A WRITER INTERVIEWS AN ACTOR

I'm in Oxford. Tomorrow I start teaching my class: "International Mass Communication." For this reason, I'll write (even) less on my blogs.

Today I bring you an interesting interview that affords us the rare opportunity of watching the conversation between two people whose careers are not limited by telenovelas, but who have been definitely marked by these melodramas: writer Leonardo Padrón interviews actor Edgar Ramírez.

Leonardo Padrón is the telenovela writer that I've been studying for a decade. He's a poet, essayist, and film scriptwriter, in addition to being the author of some of the telenovelas most watched in Venezuela, such as: Contra Viento y Marea, El País de las Mujeres, Cosita Rica, Ciudad Bendita and La Vida Entera. Four years ago, Padrón started an interview radio show, "Los Imposibles" where he interviews people who are "imposible to ignore". Last May, "Los Imposibles" jumped to  television, keeping the structure of these conversations that have also become a  literary success, because each season of interviews is published by  Editorial Santillana: Los Imposibles: Conversaciones al Borde de un Micrófono, Los Imposibles 2 and Los Imposibles 3.

Edgar Ramírez began his acting career in Venezuelan films. In the very successful telenovela Cosita Rica, he personified Cacique, whose love story with identical twins Verónica and María Suspiro obsessed the Venezuelan audience to the point of eclipsing  the protagonists' love story. A few months after the end of Cosita Rica, Ramírez broke into Hollywood with Tony Scott's film Dominó with Keira Knightley and Mickey Rourke. Afterwards, he participated in The Bourne Ultimatum with Matt Damon, Vantage Point with William Hurt and Ché Part 1 with  Benicio del Toro. He's currently finishing shooting a film with famous French director Olivier Assayas in which he stars as the terrorist that marked the lives of many during the 70s and 90s: Illich Ramírez Sánchez, known as "Carlos, the Jackal".

Unfortunately, the interview is in Spanish and without sub-titles. I still hope you can enjoy some of it:

Option 1 (Megavideo):


Option 2 (Viddler):

FROM TELENOVELAS TO HOLLYWOOD

Venezuelan actors Edgar Ramírez and Marisa Román as Cacique and Verónica in telenovela Cosita Rica (2003-2004). (Pictures courtesy of Dani)



Edgar Ramírez as Paz in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

It isn't the first time a Latin American actor's journey begins in telenovelas and continues in Hollywood. (See my post Telenovelas, actors and the celebrity factor). But it's still a remarkable development in an actor's career. One that should be celebrated.

Tomorrow, August 3, when The Bourne Ultimatum premieres in the U.S., Venezuelans will be particularly proud to know that Edgar Ramírez will share the screen with Matt Damon and other members of the cast in a film that will surely become a blockbuster. People who follow and enjoy telenovelas will rejoice too because, even though Edgar Ramírez had made several films before playing Cacique in Cosita Rica, his career really took off thanks to the exposure that the telenovela gave him:

The show's success was a turning point for Ramirez, who had acted in a few independent movies but had qualms about introducing himself as an actor.
"That show actually walked hand in hand with the country through one of the most confusing periods of its contemporary history," Ramirez recalled. "It got the highest ratings of anything in the last 15 years or something, so it was totally undeniable — I couldn't not call myself an actor. Everybody knew. I was on TV."
[Kendt, Rob (2007, July 22), "Edgar Ramirez, professional chameleon", Los Angeles Times]