Rodrigo Garcia Melero |
Buenos Aires (EFE).- Leonardo Sbaraglia is in a good moment. He does not stop shooting movies and series and today he premieres his new film as the protagonist, “Asphyxiated”. “I have managed to integrate many aspects of my life and I am up to date. With my relationships, with my daughter, with my daughter’s mother… I feel happy and I like my profession more and more, “says the actor in a chat with EFE.
At 52 years old, this prototype of the Argentine cliché -he admits that he does not stop talking-, funny and cordial, is grateful to continue working on what he loves and reveals what his pending subject is: “As a personal challenge, which at some point I will to do, perhaps in the next ten years, is to direct a film”.
“I would like to write. I don’t know if I have a lot of ability to establish and create a language, but I do feel that I understand more and more what my world is, did you see? I love photography, music, art… So, well, all that remains is to establish a language and maybe that is there, that voice”, she adds.
“I found where my voice is going and that is very good. I am finding her in different characters and now I would like that too, to continue finding her in infinite ways ”, emphasizes Leo, who is also fond of singing and offers shows together with his brother Pablo, a musician and producer.
From “The night of the pencils” to “Asphyxiated”
Born in Buenos Aires, the son of the actress Roxana Randón and the doctor and photographer Horacio Sbaraglia, he made his film debut at the age of 16 in “La noche de los lápizes” (1986), by Héctor Olivera, in which he played one of the young people who disappeared during one of the most terrible episodes of the last Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983).
In the 90s he was forging his place in theater, television and cinema and starred in films such as “Wild Horses” (1995), by Marcelo Piñeyro, and “Kisses on the forehead” (1996), by Carlos Galettini, in which he lived a love story with an old woman played by the unforgettable China Zorrilla.
The turn of the century gave him luck: his roles in “Plata quemada” (2000), also by Piñeyro, and in “Intacto” (2001), by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, for which he won a Goya for Best New Actor, gave him the doors of Spain were opened forever.
“What has happened to me in my life in the last, probably 15 years, is a lot and for the best. Especially since I have managed to integrate many aspects of my life and I am up to date ”, she affirms.
And he feels satisfied with his present, with his relationships in general and with his daughter Julia and her mother, from whom he separated a few years ago.
After the reduction in filming caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus, the actor, who has worked under other famous directors such as Vicente Aranda and Pedro Almodóvar, is now experiencing a “post-pandemic effect”, with “all the work at once”.
In 2022, he starred in “El Gerente”, by Ariel Winograd, he shot a film with Mario Casas in Spain, a series in Mexico and the film “Puán”, by Benjamín Naishtat and María Alché.
He also finished “Asfixiados”, directed by Luciano Podcaminsky and starring alongside Julieta Díaz. “It was a very original, very strange film”, she anticipates.
The film, in theaters this Thursday, tells the story of a married couple who have lived together for 20 years who go on a sailing vacation with another younger couple. A journey where personal conflicts come to light that turn it into a nightmare.
According to Sbaraglia, the film is “very theatrical” and Nacho, his character, is an “energúmeno” who is “attacking and denying” all the time, always believing himself to be the owner of reason.
Between comedy and drama, the film delves into problems with which many couples can feel identified, such as “excessive machismo”, and shows how the way of relating is changing.
Machismo in the cinema
After 50 years, Sbaraglia continues to work more and more. “And that doesn’t happen with actresses. That is an objective reality, ”she says.
“It’s a shame, but you have to accept it to change it, because it keeps happening. Why does it keep happening? Obviously it is not so easy to change a culture from one day to the next, right? It is necessary to try to make it happen less and less, that the conditions are fairer, more and more, for men and women ”, he adds.
Now, after returning from Spain from recording the series “Elite”, he is preparing his return to shoot the second season of “Todos Menten”. And in a series that begins in June, she will play one of the “most important” characters of his career.
Asked how he would like to be remembered, he has no doubt: “As a generous and good person.”