Elisabet Casanovas: "Every time I premiere a play, I dedicate a performance to my mother"

--- Elisabet Casanovas, what would you be doing at this hour if you hadn't met with me?

--- I would surely be doing some classical dance class, one of those I like to do when I have time. But as a total hobby, mind you.

--- Have you been dancing for a long time?

--- Yes, since I was 15. It frees me a lot, because it makes me concentrate for an hour and a half. The bummer is not being able to be consistent.

--- And you are not?

--- No. I have periods where maybe I go four or five days a week, and others where I can only go once every two weeks, and this is very frustrating.

--- Do people still stop you on the street to ask if you're the one from Merlí?

--- Well, much less, but don't think... And it's quite amazing, because ten years have already passed.

--- Tell me one good thing about popularity.

--- Well, look, it allows you to bring people to the theater.

--- And something you don't like?

--- Considering that my degree of popularity is what it is and that there are people who suffer it much more than I do, perhaps I would tell you that it can distract you a lot.

--- In the sense of keeping your feet on the ground?

--- In the sense that it can greatly defocus the objective of the work itself and can lead you to an area where you do not connect with your own essence.

--- What do people tell you when they stop you on the street?

--- Before it was always all very related to Merlí, and now it's more: "Wait, what have you done?". And this makes me very embarrassed because I think: Do I have to tell them my whole resume now? Especially because another person who does any other job is not asked like that, right?

[the_ad id="188431"]

--- What do you like to do when you have nothing to do?

--- I like to review the list of things I have to do but never do due to lack of time.

--- What kind of things?

--- For example, learning to play an instrument well, learning to speak a language very well. Everything that has to do with learning motivates me a lot. And I love meeting up with my friends and inviting them home.

--- What's pending on that list that you've started?

--- Well, look, now we're forming a music group with a friend, which is a total hobby.

--- Las Grupis? We saw you performing at the Premis Gaudí gala.

--- Yes. We're going very slowly, which is how we want it to go. We're discovering what we like to do and how we like to do it, but we have a pocket full of ideas and it would be very cool to be able to carry them out.

"I can get angry with myself very quickly, but I'm learning to put everything into perspective"

--- Music fascinates me. My mother was an opera singer, mezzosoprano. So music has always been very close to me, but this project we have with Laia (Manzanares) I think it makes sense for it to be just a hobby.

--- What music do you listen to?

--- Uff... I like everything so much! I can be very eclectic. This week, for example, I've listened a lot to Daft Punk, Valeria Castro, Amaia's new album, Cala Vento and El Buen Hijo.

--- You say your mother was a mezzosoprano. Do you like opera?

--- Yes. And I have a lot of respect for all classical disciplines. My mother died a few years ago and I remember she lived for classical music. That her instrument was her voice was a conditioning factor, because she studied every day, warmed up every day, she had a very strong constancy in her vocal work.

--- Very demanding with her craft.

--- Very much so. Rarely did my mother drink alcohol or have an ice cream. But that, which may seem anecdotal, made her live her profession as a constant research work.

--- Have you inherited anything from her in that sense?

--- I wish! Because I'm very interested in people who have their own universe and who don't take for granted where they can get to or what they can know. We are in a world where everything goes very fast, and I think it's good to allow yourself a space of calm and listening. Doing something worthwhile has to do with having listened a lot before.

--- And do you apply it to yourself?

--- I try (laughs), but I often have an impatient character, and this is a quality I don't like about myself.

--- Impatient in everything, or in work matters?

--- Wow... well, I would tell you that with work, because at the same time I'm very much about taking things slow, for example, in relationships. Or when it comes to making decisions, I can overthink everything. I don't know why I told you I'm impatient (laughs). Maybe I would tell you that I give myself little respite when things don't go as I want.

--- Do you punish yourself a lot?

--- A little. Sometimes it's very gratuitous. I can get angry with myself very quickly, but I'm learning to put everything into perspective.

--- From your close circle, is there anyone you like to show your work to because their opinion is very important to you?

--- My friends. Their opinion matters much more to me than I let them know.

--- What would you have liked to be if you hadn't chosen the path of acting?

--- I've always wanted to be an actress. Since I was ten years old.

"Music is the most direct channel to worlds related to emotion"

--- It's just that being Madonna must be a lot of fun! Would you like to be Madonna for a day? Just for a day, eh.

