Ángela Cervantes: "Women have a hard time expressing anger because the system represses it."

BarcelonaIn 2023, in a matter of months, Angela Cervantes (Barcelona, ​​​​1993) chained the filming of the drama The fury, about an aspiring actress traumatized by rape, and the essays of the play Pack, about the victim of the Manada. A brutal immersion in the consequences of sexual violence that took a toll on her emotionally. Now, however, the fruits of that effort are beginning to arrive in the form of awards. like the one that won at the Malaga Festival for the role in The fury, which opens D'A this Thursday and is released in theaters the following day.

Congratulations on the Málaga award. Especially because it's your first leading role in a film.

— It's been very exciting. Many factors came together, because my brother Álvaro also won the award, and because mine was ex aequo alongside Miriam Garlo, who was the protagonist of Álvaro's film.

How did you celebrate at Can Cervantes?

— My parents came to the festival and rented an apartment so we could spend the whole week watching films, ours and those from the festival, so it was a very family-oriented experience. I'm more excited about Álvaro's award than my own, because he's a character I love and because it's something of a combination of all the work he's done throughout his career. He's fought hard to get where he is, and I've witnessed the entire process.

How has having an older brother who's an actor helped you? I imagine he's given you advice often.

— Yes, very much so. My brother is a role model for me. It happens among siblings in any family, but here it's intertwined with work life. And in this profession, which is often so lonely and filled with so much uncertainty, it's a treat to be able to share every phase of the process with Álvaro, from casting to rehearsals, filming, and promotion. I feel very fortunate.

How the character of The furyThe director, Gemma Blasco, was a friend of yours, wasn't she?

— Yes, we met in our first year of secondary school and went to high school together. And our paths became even closer when she studied film and I studied acting. Gemma suffered a sexual assault at 18, which I, as her friend, experienced firsthand. She knew she wanted to make a film about the subject, one that was far removed from her experience, but that would somehow capture what she felt, especially in the later stages. And she always said she wanted me to be the lead. In fact, I imagined it would be my first film, but I'm glad it didn't end up that way, because it was a very complex character and film, and having some experience helps.

With The fury and Pack You completed a master's degree in sexual violence. What's often the hardest thing to understand about victims of sexual violence?

— They're often very difficult to understand. And even though much work has been done, we still judge the victims. There's something deeply rooted inside us that makes us question them. The very gesture of asking "what happened?" We have little education in handling cases of sexual violence, and we have to learn to step back and give the necessary space, and we're very afraid to approach them.

It's a role steeped in pain, but above all, in a rage that your character is unable to express. How do you access all that darkness?

— We talk a lot about anger. It's hard for women to express anger because the system represses it. We're afraid there'll be a reluctance to show anger or rage, to lose our temper. And that's fine; these are emotions, and we should be able to express them. It's even harder for me because I'm not used to expressing these emotions in my life. But at the same time, it's what I've loved most about this profession since I was little and doing theater. I had to be the good daughter and the good student, but theater offered me the opportunity to get angry and do politically incorrect things. I'm drawn to exploring these dark sides of us all.

Why is female anger or the expression of rage still taboo?

— In the end, it's a control mechanism. If you don't let someone express themselves or punish them when they do, they repress certain emotions, you close yourself off, and it becomes increasingly difficult for you to express yourself. In the film, it's very clear how I want to confide in my brother about what happened to me, and he freaks out, which is the last thing I need. So I think I've messed up, that I shouldn't say anything, and I'm going to the other extreme. How am I going to tell anyone else if when I do, it provokes this reaction in others, and I have work to deal with?

These emotions can also harm you. How do you protect yourself?

— I work from a technical perspective. I'm very aware that I'm not the character I play. It's true that everything I play comes from somewhere personal, but I choose what I use: I can take something very small and make it very large. When I was doing PackOne day, I was maybe crying because a woman was looking at her phone, and since I was very sensitive, I made it bigger so I could talk about something really serious. That said, at the end of the shoot The fury I noticed that, in addition to the physical and emotional fatigue, there was a layer of sadness, a low mood that had to do with the darkness and intensity of the material.

And this did not make you doubt whether to accept or not the role of Pack?

— The casting came to me at the beginning of 2023, when I already knew what I was going to do. The fury at all costs. And of course, I hesitated, but at the same time it was undeniable that I wanted to do both projects. And when they said yes to Pack I thought I would first focus on The fury, later in Pack, and we'd see how he handled it. And it's been much harder Pack, because theater demands so much more. Doing it every day and for so long isn't the same as five weeks of filming during which the scenes are passed. In theater, it's an hour and a half of suffering. You don't work with rape all the time, but you cry for a good amount of time every day, and your body doesn't know it's a play and senses that you're very sad.

And now how are you?

— I'm resting now. I needed to stop, because if I didn't, that's when you start to fall out of love with a profession I love. It happens in all jobs: when you overdo it or have too much pressure, you lose the memory of what made you love it.

And what is your best memory associated with acting?

— How wonderful. Something just came to mind... When I was little, I had extracurricular theater activities, and when we did the end-of-year performance, my grandmother always helped me with the dresses because she sewed. She once came to the performance with her friends, and I vividly remember that moment of leaving the performance and seeing my grandmother telling her friends how good I was. And I, through her eyes, saw it clearly too, pumped up with adrenaline. They were very exciting performances because the whole family came, and it was so beautiful.

I guess after The fury you'll want to do something lighter.

— Yes, I consider myself a comedic actress. I'd like to do a comedy. I've done comedy in the theater, Thin skin, and when I was doing Pack I'd look back on it and think, "That was so much fun!" And it worked, too—the audience was laughing. It's a sensation... We even had fits of laughter on stage. Getting paid for that is incredible.

The film that launched you into the cinema was, in fact, quite light: KidsIsabel Casanovas, Victoria Luengo and Carolina Yuste were also present.

— Yes, it was a very powerful group. I was thrilled to be there; I felt like I'd joined that cast. And it was my first film experience. A very complicated shoot, because we were caught in the pandemic. But it was also the first time I went to the Málaga Film Festival, my first exposure to interviews, styling, and the... photocall...I didn't know that all of this was part of the job. And I had very good teachers, Vicky, Carol, and Eli, who had been acting for a while.

This very week you have released The invisible evil, your return to a TV3 series after the stage of As if it were yesterday.

— Yes, it's all come together. I feel like I'm not enjoying the premieres, because it's as if two years' work is concentrated in two weeks [also premiered What remains of you [in Malaga]. I'm very grateful to have been working, but I wish everything were more staggered, because otherwise it's like an overdose of my information. Be that as it may, I feel great affection from the Catalan public and from TV3, which has always taken great care of me. I feel like I'm at home, like I owe TV3 and Catalonia a lot. It's very nice to have a place. It doesn't always happen.

When you get older and they ask you if you have a good memory of As if it were yesterday, where did you start, what will you say?

— Yes, very good memory. The other day on the radio they showed me the first scene I did in As if it were yesterday And I was really excited. It helps me remember that love and enthusiasm for that work, which I may now need to rediscover. I have very fond memories of the family that was created, of Sònia Sánchez, the director, who gave me confidence and saw in me things I couldn't see myself; or of Montse Germán, who played my mother. Time passes and we don't see each other much, but there's a bond that was created after so many years of filming as a family.