Enric Auquer: "I have always kept my feet on the ground"

BarcelonaThere are few actors or actresses who have won a Gaudí and a Butaca in the same year. Enric Auquer (Rupià, 1988) has won the Gaudí as supporting actor this season for House on fire, and the Butaca for best actor for Watusi day. He has a Goya, several Feroz awards, another Gaudí... He feels an unbridled passion for theatre, to the point of putting his health at risk, but what he likes most is accompanying his two children on their bikes to school. He is demanding and not afraid to take on challenges.

Do you care about awards?

— Call me privileged, because I am, but this year I've realized that I have to thank them more, maybe. I won a lot for a while and I've had a lot of nominations, and between the fact that it makes me nervous and puts me in a place of false modesty that is very uncomfortable for me, I'm about to really value the importance of them. You're there and you see how people get excited like I got excited the first few times, I think it's nicer to take them from that place, from the emotion they contain.

He didn't have any armchairs, did he?

— The Butaca by Watusi day It was the first theatre award I won and I couldn't collect it because I was working, but I was very excited. I also have a special affection for the Watusi Because I think it's the best job I've ever done in my life. And the most difficult. Any award I receive for this work and for this character makes me especially happy.

Why was it the most difficult?

— Because it was a very titanic job and required a huge commitment. Theatre always requires it, more than cinema, even if it is ephemeral. It is less compassionate. It impresses me much more and has greater responsibility. Theatre is more sacred, for me.

Why sacred? Why responsibility?

— I think there is something more ancestral, more truthful about it. You have more responsibility when you have more control: you play that role. In cinema it is as if you were putting together a puzzle that will later be put together. The final story is ultimately decided by a director and an editor in an editing room and you, as an actor, lose 100% control. As long as you have done a few good takes, they can always put you together well. Not in theatre, there is a communion between the active spectator who comes to do theatre with you. This communication is very sacred and complicated. And I feel that the exercise of generosity and courage that is required in theatre is psychomagical, almost metaphysical, it cannot be explained. It emerges and if you have the ability to sustain it, to be a channel, it is magnificent. You have to be the channel of repetition, because my job is repetition, and you have to know how to place yourself in a stable place and leave personalism aside to be a channel, to understand that before you there have been many other people who have been repeating and people who will come after and continue repeating. And you have to put yourself in that somewhat humble place, but with enough ego to sustain it with energy.

Between Fernando Atienza, his character in Watusi day, and you have few things to see. Or not?

— Zero. Nothing to do with it. Maybe I'm a bit paternalistic, but I could empathize with that wounded, lonely, mistreated, declassed child, who tries in every possible way to transform himself into an adult who can respect himself, with this search for tomorrow that legitimizes him against the story imposed by his mother and an absolute class complex. I thought that I could only support him if I was very generous and gave everything. And I ended up destroying myself, really destroying myself. Besides, I'm not the beast that Oriol Pla is. Oriol Pla lives for the theater and is an athlete. I'm not an athlete, but a father of two children, a smoker and a spender. I have a lot of truth and a lot of effort, and a lot of desire to be there, an artistic and poetic drive, but the technique of being able to sustain Throat, no. I was able to hold on, but I hurt myself. I talked a lot with Oriol, and he told me that he was exhausted and that he was thinking about me a lot... On Saturdays, before going to perform, I would lose all my remaining brain power.

Watusi day It was sold out for three weeks and there was talk of a chorus... Is that why it hasn't come back?

— I didn't feel strong enough to go back. Now I feel a bit sad. They told me to go back when I was in the middle of the vortex and I said: "I can't take it anymore, guys." I hurt my knee, I tore my vocal cords, my head was fried. It was a very precious exercise, very big, with a lot of responsibility... I don't know how it looked from the outside, but I tried to give everything I had.

After the Watusi, that?

— I love theatre with all my passion and all my heart. But I won't do theatre for theatre's sake. I won't do it because I have the privilege of saying that I won't do it. I will do theatre when there is something that excites me a lot or that connects with me emotionally, not only on an artistic level, but that is important to me. Now I am a little chastened by the WatusiBut if I look back, this was the biggest artistic risk I've ever taken. I'm not going to give up. I'll go back to the theatre whenever they want me.

What makes you choose one thing or another?

— A thousand things. Right now I have a complicated personal-family life, and family conciliation is usually the first thing I look at. I refuse to go and do many things, to film things that I really like. Or to do theatre in Madrid: I have been offered very interesting things in Madrid, but doing it, rehearsing, touring, with a salary that doesn't even cover everything is quite unfeasible. Conciliation is what makes me choose. And, then, within the options I have, adventures...

In recent years, in the cinema, he has done everything from House on fire until Quest, big things and small things. Even a short film like The prince. It doesn't always go where the teak is.

