Anna Lluch: To return is a way to begin

“There was a moment, when we were filming the scene where the characters played by Luka Peroš and I meet, that a woman started crying with emotion, because everything seemed so real and beautiful to her,” explains Anna Lluch about her latest shoot, the short film Mr. Guiri by American Dennis Williams. Leaning against the bar, an evening gin and tonic in hand while the notes of Miles Davis's quintet's In your own sweet way resonate in the background, the actress smiles and projects her intense coffee gaze, before adding: “that's the best thing that can happen to an actor.”

She has always – she confesses – felt the need to express and to learn, to say many things, all things, even when words are no longer enough and then a single glance, a small gesture, can tell you the whole story without having to say a peep. As a child, she played at interpreting characters and emulating what she saw on TV, whether it was Charlie's Angels or El amor brujo. And, while her brother Conrad – who sadly passed away last December – was establishing himself as a future music talent, young Anna was studying theater in various places. First in her native Mataró and then in Barcelona, until she entered the Institut del Teatre, always cultivating “that childlike part, of constant play, that actors keep alive throughout our existence.”

At 25, she moved to Los Angeles. “I wasn't so much looking to succeed as to get out of here and see what was happening on the other side of the pond. There I worked a lot in advertising and dubbing, acting as an extra in films, participating in short films, even doing some theater.” After twelve years in the United States where she did and experienced everything, she returned. “I felt that I had learned and done everything I had to do there and when I returned I discovered that coming back is a way of starting.”

Then began an intense period where Anna could be seen in series such as El cor de la ciutat, Hospital Central or Cuéntame – “working on television was the best school that helped me learn to be in every moment” – and in plays, such as Lorca eran todos, by the beloved Pepe Rubianes.

The woman from Mr. Guiri

At forty-five, Anna Lluch became pregnant. "My pregnancy was so late because it's very difficult for an actress to combine motherhood and a professional career." The fact is that her two children, whom the actress considers her greatest pride, forced her to rethink her professional life. "I spent a season doing jobs that had nothing to do with acting."

But, little by little, the essences were bringing her back to her rightful place. "I worked with the puppet company Perpoc, participated in series like Segunda temporada and I've been doing a lot of voice work, especially for audiobooks." And so, chaining jobs and projects, until landing in Mr. Guiri, the new short film by young filmmaker Dennis Williams, which narrates the simple and emotional love story between a man and a woman who, at sixty, decide to meet for the first time in Barcelona.

I am the woman in that film, not only in the sense of the actress who plays her, but also in the sense of a woman who believes that adventures can still be lived.

"I am the woman in that film, not only in the sense of the actress who plays her, but also in the sense of a woman who believes that adventures can still be lived, that one can continue to dare, regardless of age. Life as something that continues to transform and create opportunities for movement, until the last day. As a place to start over, again and again. As an eternal return where new faces of love are discovered. That's what Mr. Guiri is about. That's what Anna's character is about, whose next step is the writing and production of her first monologue, "based on everything I experienced during my time in the United States."

Where the birds sing best

In her youth, the actress saw Barcelona from her native Mataró with longing, enamored eyes. "As a young woman, the city was my great school, of theater and of life." When, years later, she returned from North America, she rediscovered it. Her relationship with the city also started over. "I got to know the Barcelona of the neighborhoods, the city as a sum of small neighborhood realities, some of which I have been getting to know, moving from one address to another."

And, despite the noise pollution, the environmental pollution, and the incivility, she continues to take long walks along Gran Vía, "from Plaça d'Espanya to Tetuán," which she admits is her way of meditating. "And, if you notice –she adds, about to finish her gin and tonic–, if you listen carefully, you can hear the birds sing." And she closes her eyes, mentally immersing herself in that symphony of trills that accompanies her on those balsamic walks for the soul.

–What can be balsamic is having another gin and tonic, if you feel like it. This one is on the house.

Anna Lluch immediately returns to the Bar. The notes of Here to stay by the Pat Metheny Group transmit an electric joy to her. She thinks about it for a bit and, finally, accepts.

–Alright –she determines–, but also give me something to snack on. I don't usually have dinner, but I'll have to eat something so the drink doesn't go to my head so much.

And she smiles again, with good humor, with sweetness, with intensity, envisioning all the promises of the good that is yet to come. Like in that scene from Dennis Williams' film that made a woman cry out of pure emotion.