Sergi López: "With the life I've had, I could die tomorrow."

BarcelonaLooking back, Sergi López says he can't believe he's lived the professional life he's had. He's made more than 100 films, mostly in France, but also in Italy, the United Kingdom, and other countries. This summer, he revived his theatrical show. Non solum, which premiered twenty years ago, and has starred Sirado, a film by Óliver Laxe. He's a joke, and an actor through and through with an impressive creative streak.

When you premiered 'Non solum' on Temporada Alta twenty years ago, did you think you'd still be doing it in 2025?

— No, because 20 years ago, I was 40. I'm still somewhat immature. And so, I'd say that, at 40, I was still in that stage where you think you'll never die, that the concept of 20 years doesn't exist, that it's not an objective parameter. When we premiered it with Jorge Picó, we already realized that maybe I'd do more than we thought. Jorge and I met at Lecoq, in Paris, a school that isn't about acting, but about writing. It's a school where, through improvisation, you see that you have ideas and, wow, the scene inspires you with things that take you further, you can rewrite. And when I contacted Jorge, I said: "Look, I have a lot of things in my head, but I don't know if it's a show." And about the things I told him at the beginning, because sometimes he reminds me of it, I said: "Since I want to do theater, I want to reconnect with the stage and do something, I want to talk about this playwriting, this thing about telling a story about a man who has something happen to him and who goes to a crash that still makes me explode and that's it. Even if it's strange, Martian..."

Starting with humor was a guarantee, wasn't it?

— Well, I'm funny, and you know that humor is commercial, it's popular. If you make people laugh, you open many doors, right? But I told him: "Jorge, I want to do one thing... I don't care, I mean, just ten, but ten that we recognize, that it's a writing that we can defend, even if it's Martian." And in fact, Non solum He's Martian, but he's also popular, and he's been here for twenty years, and I've done I don't know how many gigs in Catalan, in French, in Spanish... No, no, I didn't expect, not even in the least, that it would last at least twenty years.

But it's been a few years without...

— It was dead for four years. And then, out of the blue, a self-managed festival in Vilanova told me to redo it. I went over it again, and then, while we were revisiting it, Jorge told me we'd rewrite it, revisit it, and see what happens. One thing we had pending was revising a part of the show that worked really well, because it was very funny, sexual, it talked about protuberances and a female body, and something very sexually explicit, but in a very innocent way. And it worked a lot, it was very funny, it was iconic, people remembered it. But when in a play you're writing there's a part that's awesome, that works on its own, alone, you have to ask yourself if it really has a function within it. We had that impulse and we brought it out.

You've always been a bit of a punk, haven't you?

— It's what it's like to see people bursting into dumpsters and embassies. Man, I don't know, I saw this as a kid and thought it was cool to burn police trucks. Well, I don't know, let's say X, but I've always found it festive. And we've put that out, and the audience has sort of agreed with us, because by putting out that iconic thing, the rest has improved, and the show is more rounded, more coherent.

At the beginning of 'Non solum' he even spent two seasons at the TNC!

— I had to cancel the first one because I lost my voice. And I always say that it seems to me that the success of the Non solum It comes from here. I was a person that people didn't know, who was starting out in film, but in the theater there were people who had never seen me. When it was announced that I would be doing a show at the National Theater, all the tickets were sold, but on the second or third day we had to cancel. So what happened? When we canceled, a whole newfound power was created. We announced that we were coming back in six months and everything was already sold out. In other words, this myth was created that it's common, let's see this.

You haven't set foot in the TNC again, have you?

— No, no. But I found it super exotic, the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. For me, it was the theater, this one at Flotats, full of glass that needed cleaning. A fortune just to clean the glass. For me, it was that kind of set, an institutional theater, grandiloquent, with columns, like some kind of temple. Then, fortunately, there's the theater.

When did you realize that text theatre wasn't for you?

