Alicia González Laá: "Just before 'Com si fos ahir' I worked as a babysitter"

BarcelonaSince September 2017, Alicia González Laá is Eva, the most innocent and love-struck member of the cast of Com si fos ahir, the daily soap opera on TV3. After having appeared in other series such as Nissaga de poder or Ventdelplà, the actress has become one of the essential faces of Catalan lunchtime television.

The Com si fos ahir has nine seasons and you've been there from the start. For an actor, is it very strange to have work for such a continuous period of time?

— It's Martian. Every season I thought they would tell me it was the last, that they would tell me I wasn't continuing. Besides, it has never been known how many seasons we would do, we have always gone season by season. Now it's the first time they are considering something else, starting a season thinking long-term. To put some value on the fact that it is the soap opera that is about to surpass The Heart of the City and that we have a very different situation from then, now there is more competition. We are doing well.

Have you considered what will happen the day they tell you your character is disappearing?

— Since the first season I've been expecting it, it's always a surprise when they tell me it continues. Really. It's also, it seems healthy for me, so I don't get complacent or take for granted that this job is forever. Like it or not, the daily series has its own internal laws and dangers. It helps that here we never know what will happen. You discover it, a little like in life.

After so many years playing Eva, do you have her internalized? Do you already know how she will react in each situation?

— I have to say that many times I have to keep quiet because you have to surprise yourself with things that the screenwriters propose to you. Things that you say: "do you mean Eva would do this?" Well, yes. We have to find how and why, because the plot calls for it or just because. As an actress, it makes it more interesting because I have to fend for myself.

One of Eva's characteristics is that she has a complicated love life. Have you learned anything about love by playing the character and what advice would you give her?

— Oh, I wouldn't give her advice, I think I have to learn from Eva, I'm telling you. All right, it doesn't go well for her and she makes mistakes, but at the same time she also dares to live and make mistakes. Maybe in life I do more "no, no, no". In life you value not messing up again and the consequences more. Eva finds the consequences as she goes and I like that about her. She's full of doubts, but she has a very big heart.

This season has experienced a singular love triangle.

— Yes, I, like Alice, would think: "At what point, Eva, did you think it was a good idea to get involved with your partner's son?". But Alice's judgment has to be left out. Eva was coming from a moment of self-discovery, of entering the liberal world and having experiences that have made her discover her sexuality and eroticism. I think she is enjoying this freedom.

Do you think showing this reality of sexual self-discovery can do good to many people watching the series?

— I want to think so. I notice it with the comments people make to me on the street. Many women come up and say: "I understand you." I had no idea about this world, nor did I consider it. It makes you ask questions about where you are as a woman; at what point you are in assuming your freedom. Because we say it a lot in words... but then it's very difficult. I don't know if Alicia would be very interested in the liberal world, because it's also full of rules that I don't think suit me, but the freedom that Eva has, I would like for myself in many ways.

In what other aspects?

— This thing of daring to explore and play.

You were talking about comments on the street before. Do people still approach you to tell you things?

— In other series I had done, I had never had such a central role, even though this is an ensemble series. People are very affectionate and not invasive. It's beautiful. In theater, you have the audience's response in the moment. Here [in the series], we always go a bit fast and you leave and think "oh, shit, I've done anything", but then you find some feedback that encourages you. I understand that for people the series plays an important role in their lives. It's very rewarding. We need fictions with which we can see ourselves reflected, that create connections between families and debate. That's what a public television should do.

Eva can be exasperating. Has any series follower told you that?

— Yes, me too. I've stopped reading comments on social media because people there say all sorts of things and sometimes they're not right. But people have to express themselves. It's the character with whom everyone says "oh, no, no, no", you can see he's heading for the precipice.

Do you not live much on social media?

— The truth is no. My Instagram is very poorly updated, and Facebook even less so. It's a debate I have with myself, accepting that we are in this moment where social media is important and all that, but it's very difficult.