— It would be unfair to myself. Sometimes I beat myself up by saying that I do sell out a bit. But if I look back, I see that no, I am quite passionate. In the world of cinema, if you are lucky, you have something creative. If you are very lucky, you have something very creative. If you are already absolutely lucky, you have something artistic and poetic with a personal perspective. Whenever something like this comes along, you give it all up to do it. Few things like this come along and there are more and more, but it is difficult to be wanted to participate in a story that means something, not only to you, but also transcends the person who tells it and becomes something universal and that makes sense to explain and that you feel proud to put your energy into. And when it happens, you jump in headfirst.

More than blockbusters has had sleepers, TRUE?

— As The teacher who promised the sea, which was a very small Catalan production, with a very small budget, but with a great character. When Antoni Benaiges' family comes and tells me that he will have my face... And when you are able to move people and not only move people from an easy place, but you can tell a little about the character and investigate him freely, you see that this job makes sense. And it doesn't always make sense. Sometimes, you feel that you contribute to something that is beautiful, and sometimes you are part of a disgusting story. There are many disgusting stories and I am at a point where, since everything is so perverted, I think that we have the responsibility to create somewhat utopian stories. There are many stories with little hope. When you make a series that becomes a product, since you are making a story that is consumed like a sausage in front of a pack of wolves, we must be able to generate other things.

Lack of commitment?

— I'm amazed because the people who make films, series, the people who generate this narrative, everyone is very committed. I have rarely seen anyone discouraged or doing things just to get them done. There are also few opportunities and when you have one you have to take advantage of it. Plus, it's a very fun job. It's the best job in the world and people know. Maybe I'm 100% wrong, but the democratization of the narrative shows that, sometimes, the masses have a very toxic need. If you look at what people watch on YouTube, you see that they are fascist and far-right things. If you only want to have subscribers, you generate very unpoetic stories. And if the way of narrating is flat, easy, without thought, you end up generating violent, racist, sexist, intolerant, homogenizing stories.

Are the characters you've played starting to weigh on you?

— Something happens to me that the face pays, that you have X possibilities and that the actions come from a very primary place that is like the accent, that comes from the cradle. My gesticulation, my rictus, is DNA. Sometimes, I play a character that tries to be a little different and I see Gari, the character I played with Leticia Dolera [Perfect life]. Sometimes I get angry, but it is inevitable. I am creating an imaginary of myself, a memory. And it is good if when they see you, they see other characters that you have made, because it means that you have made an impression on people.

What was your school?

— The drive comes from my childhood and perhaps I was influenced by the Empordà landscape, my school, my friends, my mother, the music my mother played at home, my father's gestures, the television I watched, the books I have read, Jordi Llovet, who is my godfather and has brought me here every year. On a more formal level, in terms of my profession, I can talk about the Biblioteca de Cataluña, Oriol Broggi, Tom Waits... Oriol's imagination permeated me, because he included me in La Perla 29 and it was very important, because he was the first person who gave me an opportunity. Then I was lucky enough to fall into the hands of Lluís Pasqual, which was, for me, a before and after.

Did you only do two works with La Kompanyia del Lliure?

— I did not enter La Kompanyia and did In memoriam (The fifth of the bottle), but I took courses with Lluís, I worked The public of Lorca with him... He listened to me a lot and we understood each other very well, because of each other's dynamics. Lluís is a person who takes theatre and the stage very seriously. They are sacred things for him. He is one of those people for whom theatre passes over. Oriol is also like that, from a totally different place. For me, Luis taught me how to act. I have recorded phrases, directions, looks, of how he accompanies you in the creation of a monologue, for example, when you have him in front of you, he looks at you with those eyes and lives the monologue with you, with that face, those hands of Rodin. You can criticize him a lot and he is a tough person, but I tolerate harshness very well, because I have a very tough father, Luis is my teacher. I have never met a person of his level.

Has he called you to work with him?

— No. When I go to Madrid, I go to see him. We have dinner at his house watching the news, as if he were my uncle. I love him very much, Lluís. He is a very old artist.

How does she bring popularity? She only has 21 posts on Instagram...

— And they are not mine. It's not me. I left and there is another person pretending to be me. I tried to ask for the account to be closed, but it seems that nothing can be done... There are people who write to me on Instagram and they answer them. It's not me, it's a person pretending to be me. It's heavy. Since I don't have social media, I sometimes look for myself to see what people have said about me. When you launch something, during the first week, people stop you in the street. But when it happens this week, that's it. Nobody stops me. I go through the world calmly.

But it has come out toHello!...

— I went out toHello!Yes. It's one of those things, everything goes so fast that everything is temporary... I live with my two children, I take them to school every day on my bike and I have a life like... When you go to live in Madrid for a month, you go out and you want to experience what you're perhaps missing when you're being a father and you want to access the B side at six in the morning. This with everything. I think that success came to me much more when I already had a child. And I've always had my feet on the ground. My friends are still my lifelong friends, plus some new ones that I'm making.

Writes?

— I keep a kind of personal diary. I write according to the times. When I'm better, I write, and when I'm not so well, I don't write. The same thing happens to me with reading.