— I have this ambition to make a show or a film without talking. I just don't keep quiet. Well, you see what I mean, right? Since I create, I end up chatting a lot. I already started that way. I met Toni Albà doing a clown show, we created a show together, I went to Lecoq, and Jorge and I have done creation. So, of course, sometimes, when we're creating, when we make it all up, we see people who do text theater and we say: "Wow, man, that's cool! Why don't we do that one day?" Because at least you have a text. Yes, I did it at the Sala Beckett and maybe The boy in the back row It's the only text show I've ever done. Well, and The shepherds, which is also text theatre.

Don't they propose things to you from time to time?

— Yes, yes, yes. Sometimes people propose things to me, but... But I don't do them. Because there are always things pending. And we want to do things. And the work I have between one thing and another, trying to find days. Of course, we need two or three months to put together a show and then another two months of exhibition. Then people propose things to you, but they say: "What's your schedule?" But we do it quickly, a month of rehearsal and a month in the theater. Yeah, but then what's the point? It's the other way around, right? And if I had two months, I'd go to Valencia with Jorge to do something else. It's complicated.

Did you ever consider yourself a French actor?

— Me? To myself? No, never.

At the end of the 20th century and in the first decade of the 21st century, it was filmed almost exclusively in France.

— Maybe, yes, of course. I started there. I've always had that strange feeling of feeling a bit like someone trying to digest what I'm experiencing. Being an actor and film have a media impact. There's an image that others have of you. I've always tried to digest or reconcile what I experienced with the image I received of myself. Many people say to me: "Oh, you're a French actor?" I say: "I live in Vilanova, I take a train and go to France or Albacete." But I, without feeling French, have also looked at myself over time and realized how important it was for me to connect with France and with Manuel Poirier at the beginning.

He chose a good country to make films.

— Yes, but I didn't choose it. It was just one of those things I found packaged. I'm not much of a believer, but something happens. It's very strange. For me, Lecoq, if I had been in Albacete or Italy or Slovenia, I would have gone anyway. I went to that school. But I was in Paris, I was in France, and in France they're chauvinistic, pretentious. Yes, yes, but something works for them. They say that wine, cheese, and cinema are theirs. It's their heritage. Maybe mathematically, maybe they're not, but they believe. They believe in theater, in culture. They collaborated with the Nazis, and when they saw what was happening, they said, "Damn, we have to do something about culture and education." Shame on you, right? Spain didn't collaborate with the Nazis, no. They were Nazis here, and they still are, in a way, right? There they said, "Let's do something, let's invest in culture." And, of course, culture, in a capitalist world, is also like the spearhead of capitalism. I mean, through movie theaters, they promote themselves worldwide, and behind them, they sell cheese, camemberts, champagne, gasoline, and oil. And we're still thinking that culture is an expense. At the local festival, we'll set up a space there to play some music. It's funny, but it looks like a Berlanga film.

In France, many foreigners work in the film industry.

— I received the first César Award given to a non-French actor, something that's impossible here in Spain—they give a Goya to a guy who speaks Spanish with a Bulgarian accent. Why give a Goya to this guy, if he's a foreigner? There's more of a tradition of this over there, through song and other things. The French say Picasso is French. Here it's the other way around, not here. If you're not completely purebred, you're not from there. It's curious.

Was it difficult for you to start working in Spain?

— It wasn't hard for me, no. I'm increasingly realizing I don't know how it all went. Sometimes I'm even embarrassed. Yes, because I think, damn, without even looking for it. They say: "They must have recognized you in France before." But I don't have any reproaches, not in Spain, not in Catalonia, not in anyone. And I started there, and I started here with Ventura Pons, I got a film with Antonio Fernández, and I started working, and I've been getting jobs from all over the place. I don't feel like it was hard, but rather that one thing led to another.

In 'Petite Fleur,' there's a scene where the protagonist grabs him in the bathroom and speaks to him in Spanish. He's stunned, having thought he was French. And he says, "I'm from Vilanova i la Geltrú, Catalan!"

