializing in geriatrics."

He has a sister four years younger. "We played a lot when we were little. She says I was always in charge. I made her do what I wanted: 'Stand here, stand there. Now I'm going to make puppets and you clap.'"

Journalism, a cover-up

My parents separated when I was 12. "We became a family with very limited resources. I never wore designer clothes. For several years I sang on the street to pay for singing lessons. I also delivered medicine for a pharmacy twice a week."

Always involved in theater. "At 15, I was participating in three amateur theater groups at the same time, and later also in a company I had started myself, and my parents were worried because I came home late after rehearsals. I never went out partying, I've never been intoxicated by life."

Journalism was my cover. "Until it was time to go to university and I asked for some time off. I was already quite self-sufficient financially, and they made a huge effort to pay for the studies I needed. I was lucky enough to get my first job at 18. It was Pinocchio"...at the Teatre Condal."

At 20, he founded the company El Musical Més Petit with Manu Guix, Susana Domènech, and Pilar Capellades. "The Versus theater had just opened. Small-format musicals didn't exist. And we went there and put on shows. And that's how it started."

I ask him if he would have auditioned forEuphoriaIf it had existed when he was 16: "Never, I would have died of embarrassment. I was very shy. I only saw myself as capable of singing within a character, within a performance, in which I wasn't directly myself."