Laia Marull: "I have been a bit eccentric: when I smelled fame, it pushed me back"

BarcelonaLaia Marull (Barcelona, 1973) is rarely seen on television, the medium that kicked off her career with the series Estació d'enllaç. After having made only sporadic appearances in recent years, she now premieres El castillo, a fiction series by Movistar Plus+ in which she plays a police officer who, in the mid-90s and early 2000s, investigates the criminal and economic network of human trafficking. It is a raw and exhaustive series, which we discuss during a meeting in Barceloneta, the actress's neighborhood for decades.

Some time ago you said that, of all the things you could do, series were what interested you the least. What did El castillo have for you to accept?

— I said this millions of years ago, when many of the series leaned a bit towards soap operas and towards this idea of making a series where you worked so it would come out every day or every week. Although the series I did, Estació d'enllaç, was a weekly episode and it was rehearsed, it was not my ideal. In theater you have a long process and you do a joint and very intense job with the team, and in cinema you have a script that starts and ends and that you can work on well and with time. All this has changed over time, to tell the truth. And there are series, like The Killing, which are almost like movies with many episodes and are very well worked in terms of script and implementation. Inside there is an important soul.

The subject matter of The Castle is not exactly easy to digest.

— No, zero. Who even cares about prostitutes? Who cares about a plot like that? It is not an easy subject, especially from the perspective of discovering what human trafficking is and how it is carried out.

The series is not morbid at all, but rather analytical.

— Isabel Peña and Eduardo Villanueva [creators of the series] have this quite a lot in their way of approaching scripts. They seek to position themselves a bit from the outside to have a more analytical eye, even though their vision and what they want to scratch at are seen very clearly. In a way, I do see that there is an effort to see all parts of the same thing, to analyze that all these beings are part of our society. This pimp who is selling girls without caring could be your uncle. They are people who are part of the same society in which we are.

Do you think pimping is an issue we do not want to face?

— Totally. The series is mainly about human trafficking. The protagonist prostitute knows she is coming to work as a prostitute, but the problem also lies with society, which says: "Oh, if she wants to be a prostitute, then she'll deal with whatever there is". Well, no, because what they are doing to her is completely illegal. First, they have committed human trafficking and then they are exploiting her, let's say, labor-wise, if you will. But it is both labor and sexual exploitation. We have a crime before our eyes, regardless of who the person affected is. In general, we care little about immigrants: we relegate them to the most difficult jobs that no one wants to do. It costs us very little to look the other way. And when prostitution is involved, which is legally ambiguous and already has a connotation that is difficult to address, even more so. If we don't even look at the illegal, imagine the illegal prostitute.

In a very masculine environment, is your character the moral compass?

— Yes, a little bit. She is a police investigator who has been working for years and, obviously, in the late 90s and early 2000s, being a woman, she surely finds it difficult to climb the ranks. Her perspective is very close to that of the viewer because, at the beginning, she is a policewoman who goes to brothels to look for illegal immigrants to deport them or whatever is needed. But along the way, she sees how these women live and sees what a high level of victims they are. She realizes that they hadn't seen it and also that, time and time again, it is impossible for the laws to be in their favor or for a judge to care enough. My character does serve a little to show the frustration.

He is the character who has the most human reaction. Have we lost humanity as a value?

— Humanity is a value that we have lost a lot. When they told me they wanted me to be a police officer, I thought: "No way, no way". For me, police officers are those who come behind demonstrations, with batons. But there are many police officers who surely encounter the same problems as the characters in the series and do a lot so that laws can change.

Some of the male characters in the series make comments like "They prostitute themselves because they want to" or "This has existed all my life." As a woman, what was going through your mind when you heard these phrases?

— We had to make a significant effort to think that we were in the late 90s and early 2000s. And I, on set, insisted many times that we had to be more brutal, because if some of the things that are said could be heard today, imagine back then. We forget, but there are things we are more aware of now. Isa [Peña] sent us some links to a TV show from that era, one of those where everyone went to give their opinion. And a man appears saying: "If they want to spread their legs, let them do whatever they want". Damn, it's nonsense. Nowadays there is indeed a debate about whether someone would want to spread their legs or not, which is another topic the series doesn't talk about.