There is also the opposite movement, of people who do not want to have any relationship with the networks

— I am more in favor of this. I don't know if it's because I'm the mother of an adolescent boy who was born with all this and I'm very aware that he doesn't lose sight of what's around him. It's the big topic that is only just beginning to be talked about now. We're late, but better late than never.

You and Núria Prims played the first lesbian story on TV3 with Nissaga de poder. At that moment, did you notice it was important?

— It's curious because, when we did it, the feeling was that it was still very taboo. The relationship between two men had been seen, but that of two women had not yet been seen and was still taboo. So much so that, when we started filming, the plot of falling in love took a long time to arrive, as if there was doubt about whether we as a society were ready to include it in the series. And look, there were incestuous relationships in the series. The feeling was that it was a bit light. We kissed for the first time and, immediately, we were already in crisis and sent each other on a trip. Like "we've already done a lot with this". And I always thought that we could have explored much more. But then, yes, I found myself on several occasions with people who told me how important it had been to them.

In the series you have coincided with Meritxell Huertas, who plays Gina, with whom you have done theater and you have a great friendship. How is it to transfer this friendship to the screen?

— Wonderful. Meri and I didn't know each other personally, although we knew who each other was, but once we met in a park just before I got the job at Com si fos ahir. I was working as a babysitter. It was a time when I didn't have a job, only occasional things. I was a daycare mother and looked after a child, and Meri was with her son in the same park where we were. Shortly after starting at Com si fos ahir, we were both taken to do Los monólogos de la vagina. There we became very good friends. Right after, she started at Com si fos ahir. Now we share a farmhouse, we are both mothers of children the same age who are called Jan. We have met at a very cool life moment and we are very much family. We also share a car, we bought it half and half!

Are the ups and downs of the profession easier to manage over time?

— You always feel just as vulnerable, and on top of that, life keeps getting more complicated. Having a relatively stable job has helped me a lot at a time when life was becoming very complicated for me: I had a child, I was separating... It was the only thing that was somewhat stable. It's a shame to say that it's a luxury to have a decent salary for your work, it should be normal. Unfortunately, in our sector and here, it's quite a luxury. In France, actors, even if they don't work, are more or less covered. Here, no. There are moments in life when you are more willing to take risks and others when you can't, because other people depend on you.

Do you remember the moment you decided you wanted to be an actress?

— There are several moments in my life that I can remember thinking "I want to be an actress." I had a schoolmate whose mother was an actress and that fascinated me. Going to her house and putting on costumes. I was very much into what they now call symbolic play, my sister and I called it the game of "you are and I am." I clearly remember the day I understood that my sister, who was a year older, no longer wanted to play. There I understood that I had to maintain that space for play, which was very important to me. It has been very important for me to explore realities different from my own.

You are very fond of astrology. There is a revival now. How do you experience this?

— It's interesting. I must say that I'm not a big fan of pop astrology because I believe it generates a lot of misunderstandings and that it's something a bit superficial or banal. But better this than nothing. I think it sparks a certain curiosity in people. For me, it responds to a state where we ask ourselves slightly deeper questions about our lives, and that is always interesting.

Have you been given answers?

— It has made me ask even more questions. It is a symbolic language and it helps me to open my mind a little, to look for other answers.

Could it have become a substitute for other beliefs, such as the Catholic faith?

— Perhaps. I think there is a certain danger in this. I will tell you a phrase that works for me: I don't believe in astrology, I speak in astrological terms. That is to say, it is a language and you, in a language, don't believe in it: you speak it or you don't speak it. It is a way of understanding the world, it is a worldview. For many people it can be like a religion, for me, no.

One of the most curious projects of your career is that you participated in the British series starring the pop band S Club 7.

— Yes, they filmed the fourth season of the series in Barcelona. In the series, after touring the United States, they were resting in Barcelona. I played the housekeeper of the house where they were staying: the cleaning lady and her contact with the Latin world. It was something full of clichés but very funny. It was very surreal.

The group members must have been very young.

— Super young and, what's more, they were these things that were a bit of a commercial product. They had come out of a casting and had encountered all of this. It kind of blew my mind a bit to see how in some way they had everything and took it for granted, or didn't learn the text.