— Because the character speaks French, but with an accent... Well, with the accent I have. And then, when he's in the bathroom, he says, "How are you?" He says, "But you speak Spanish, are you Spanish?" And I reply, "No, no, Catalan. From Vilanova i la Geltrú."

Who wrote this scene?

— It was Santiago Mitre who told me: "Say this, that thing you always say, that town of yours with that strange name." The director is to blame. Look, the first film I made with Poirer, it already happened to me. I was in Paris at the Lecoq. I saw a poster that said: "Wanted: Actor with Spanish accent for a first feature film in Paris." And I went, more out of curiosity, but I was totally from the town, with my Catalan accent, I went with my complex, and I said to Poirer: "I don't have a Spanish accent, I have a Catalan accent." I thought he wouldn't take me. But the Frenchman didn't care if the accent was Catalan, Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese. He found it funny. And in the first film, already in a scene, he said to me: "When they tell you you're Spanish, say what you say, as for not, Spanish, yes, but okay, but no, but yes, but Catalan."

In another film, in 'Lazzaro felice', there is a moment when he lets go of one balls. Is it also homegrown?

— Yes, but you agree on that, because I don't say whatever I want. But anyway, you see how it goes when you get the script. You read the script and see that the character's name is Último, and I say: "I speak Italian, but I don't speak it very well." They tell me I speak it well, but I see that I have a Catalan accent that's ridiculous. I speak Italian, but with an accent. So, he's a boy with an accent. So, he comes from somewhere. So, at one point I say: "Casum Dios!" "What's going on?" the director thinks. And he finds it organic, it fits into the character. There's no desire on my part, as an actor, since I'm Catalan, to insert Catalan phrases... No, no.

If he were to dedicate himself to text theatre, he would be the king of the blood sausages, those phrases that actors and actresses invent during the performance to annoy their colleagues.

— He would be the Catalan Paco Morán. Even in The shepherds, which is in verse, I do. We're like that. We can't help but add something that might make us laugh. We're clowns by vocation.

How many languages have you filmed in?

— If we count sentences, I don't know. I made the Coixet film, Map of the sounds of Tokyo, and I said two or three sentences in Japanese. But only two or three, I can't remember. In English, Italian, French, Catalan, and Spanish. In Lisbon, I also said a few sentences in Portuguese.

He won the Best European Actor award at a very young age. Was that a sign?

— Another thing that is embarrassing. Harry, a friend who loves you They gave me the award for Best European Actor. A large percentage of those who vote at the European Academy are French. So, Harry, it had been seen a lot in France. Who was nominated with me? Bruno Ganz. I said to myself: "You beat Bruno Ganz." Do you understand me? It's embarrassing.

Did that movie really put you on the map?

— The funny thing is that Dominik Moll, the director, suggested the other role, the good one, to me. Different actors suggested Harry, and they all said no, or didn't see it clearly, or I don't know what. I was rehearsing with Dominik Moll, and one day he said to me: "What would you think of playing Harry?" And I said: "I think it's a really good idea." And it was, as you say, the movie. Michel Saint-Jean, the producer, told me that afterwards. And that's what I had said to the director: "Sergi, to play the bad guy? You're crazy. If he's one of them, you're crazy." horny, it's good guy"How should you play the bad guy, Sergi?" And instead, I play that bad guy and then, suddenly, I die, the bad guys.

He has made several.

— I've done four or five, which have been great. I mean, either I've done many, or I've done a few, but there have been some, of course, like the one aboutPan's LabyrinthIn Spain I did Only mine.

Her character in 'Petite Fleur' ​​is not a villain...

— Yes, yes, manipulative, yes, yes, but well, he doesn't kill girls, like the one inPan's Labyrinth, who is a real psychopath, who is a fascist. Yes, yes, yes, I have been touched, and with Stephen Frears, who played maître of a hotel that traffics organs. I don't know about now, but there was a time when the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) said he was an actor specializing in "villains", in bad.

