Mar Ulldemolins: "At 40 and already a mother, I was still 'the little girl' until I had to say enough."

BarcelonaVentdelplà It made her popular, but she has primarily forged her career in theater, where she has worked with the country's greatest directors. Now she has returned to TV3 with the series. As if it were yesterday, where he played one of the leading roles of the season, while remaining on the tables with productions such as Guilty pleasure and BiologicalIn this interview, Mar Ulldemolins talks about her approach to her profession and the difficulties it entails, with the constant worry of uncertainty on the horizon.

You have been one of the important characters of the season of As if it were yesterdayIs it difficult to integrate into a series that has been running at speed for seven years?

— It's always a bit of a challenge. I was a little nervous on the first day, since you don't know what dynamics you're going to encounter, the speed at which the filming is going to take place... The fact that it's on TV3 means that you already know many of the actors, and you feel quite at home. Going to film one day and knowing you'll meet Montse Germán and Roger Coma makes everything suddenly easier.

What does he have? As if it were yesterday compared to other series?

— I was surprised that the characters, even though it's a soap opera, are very well written. They all have their contradictions, and I think that, given the time they have to write and the actors who have to work with them, they're very good.

You play Itziar, a successful chef driven by ambition. Is that a trait you share with her?

— Oh, no. I have a lot of phrases that I find incredibly difficult to say... Whenever she boasts and says she's a genius... All of these things don't really suit me. But maybe we should do it more, with the things we're good at, and it's good to have the ambition to set goals. Because she boasts about cooking, but she admits she's a disaster in other areas.

Theater is the backbone of your career. What is your relationship with the audience while performing?

— The more the audience is present, and the less I am present myself, the better I have it. Having myself present makes the actress appear, and therefore, the judgment appears. I learned this by doing Uncertain glory, with Àlex Rigola. I thought: I'm going to tell this story to people who may have suffered through war, to all the women who have stayed home trying to raise their children. It's a generosity that makes you less focused on yourself: instead of thinking, you let go... and feel.

Do you consider yourself more cerebral or more intuitive?

— It depends on the moment. I consider many things during rehearsals, but once I have the play in hand, I constantly struggle every day not to do the same thing, not to mention the exact same text. I try to take journeys without thinking. And sometimes you surprise yourself and, suddenly, rationality invades you. But then it's easier for a blank spot to appear!

Would you be able to remember your worst target?

— You have to accept that it's not the most important thing that can happen to you. You have to let it matter: sometimes it's good to stay blank. I remember a target of someone—I won't say who it was, but who was acting with me—and in that case, I had the composure to go inside, open the text, exit, and continue. Since I didn't know where the other person had disappeared to, I couldn't save him.

There's a more formidable target, which is the work aspect. The fear of uncertainty inherent in interpreters should push them to work as hard as possible at all times.

— We're always afraid, so you think, "I'll take advantage of this now, when I'm having a tough time," because you know that later you might be earning nothing for months or spending your unemployment benefits, if you're lucky and have them at the time. Covid did a lot of damage because it made us realize how unprotected and helpless we were, as the intermittent workers that we are. We were left without any help and realized how unstable it is.

During the pandemic, did you ever think that maybe you should find another way to make a living?

— I considered what other options I had because, yes, I had a hard time. I was saving up, but if this had dragged on for another three or four months, I don't know how I would have done it. Surely, if I'd had a place to live that I didn't have to pay for every month, I'd have been more comfortable. But having a young daughter and a...

Where did your vocation as an actress come from?

— When I was in high school, there were some optional subjects, and I chose theater. I'd never done it before, not even as an amateur, and suddenly I noticed it gave me something I'd never heard of: a passion for something. I realized that perhaps this was a place of freedom for me. A very clear freedom to be able to do whatever I wanted through play.

Did you feel a little constrained?

— Here we go to psychological issues...! Maybe I came from a stricter upbringing and felt liberated here, yes.

In fact, you were studying piano, and when you said you wanted to study acting, your parents made it a condition that you finish your musical studies.

— My family didn't understand. They were self-employed, had started a family business on their own, and that whole world was light years away. For them, stability was very important. At that time, everyone studied for degrees, and those who studied a degree had a promising future. When I said I wanted to do theater, I didn't get immediate support. I took a sabbatical year and eventually reached an agreement with them: I wouldn't take the Institut del Teatre auditions, but would instead attend the College of Theater for three years, studying only in the mornings, so I could continue my music studies in the afternoons.

?Was there a point where you were already established enough to show them that there was indeed a future?

— Yes, yes, and then they said, "We already knew it!" So sometimes how you experience things is different from how they experience them. Because, deep down, they did end up supporting me: if they hadn't helped me financially to pay for an apartment in Barcelona, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

Seven years ago, we interviewed you in the newspaper, and you said you wanted to do a Tennessee Williams. Has that wish come true?

— No. And I would still very much like to do Cat on a Hot Tin RoofI really like Maggie's character because she addresses important social issues, which are at the heart of being human. Greed takes the characters to a very powerful place.

There are some actors who are very explicit in their political stances. I haven't seen you.

— The truth is, I haven't been asked much about it, but I've never felt the need to talk about it. I'm not one to define which political party I belong to, because I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. I see each time, and I don't like to keep myself locked away.

