Gaspar Offenhenden’s hedgehogs have no possible comparison. A permanent reason for praise, they do not respond to the Maradonian analogy, nor to the Valderrama or Bruno Mars model. Symmetrical curls and unique hydration that were the first thing he had to give as an offering: “For being Fito Páez they dyed me black and one night I got up to go to the bathroom, I saw myself in the mirror and I was scared”, to confess. “I thought it was someone else. It was fun.”
With a German surname, 12 years old, resident on the border between Belgrano and Colegiales, fan of Ferro Carril Oeste, talkative, son of a lawyer and a business executive, plays the transverse flute and spends most of his life in a school double-edged elemental.
In Love after love (Netflix) amazes how little Páez who lives in Rosario raised by his father, grandmother, aunt and sprouts as an artist from La Trova Rosarina. Despite his young age, She was able to make flesh of that maternal absence. Fito has already said it in front of the journalist Leila Guerriero: “If you turn down the volume and you see the boy singing, there is a boy who says mom, mom, mom. Remove the texts, put them on mom: it works the same. How my mother is calling me to death in my self-destructive fits.”
If FP’s childhood was crossed by that wound, that of her little Offenhenden seems to be the other side, an oasis of maternal presence. The idea of being an actor came about two years ago, after seeing Adam Sandler’s films. He asked his mother to enroll him in acting classes and take him to castings. “Many people sent the notice to my mother and told her ‘your child must do it’. And I went and I stayed,” she simplifies.
-Did you know Fito before the series?
-Yes, because he had been attending a music workshop since he was three years old and we played songs there and he was a widely listened to artist. In the workshop I played the flute, but I also knew how to play the piano, not songs with two hands, but with two fingers, I knew where the notes were.
-How was the moment you found out you had won the role?
-They called my mom and dad and didn’t tell me until two days later because they couldn’t believe it. It was precisely in a match that Argentina and Brazil were playing for the qualifiers. They were 0-0, nothing was happening, a bit bored, and they told me the news and I exploded. All emotions together at the same time. After that, I had a coach who helped me manage the character. He played me Sui Generis, Charly, what Fito was listening to. And I had a piano teacher who taught me about finger placement.
-What did you have to do in the casting?
-They had given me a message and then they made me do an improvised scene in which after hitting a boy I tell my father “I could have killed him”. It was loud enough and I cried. I got excited. And I said to my mom, “I think I did right.” Before sending the photos, I did a zoom casting because we were in a pandemic. In that scene Fito was with his father and they were arguing because he wanted to go to the beach and not to the mountains. The scene did not stay.
-What happens to you when the camera turns on?
-As if you get into character and you can’t get out. I really like.
-How did you imagine that Fito boy was?
-I thought about it more or less as a boy who grew up with the sadness that his mother died at eight months. And you try to connect with your mother through the piano.
– Were you able to meet him?
-Personally I didn’t know him, but I went to the Movistar Arena and it was fantastic. I was that April 1st when the trailer was shown before the recital and I appeared on the screen. Everyone cheered and I was shocked.
-What would you say to him if you were in front of him?
-Fito: Did you like my work?
-Did they only show you parts of the series?
-I’ve seen it twice, almost all parts. The part I couldn’t see was covered over my eyes.
-The most difficult scene to film?
-The one that Fito eats the fruits and could neither breathe nor speak. It was my last scene, I took advantage of the sadness and in the first take we shot I started crying and coughing and everything was resolved.
-Do you like this fame thing?
I like it, but it doesn’t always happen. They may recognize me, but everything is normal after that.
-You entered the world of work at a very young age. Do you think about what to do with the money you earn?
-I’m saving up, but I don’t care much.
“Gaspar was a long-awaited child. Since he was a child he carried out activities related to music, we did a workshop for mothers and children, he really liked being watched, but being an actor was not what I expected”. says Veronica Gaibisso, his mother, linked to the world of Law and raised with the melodies of Páez.
He recalls his graduate trip “by the nose” when the group nostalgically embraced to the rhythm of Brilliant on the mic. She would never have imagined being united in this way with Rosario. “My son asked me to do theater and I told him to continue with the music workshop, that everything was not possible. I took him to the casting for a first series, private, which has not yet aired, and in which Gaspar has a stake, so much so that they would have said no and it occurred to him to study programming”, series. “I see acting as a space of happiness for him.”
A diligent student who says he gets “frustrated” if he doesn’t get good grades, “Gaspi”, as most call him, basically loves “English and history lessons”. He defines himself as “extroverted, with a desire to make friends, to meet new people”. In football he prefers “to be a defender”, but his body needs “more than one sport”: Practice handball, tennis and basketball.
Although Sandler is on the podium of his favorite “colleagues”, there are three surnames fighting head to head, “Darín, Francella, Campi”. With Martín Campilongo, his father in fiction, he is now united by a friendship: “He was my role model. Oh, and did I tell you how I met the protagonist, Iván Hochman?”
“I do theater at Nora Moseinco and he teaches there. Once I had to make up for a lesson, because I had missed it and I went to one where the teacher was Iván. I joined that class and soon after we met in the producer ‘It’s me who makes Fito great, I don’t know, you remember me, he told me. He’s very loving.”
“Fito’s favorite song? 11 and 6!”, There is no doubt that as a finishing touch to the seventh grade he will soon travel to Córdoba with his classmates.
Blue’s older brother Little Offenhenden will never forget him the summer of 2022 where he had to hide from the sun: “My part was filmed on vacation and the production people made rules for me. I had to have a white face, not get burned, I went to the club in a long-sleeved shirt and a cap,” explains the editorial team and receiving congratulations from every desk. If they ask you to imagine the future, say a wish in a low voice: “When I grow up I could be an actor, but also a journalist”.
Source: Clarin
