Sílvia Munt: "My life is a heap of chances that I have taken advantage of"

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 neighborhood-oriented. My father was from Clot. But, on the other hand, the island is important to me, the way of understanding life there... And I am a bit of this mix”.

She also highlights her French side. “I went to the French Schools on Sicília street with Gran Via. It was a very different education from what existed at that time. Much more open, cosmopolitan, we practically didn't even have 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 years old, her parents separated. “I began to have more of a role as my mother’s mother, and that makes you mature sooner 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 my oldest and five and a half years younger than my 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 one of those families that don’t like football, we like motorcycles and cyclists. My father and my brother were motorcycle racers. I was so scared, but physically scared, when I went to see them race... Later, as an adult, I’ve become more of a cycling fan”.

The influence of ballet

She holds the title from the Royal Ballet of London. “From a young age 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 spent a day of terrible 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 visit 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 taught classes... 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 being. And since I was very interested in the question of human behavior, I wanted to be a psychiatrist. But my family wasn't going to pay for my studies.”

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