Lola Duenas at the Shangri-la Hotel.


On 30 November 2004, 6.30pm in the Shangri-la Hotel Lobby, the Moviexclusive team had the privilege opportunity to meet up with the actress of “The Sea Inside” which also was nominated for Best Foreign Film in the 62nd Golden Globe Awards, Lola Duenas for an exclusive interview.

PS: Might contain Spoilers to the film so please watch the movie before reading if you don’t want your viewing pleasure to be spoilt.

Welcome to Singapore! We believe you should have seen a little bit of Singapore in spite of your busy schedule. Tell us what's your impression about our city and why?

Singapore is a very beautiful city. I am trying to enjoy my stay here as much as possible during this short visit. I just spent 6 hours walking around yesterday and purchased a lot of presents for the folks back at home.
And I would like to give thanks to my beautiful guide, Ms Nadege from Festive Films for showing me around Singapore.

Regarding the movie, how did you get in involved with this film in the first place?

The film’s casting director first mentioned my name to the director and the director agreed to let me try out for the role of Rosa. After the first audition, I went to visit GALICIA (the place where the film was shot) to meet up with the actual lady that I was going to portray and try to learn her accent before the next round of audition.
After that, they told me to come back to do another round of audition, to read another line. However they just want to confirm that I am the right person for the role of Rosa and just wanted to see my reaction when they announce the news to me.

The story was based upon a true life account, was it a big hoo-ha in the news in Spain when Ramón Sampedro challenged his rights to die with the federal courts and when he actually committed suicide with the help from his friends?

Yes it was a true story and it had a very big impact in Spain. It was on the National news and on the front page on the newspaper before and after he died.
However, only he will know about the real truth behind what had actually happened. Since euthanasia is illegal in Spain and people who assisted in euthanasia could be charged with murder, [so] he planned it in a way that each of his 11 friends did something: one booked the hotel room, another one made a copy of the key, one bought the poison and the rest of his friends, each place the legal amount of drug into his drink.
After his death, the law could not touch any of his friends who had assisted him, as each individual act did not break any law.

How do you think your character affected the other characters and the story itself? Are there any similarity between you and this character of Rosa?

The main thing about the character, Rosa, is that she truly loved Ramon. I found Rosa to be a person who looks for love by giving a lot of love. She is very strong, very brave and very stubborn.
In every role that I play, I put something of my own personality into the character I am portraying. To tell you about the similarity between Rosa and me would be telling you my secrets. Whether I am taking on the role of a sweet character or a bad character, it’s all projected from my personality onto the character that I am portraying

After acting in this film that touch on the topic of euthanasia, did it affect your concept and thoughts on life?

First of all, this film is not about euthanasia, it’s really about this story of this person, Ramon. He mentioned in this film and book that he was not speaking for the people who share the same problem as he did but it is really about speaking for himself.
This film definitely had changed my concept on life, love and death. I was scared about death before the film and through this film and Ramon, I learnt that death is very much a part of life. Now I am not as scared of death as I was before.
Regarding love, I realized that I had never loved anyone in the way Rosa did. It was love truly. What impressed me most, was that Ramon, while not living a proper life and wanting to die could inspire so much love and gave so much love and hope to others at the same time.

How does it feel working with the acclaimed director, Alejandro Amenábar (The Others)?

It had been a present for me. Alejandro Amenábar is a very good director; he had a clean picture on what he wanted to do, from the start to the end. He even composed the music for this film. He is very confident, intelligent, and very young and he knows a lot about films.
He gave us all the freedom in acting and always praised the actors and actress’ works. He will try to back you up in everything you ask for and takes in all the ideas that the actor or actress suggests.

In your opinion, what is the difference between acting in Television and Movie? Which do you prefer?

For television, the working pace is very fast, normally no strong story, it just to keep the television audience entertained. One thing good about acting for Television would be that the roles are quite similar and after a while it will become quite routine like going to work in an office, it’s a more relax and less stress environment.
I like working for a cinema film best of all. For a film, standing in front of a camera, the audience would be able to see it from your eyes and every body movement if you are trying to remember your lines. It can be quite scary acting on films, however, it is my favorite as it provides more challenges and it is more reputable.

Other than the role in this film, what other roles would you like to take on in your future project?

I have been the bad guy role once and it was quite enjoyable portraying the bad person. I would like to act in a film that I am the princess or the attractive one. So far I had only played drug addicts and other problematic roles, so I would like to play an attractive girl.
All the characters I played are roles that the pretty girls did not want to play. (Laughter)

We understand that your next film is “20 Centimetros”. Tell us besides that, what are the other projects that you will be undertaking?

The film, “20 Centimetros” is already completed and will be a musical [but] will be released soon. It is about a transvestite who wants to remove his 20-centimeter organ but I am not acting as the transvestite.
There will be a film that I will be doing in France with a Spanish director. This time, I will be the main character and it is one of the current projects that I am very proud of. The direct translation of the film title would be “All about Lola” and it just happened that the character and I share the same name “Lola”.

Here's the last question, what would you like to share with the audience in Singapore about this movie?

It is a real story and before I started on this film, the director told them, “I invite you to a journey” and now I would like to invite the Singaporean audience to take part in this emotionally charged journey

Transcript: Overider | Photos: Dgital | Layout: Dgital