Sílvia Munt: "We are one of those families that don't like football, we like motorcycles and cyclists"

Sílvia Munt (Barcelona, 1957) is an actress, screenwriter, and director. Last Gaudí Award of Honor. In the autumn, she will premiere a documentary film about Mercè Rodoreda and will direct the play Panorama des del pont.

She was born in the Clot neighborhood, in Barcelona. “But I spent my early childhood and also part of my adolescence in the Canary Islands, because my mother is French but her father is from the Canary Islands. On the one hand, I feel very urban, very much from the neighborhood. My father was from Clot. But, on the other hand, the island, the way of understanding life there... is important to me... And I am a bit of this mix”.

She also highlights her French side. “I went to the French Schools on Carrer Sicília with Gran Via. It was a very different education from what was available at that time. Much more open, cosmopolitan, we hardly even had a religion class.” She liked it. “I had a good time. I was a good student without studying too much. I was a child who didn't cause problems”.

At 13, her parents separated. “I ended up taking on more of a mother role to my mother, and that makes you mature earlier and makes you understand that life hits you when you least expect it. But at the same time, I had a lot of freedom. They trusted me,” she explains.

Her father had a mechanics workshop, “he made parts for car washing machines, complicated mechanical things”. And her mother “when she got married at 20 she left her History studies and when she separated she took the civil service exams for teaching and started giving classes. She was then almost 40 years old. She is one of those women I have seen come back to life”.

Sílvia is the middle of three siblings. “I am four years older than the eldest and five and a half younger than the youngest. And then I had a half-brother, younger. A very modern family”. What was the relationship like? “Even though I was the second child, being the girl, I was the one who had to take on more of the emotional responsibility of the family situation and that’s where I saw the differences in upbringing”.

A family of motorcycles. “We are the kind of families that don’t like football, we like motorcycles and cyclists. My father and my brother were motorcyclists. I was so scared, but physically scared, when I went to see them race... Later, as I got older, I became more interested in cycling”.

The influence of ballet

She has the title of the Royal Ballet of London. “Since I was little, I did ballet and we prepared to pursue a career at the Royal Ballet. Every year we went to London to take our exams and we had a day of horrible nerves. We were the foreigners arriving and I felt the absurdity of the arrogance of those who believe themselves superior to others because they were born here or there, or because they speak one language or another.”

In the summers, I went to see my grandparents in the Canary Islands. “To avoid losing my training, I took ballet classes. And there was a very good Romanian dancer, Gelo Barbu. And he asked me if I wanted to stay as a dancer in his ballet company.” In the Canary Islands, she completed her COU. “I danced, I took classes in the morning, I gave classes myself... And then I returned here because I got sick. I ate terribly, I lived alone, very independent. And I started with contemporary ballet in Barcelona. And, at the same time, I studied psychology at a distance university.”

I had never thought of being a dancer. “I wanted to be a doctor, like my grandfather, whom I considered an admirable person. And since I was very interested in human behavior, I wanted to be a psychiatrist. But the family wasn't going to pay for my studies.”

And then comes La plaça del Diamant. “My life is a series of coincidences that I have taken advantage of and I have worked very hard. I danced professionally from 17 to 24 years old.” And how did you get into acting? “I had choreographed and I was also dancing in a film produced by Pepón Coromina. And he said: ‘This girl works on camera.’ And so I applied for the casting, I was among the five finalists and Rodoreda chose me.”