Paco Cabezas: “In ‘The Gypsy Bride’ every episode is better than the last and at the end there is a big surprise”

“La Novia Gitana” was the first novel published by Carmen Mola, the pseudonym behind which Jorge Diaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero hid, starting a detective literary saga that will publish its fourth installment in 2022. This year , in particular On September 25, the adaptation of the first of the books will premiere on Atresplayer Premium, with Paco Cabezas behind the scenes. and Nerea Barros as the complicated Inspector Elena Blanco. As part of the San Sebastian Festival, now in its 70th edition, the platform presented the series with the premiere of the first episode and a press conference with the entire team. There we were able to interview the director and the actress before seeing the chapter:

Being such a well-known novel, those who have read the book may think they already know everything that will happen in ‘The Gypsy Bride’, but Cabezas promises us some surprises: “It’s true to what has to be true, which is to say, it follows a storyline to hook people, but we allowed ourselves to play and get a little creative. “ At the press conference he spoke about the adaptation as “a seed that we planted and from which many branches have grown”; while in the interview I use a metaphor scale to encourage the audience to see it in its entirety: “The series is like a ladder that climbs. Each episode, in my personal opinion, it’s better than the last one and there’s a surprise ending. I invite everyone to watch episode 1 until they reach 8, because I can assure you that they will be surprised and won over. “

In the role of Blanco is Barros, who, like Kate Winslet in “Mare of Easttown”, plays a policewoman who is not made up and whose family drama is a shadow chasing her. The actress describes her time in the series as “the biggest challenge of my career” since the inspector and herself have little in common: “Elena is all head and I’m all emotion, she gets emotional when everything falls apart”.

Although we can think of film and television as two very different formats, Cabezas assures that at the moment of truth there are not many differences (“it’s like making eight movies”) and describes the feeling of being on set “like writing a poem in a fire or painting a picture on a roller coaster”. Something very important to him, he tells us, was looking after the visual aesthetics, because we have already seen too many American FBI series where they appear. “The same clichés, the same machines … Getting to get him here and make him real was the challenge.” To give it a unique personality, the director used colors as another language: “Everything in the series is in blue, brown, ocher, yet there are no flashy colors. There are only two that catch the eye, the white of the wedding dress and the red of the blood. It is a job done so that as a spectator you enter an apparently realistic world, but in which every detail is taken care of “.

Of course, while knowing the plot and aesthetics, everything also resonates with “Top of the Lake”, “Marcella”, “La Caza” or the Baztán Trilogy “, Barros points out that “Elena Blanco is Elena Blanco and there is something very authentic that the whole series has: it’s a lot from here, with some twists in the script and wonderful narrative.”

The gypsy representation

“‘The Gypsy Bride’ is a fleshly sister of what ‘Goodbye’ is“, Cabezas tells us, referring to his latest feature film, “because it is a story told with real characters where flamenco is very important, where the gypsy characters are played by gypsy actors, where everything is true”. Subsequently, at the press conference, the director wanted to underline how proud he was of having had gypsy actors and actresses both for the leading roles and for the extras, because it is something that, according to him, “it has never been done before.” He then invited Moreno Borja to the stage, who plays Moisés, the father of the two murdered young women in the series. The actor shared the director’s enthusiasm and shared an anecdote about the shoot to exemplify how he had earned the team’s trust: “What amazed me in the cemetery scene is that there was a loudspeaker and Paco said to me:” I will play in Camarón. ” I tell him “Paco no, they’ll kill us, it won’t work” and he “I’ll wear it” and it actually made everyone go in full. I have seen other films where the gypsy community appears and it is very difficult to achieve what Paco has achieved. He treated us with care and affection to make it real. ”

Cabezas had already told us about this scene, which is one of his favorites of the season: “We were told that at a gypsy funeral they sometimes lift the coffin with their hands. There are nice shots of a wave of people carrying it up to the niche. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever shot. And I shot Eva Green. “ While waiting for the international distribution to be as successful as “Veneno” or “Cardo” have already done, Atresplayer Premium will premiere one chapter a week starting September 25, with a first season consisting of 8 episodes in total. For Jose Antonio Anton, director of the contents of the platform, seeing it like this, just a little, without marathons, “makes the experience better” and will detain us two months after the investigation by Inspector Blanco and his team. During the presentation it was confirmed that they will produce a second season adapting the second novel, ‘The Purple Net’, but it has not been announced when it will be ready or if it will repeat with the whole team.