Do you think how we treat this issue has changed much compared to the 90s?

— I don't think we are the same by any means. There are things in which we have evolved a lot, but in others we are the same. And then I think: "It's all a lie". Maybe even I was more of a feminist when I was young than I am now, or vice versa. I can no longer tell. They entangle us, they make us believe that we are evolving and there is no way.

Is your feminist consciousness less strong now than when you were young?

— No, it's the same. I suppose it has been growing, I have more data. But I was already a feminist when I was very little without knowing it or without saying it. Perhaps now it seems that there is more collective consciousness, but my mother's generation did so much for feminism. It is thanks to them that in many things we are where we are now. Those of us who came after learned to be free. Later I realized that learning to be free is not enough if the other half does not want to make you free. I say the other half, but the transmission of sexism also comes from women, sometimes.

Earlier you were talking about the lack of respect towards immigrants. Precisely now we are at a political moment in which migration has been placed at the center of the discourse.

— We are in a very dangerous moment. The right and the far-right are rising with a shamelessness and a way of operating that is terrifying. On the left, we are always playing thefool. When the elections come, I ask everyone, even if we are fed up with certain parties, to go and vote. The left always has this problem of whether you vote more to the left or less, or more here or more there. And we make enemies of each other. But, in some way, we continue to keep in mind some social issues that are important for day-to-day life that the right will eliminate in a second and a half. It is very important that people consider voting, even if it is for the party that most closely resembles your ideal or the one you think can help society move forward. Letting the right win would be deadly, because we already see how the world is: in America, in many places in South America... or how it is rising in Europe. It is very scary, it scares me a lot.

Before El castillo, you had a small role in La Mesías, by Los Javis, who are currently booming. What is it like to be directed by them?

— Very cool. They really like that the actor can improvise and try things from different angles. When you arrive, they place you with the actors you will be doing the scene with and everything is discussed. I only had two very smallscenes. In a normal series, to do those twoscenes, they wouldn't have even given me an hour, because that's how things go. There is no money and everything is done in a rush. And with them, I spent many hours to do two very small things. This shows the level of care they put into it.

They now have an entire international path to follow. Have you ever considered pursuing an international career?

— No, not really. You have to want it a lot and be very clear about it, like in the case of Penélope Cruz, who I think must have been very clear that she wanted that. You have to fight a lot, you have to prepare a lot, and give up many things. In this sense, I have been a bit eccentric, because when I sensed fame, it pushed me back. In my life, I deal with that. Since I haven't gone very deep into the matter of fame, I have always been able to have a quieter life. I think it coincides more with the way I am. But it is true that if you are an actor, it is better for you to be known, because if not, no one will come to see you. You have to do what you can. Whoever does what they can is not obliged to do more [laughs].

You are well-known, but you can continue living a normal, neighborhood life. Can that also be positive for an actor?

— I like to go unnoticed. And when it comes to tackling work, I prefer being the character rather than the actor.

There is currently a lot of debate about method actors, who get into character and stay that way until the project they are working on ends. Do you consider yourself a method actress?

— I went to Nancy Tuñón and the foundation is the method. The thing is that it is a potpourri and very soon they teach you that you have to find your own method, which can be changing. I have always been an actress who has liked acting as a game, a very serious game, but a game. I have always liked entering and exiting characters quickly.

Don't you like staying in character?

— No, I don't really practice that, but that is how "the method" is known. In this sense, I am indeed opposed to it.

You have mentioned before that Mafalda was key to you ending up dedicating yourself to acting. How did that come about?

— Yes, my father gave me the Todo Mafalda telling me that it was a magic book and that if I had a question it would answer it for me. That night I was with some acquaintances who started talking about doing theater and acting. I was half-trembling and I picked up the book and a page came up that said "If you don't do it that way, God help us from what's about to happen". I was petrified. I couldn't sleep and the next day I went to sign up for theater.

Are you still asking questions to the book?

— No, I didn't ask him any more questions, one shouldn't take advantage. He already gave me an answer that has been very useful to me.