And what do you remember about 'A Pornographic Relationship'?

— It's one of the most important films. I remember Nathalie Baye, the actress, and Frédéric Fonteyne, the director, who is a close friend of mine, who has a daughter named Vera, and I'm the godfather. I also remember Patrick Quinet, the producer of this film, with whom we're also very good friends. It's a film that also has an angel. It was written by Philippe Blasband. It's a film I love; I find it brilliant, light, profound. It's a romantic story—it's called pornographic—and at the same time, it's a very beautiful love story, well-written, with talent. I think it's very well-written.

He has played few roles like this one.

— It's something particular, I find. I don't know if it can be compared: one guy, a paiaYou don't even know their names or where they live. You only see the space they share, sitting at a table before going to fuck, or doing who knows what. You don't know who they are, and that's incredibly powerful. You get to the end of the film, but you see that they're as in love as God. And they don't even know each other.

You've said that Olivier Laxe's film, "Sirat," which premiered this summer, is special. Why?

— Movies are always an attempt to do something, you know? Everyone wants the movie to be the best of the year, or the best of... I don't know. And here different things come together. It's a special movie because there are many movies going on at the same time. Because it's about adventures, about trucks crossing a desert, a river, crossing sandstorms. There's a journey, it's a western, and it's a spiritual film, set in the middle of the desert, where all you can do is look up at the sky. It's not just about what happens to these people who are lost and suddenly form a family. It's cinema with a capital C because it has images and very powerful electronic music that gives you no choice. You have no alternative. There's no dialogue, images, or sound. And, damn, I'm such a beast, with films I've made, it's never happened to me. Because when I see my own films, I don't like them. I see the filming. And something happens here. It has an energy that's both popular and authorial.

You're turning 60 now, and you've appeared in over 100 films. What do you see when you look back?

— It was worth it. If I've had a life, I could die tomorrow. Yes, yes, but I think about it. I would like my children to feel me. If I were to die tomorrow, that they wouldn't be too sad, you know? That they would say: "The Pope had a blast." No, no, what happened to me is an exaggeration, but the thing is, I hope I don't die tomorrow, it's just that I still have... I must have had something to do with it, with time I end up realizing that I must have some grace in acting, some talent, I don't know what. But there's something I don't know what it is, which is an energy... Why do I meet Poirier, why does Frédéric Fonteyne come to me and we do... A pornographic relationshipWhy me? I've never had a strategy of saying, "I want to go here, I want to go to Cannes, I want to go to Cannes in competition ten times." It's very Martian. I don't know, it's like finding myself with an immeasurable gift, while at the same time trying not to drown in it.

And have you never been tempted to make a film?

— Yeah.

And will she do it?

— Yeah.

Oh yeah?

— I'm writing with a colleague. I haven't said this anywhere... There's an idea. I mean, the same way I started out in theater doing shepherds, and in Lecoq I discovered that you could write your plays, that you could have your point of view and invent this, and then it led me to film... Well, the same. A bit like in Non solum, which is autobiographical. That is, it talks about me, but it doesn't explain anything about my life.

And in French?

— No, in Catalan, in Catalan.

In France it would be easier.

— We're looking into co-production. So, 20%: one of the characters will be French, and we'll do something to try to make it happen everywhere. We'll see, of course, but a film needs a lot of money, a lot of partners, so if all the money comes from France, from France, from France...

Young people say it's easier to make a series or a film than to put together a play.

— I'm not surprised. The theater is a sacred place. It's something else, I mean. There are rules. You have to know what you're doing, in theater. Nothing is banal. You don't have a close-up, it's a space, it's an energy, it's a... it's like a church. There's something of itself, of a cathedral, of a ritual. You can't do just anything. In film, you can do anything. The other thing is that it works.