Have you always voted for the same party?

— I have one that I usually vote for, I vote for it more often. But sometimes, depending on the situation, I've changed my vote to something similar but not the same, and I thought at the time might be a more useful vote. I've done this.

And if you had the Minister of Culture sitting next to you, what would you ask her?

— [Pause.] Above all, they should find us somewhere. They should make sure we don't end up on unemployment and then be called "Artists and Bullfighters" by the administration. They should find us somewhere so that when something like COVID hits, we can receive aid. And so that if an actress gets pregnant, for example, she doesn't have to rely on unemployment for nine months because otherwise she won't have maternity leave.

I don't know if this happened to you.

— I was lucky enough to have unemployment benefits. But many actress friends of mine have found themselves without even that. One of two things can happen: you won't have enough unemployment benefits to live on for nine months, and you'll be left without maternity leave, and you'll spend it all, which was my case. And when Covid-19 hit, I had no more benefits left. For actors, the most normal thing in the world is to go and claim unemployment benefits, and it shouldn't be. And I would also explain to them that the minimum stipulated in the collective agreement is very minimal.

What numbers are we talking about?

— I don't remember exactly what the minimum wage is, but an actor can earn just over 20,000 euros for two major productions a year in a public theater, which typically involve two months of rehearsals and one month of performance. And doing two productions is already a great stroke of luck. If you look at it in terms of the number of months worked, it can be very good, but we have to live for twelve months, not six. In private theaters, the variations are much greater, depending on whether they can make more use of the production, but all of this makes it very difficult to make a living from acting if you only want to do theater.

There's a change in your career. For many years, you took on roles that were lesser-known. You're the young girl, the child.

— Yes, the "little girl" thing stuck for many years; it was said a lot. And it was something that made me very nervous, because in the end, at 40 and already a mother, I was still "little girl." There was one company I had to tell, enough said, that I'm 40 and the little girl thing is over, right? The little girl has disappeared; she's been gone for years.

You turned 45 this year. Complete the sentence: being an actress at 45...

— I looked younger in the theater, so I played a lot of roles that were actually very young. And I just thought: I want to be 40 to play such interesting characters. And suddenly I turned 40 and said, don't these characters exist, or what's going on? You feel stronger enough to take on your characters, and to make them much more interesting, but they don't reach you. I hope there's a change and actresses who are now 25 or 30 don't find themselves like my generation. But, with series, agents keep saying they only want boys or girls.

Your last theatrical production has been Guilty pleasureYour character is expecting a baby, decides to keep secrets to themselves and their partner, and things go poorly. Do you believe in absolute honesty in a relationship?

— You have to be honest, but it also depends on the agreements you have with your partner. In the case of the characters, they talk about relaxed monogamy, which means you can do whatever you want, but the other person doesn't have to know, and you don't have to explain it to them. Now, it's funny how this is always linked to themes of infidelity, in the end.

Has any character caused you enough rejection that you couldn't do it or your body rejected it?

— It hasn't happened to me. What has happened to me is that when the direction goes against the character's nature, you run into walls. Or the script isn't solid enough, and then we actors get lost, searching. And other times we also try to do something different, and the option we choose is the worst. Then, yes, it's possible that some characters didn't really resonate with us: because of the script, the direction, or because of me, because I made the wrong choice.

In recent years, several sexual abuse scandals have emerged in the theater world. Have you experienced any of them?

— It's just that it's never happened to me. I find abuse of power horrendous. I haven't experienced it, but sometimes they made comments that were normal and are no longer being made. Fortunately. And, the way I am, I think if I had seen something, I would have said something.

Actors often talk about the grief of leaving a character behind, of emptying themselves.

— I don't have that romantic thing about characters. I can feel more emotional when we do the last performance and I like the character, because I think, "I can't do this anymore," and I feel really sorry about that.

Do you have a favorite line? A verse that's burned into your memory?

— I never remember anything, I'm a disaster with this!

But you must have a well-trained memory!

— Yes, in the short term. When a play ends, I really clean up. In fact, sometimes you wait for an assembly to finish to get things out of your brain and make space. Because there are times when you're doing one thing, then another, and you need to organize.

How many montages could you have known at once, at some point?

— This June I was doing Guilty pleasure, bowling Biological, while shooting a movie and was doing the As if it were yesterday, which each week asks you to memorize about 20 or 30 pages.

And as a spectator? Can you go to the theater and let go, or are you overanalyzing everything?

— I've always made an effort to sit back and not judge. But it's not easy, trying not to analyze: Oh, is he doing this, or this scene, why did they stage it that way?

You often have to watch productions by colleagues. I don't know if the most difficult performance for an actor is when you didn't like a friend's play.

— I give my opinion... if they ask me. Because premiere day is a very tough day for the actor too: we leave very nervous. Even now, I always think: why do I do this? And you know there are critics, and your friends in the profession. If there's a comedy on, you know that no one will laugh that day. So, if they don't ask my opinion, I usually say hello, congratulate people on their work, and that's it. And if they ask me, then I say it, trying not to hurt anyone, of course.

And finally: cough, candy, the murmur of conversation... what makes you the most angry?

— That candy that never quite unravels! They're called Juanola pastilles, and they're a great invention for the theater.