--- And forever wouldn't be bad either, right? (We laugh).

--- Thinking about what you're asking me, perhaps I would tell you that psychology can become very interesting to me. I am very interested in the inner world of people and everything related to professions. Mathematics certainly not. Nor an accountant!

--- Have they always approved of you being an actress at home?

--- My mother understood it right away, but it took my father a little longer. I suppose because he had also seen my mother having her moments of uncertainty, because these are very unstable jobs. But come on, I feel very fortunate, because my parents have helped me a lot in that sense.

--- You told me earlier that your mother died.

--- Yes, when I was 19 years old. She has never been able to experience my acting career.

--- It won't have been easy to manage emotionally.

--- It's a constant management. It's not a finished job. It is true that now that ten years have passed since her death, not only is there the part of accompaniment in the professional field, but new memories are not being generated either. And they won't be generated. Do you know what I mean?

--- Totally.

--- For my part, there's like an effort to imagine her many times. Every time I premiere a play, I dedicate a performance to my mother, and I remember when she talked to me about things that today I can understand as the adult I am. Things that I would have loved to share with her. It's an absence that has sometimes become very present, but I've also been very lucky to have her as a mother, for having opened many doors to things that I remember today.

--- Do you want to share any?

--- Well, the world of music, for example. It has been very difficult for me... (she gets emotional). Oh, I didn't plan on getting emotional today! It has been very difficult for me to listen to classical music again, because for me it is a direct channel to a language that I recognize very easily and my skin too, you know? And I play the cello, it took me a few years to be able to play it again, because my mother also played it, and because we played it together. Music is the most direct channel to worlds related to emotion.

--- Everything reminds you of her.

--- I've had very powerful dreams in that sense. I've dreamed of her a lot, especially doing theater. In my dreams, she tells me she came to the show and comments on it. And I tell her: "But why didn't you tell me, and we would have gone to dinner."

--- Terrible to wake up.

--- Yeah...

--- A very hard blow at a very young age, did it make you take life differently?

--- When everything happened, because it was very unexpected and sudden, I did tell myself: "You are experiencing such a great threshold of pain that after this nothing stronger can happen." But life goes on, and I have cried a lot for love and heartbreak, and what hurts still hurts, although it doesn't hurt as much as the death of a mother.

--- At 19, you also left home.

--- I came to Barcelona to study at the Institut del Teatre.

--- How do you remember that first day there?

--- I remember a lot the audition process and finding many people who had the same bug as me, you know? It annoys me not to have been able to finish it.

--- Do they still call you for auditions, or do they offer you the role directly now?

--- Both things. Nothing is ever done, everything is more vulnerable than it seems. From the outside, it might seem that things are going incredibly, and everything is much more fragile.

--- What's the worst part of a casting?

--- I take castings as a workspace because, otherwise, you can put a lot of extra pressure on yourself, and it's not necessary. You have to understand that the person on the other side is also nervous and wants this to work. I think the image of a casting with a super tyrannical figure behind it is something that is being worked on a lot to stop being that way. I take it as if they invited me to do a rehearsal. And if you fit, then good, and if not, you will have worked as far as you could.

--- Do you keep childhood friends?

--- Yes, and I see them much less than I would like.

--- Were you a good student?

--- Passing. I got sixes (laughs).

--- What are you like when you get angry?

--- It's very hard for me to get angry, but when I do, it's because I've been truly disappointed. Generally, I'm quite dialoguing and I really like to understand the other person's arguments, where their brain went to make that happen.

--- When did you know you had synesthesia?

--- In a listen and write.

--- ...

--- You know those ESO English exercises? Well, in one of those English exercises, they talked about synesthesia and I said: "But this isn't synesthesia, this happens to everyone." And the whole class turned and looked at me.

"For me, vowels have a color"

--- It's like an image from the imaginary, as if I say table to you and you see a round or square table, but you see a table and I also see it, but I also add a color to the concept. I don't know how to explain it... For me, vowels have a color. Your name, for example, is absolutely red, because it has many i vowels, and the stressed syllable is on the i. Above all, what determines the color of a word is its stressed syllable.

--- And what color is your name?

--- My name is salmon.

--- This of yours is a gift!

--- Do you think so? I think it's neither good nor bad. It happens to me with colors and numbers, and with music too. But I haven't found any use for it yet. There's a lot of theory, but all of this lives in my brain.

--- I find it fascinating. If the i is red, what color are the rest of the vowels?

--- The a is white, but since in your name it's in an unstressed position, it turns gray. The open e is salmon, the closed e is lilac, and the neutral e is pearl gray. The o, if it's open it's ocher, and if it's closed it's brown, but if it's in an unstressed position it's like a u, and then it's totally black. That's why Castilian has fewer colors. And in French there's a brutal mix of lilacs.

--- And when you meet people and say their names, do you see the color?

--- One hundred percent.

--- And can it happen that, if there's a person whose name has a color you don't like, there's bad vibes?

--- Of course! Not so much that it generates bad vibes, but I think: "What a shame you're called that!" (laughs).

--- Have you met anyone else to whom this happens?

--- Yes, my friend Quim Àvila, who is an actor, it also happens to him. We agree on the i, a vowel that makes you smile.

--- Can it happen that you see it red and he sees it a different color?

--- Of course! There have been many arguments about colors like: "This is dark green," and for me dark green doesn't fit into any vowel.

--- Are you superstitious?

--- A little. Not so much with salt, walking under a ladder or black cats, but I do like to follow certain rituals. If I break habits before a performance I think it won't go well. Actors are a pain!

--- Do you read your horoscope?

--- No, I'm not particularly interested. Do you?

--- If I come across it, I read it.

--- Astronomy generates a lot of interest for me, and people who know about astrology, too, but I prefer to talk about emotional responsibility than about the zodiac. Sometimes we can stay too much in ourselves, and sometimes what you are doing in the present for the future is more interesting than just the future. Do I make myself clear?

--- Would you like to know what will happen to you in the future?

--- I don't want to know. Can you imagine being able to press a button and know what will happen to you in the next five years? I would get anxiety just knowing it.

--- I handle uncertainty very badly.

--- Well, you couldn't be an actress.

--- Journalism isn't the paradigm of security either, eh...

--- In that sense, you're right. That's why I always try to practice being in the present. The future worries me because of being an actress.

--- In the sense of being a woman?

--- I hope it changes and that people who write stories think about them so that they don't only happen to young and beautiful women. It's great that Emma Vilarasau and Clara Segura are collecting so many awards. I adore them! For me, the passage of time has something great, which is knowing more and more, and I think that's when actresses should have more work. Actresses and any sector.

"If today the woman's body is seen more than the man's in a scene, let it be because it is part of the story and because it adds something, not because it is taken for granted that the woman must be sexualized"

--- It worries me, and I really want this to change. And I really want to grow up, you know? In a good way, I mean. That is, I will grow up, and I want to do so with everything that entails. It's very good that we talk about it and that people want to change things, that masculine vision of cinema with which we have been educated. I am very positive in this sense, and I believe that the simple fact of being aware of it already makes us rethink things. Three weeks ago I had to shoot in a bathtub, and they gave me intimacy coordination.

--- And how was it?

--- Well, I freaked out. Because at first I thought: "But it's just a bathtub," but then you see that they explain how the shot will be, if you're okay with it, what will be seen and what won't. For years we have put up with many gratuitous things in scenes that didn't add to the story. If today the woman's body is seen more than the man's in a scene, let it be because it is part of the narrative and because it adds, not because it is taken for granted that the woman must be sexualized.

--- If you could go back now and go to Elisabet on the first day she entered the Institut del Teatre, would you give her any advice?

--- I don't think so. Because everything that has happened to me has helped me learn a lot, and I wouldn't prevent her from experiencing it. I have found very good environments and teachers along the way.

--- Do you like politics?

--- I am interested in politics. If the question is whether I would get into politics, the answer is clearly no. For me there are many ways to do politics that do not involve getting into politics.

--- What are you doing now? What project are you involved in?

--- I'm starting to rehearse a movie.

--- Can you tell me anything?

--- I don't think so.

--- Do you like the character you play?

--- Yes, it's a challenge in every sense. I'm sorry, because it seems like I'm trying to be interesting, but I can't say anything...

--- How do you see yourself ten years from now?

--- How do I see myself or how would I like to see myself?

--- Both.

--- I would like to see myself super calm, making decisions calmly and with the ability to relativize everything.

--- With whom would you have a Bitter KAS?

--- With you.

--- Thank you very much. And with someone else?

--- With a friend who recently became a mother.