All the intimacy of “Coppola, the representative”, told by Juan Minujín, Ariel Winograd and Guillermo Coppola himself

“Silence”, asks Ariel Winograd to give action to a shot that will never be repeated. Everything seems oiled on set Coppola, the representativethe new Star+ series premiering on March 15, which with Juan Minujín as the protagonist is based on the frenetic public life of Diego’s former coach Armando Maradona.

But the successful sequence, which recreates a typical Neapolitan cellar with Eighties winks in a bar in Buenos Aires, doesn’t just have “Wino”, its director and showrunner, behind the monitor. “Mine is a life of work, love and respect. I’ve experienced practically all of them. And this was missing. The truth is that they put “All meat on the grill,” says Guillermo Coppola himself.today a radio man, present on the set where the sixth week of filming which began in 2022 ends.

With triggering anecdotes as a bastion, none of the six episodes – designed cinematically – are narratively or visually similar to the previous one.

“The reference of this scene was casinoFrom Martin Scorsese. Starting from an anecdote, we tell it visually with the camera. We worked with a lot of freedom and it took two months to edit each chapter,” says Winograd, in a dramatic comedy tone and with books by Emanuele Diez, summarizes the plot as a great love story. “A story of two who love each other. Why Coppola, when he wasn’t with Maradona, was Maradona,” he underlines.

“It’s not just champagne and throwing butter at the ceiling. The life of a transparent character will be shown, with strengths and weaknesses that have become popular through others. Because actually There were hundreds of footballers before Diego. And some other transcendent girl in my relationships” adds Guillermo.

But it is not the real Coppola, but the actor who plays him in the fiction, Juan Minujín, who is the protagonist of the scene: a sort of monologue without pauses – or technical cuts – where, around a round table with a majority of men, The figure of El Marginal surprises gesturally and physically in the picturesque role.

More Coppola than Coppola

“More Guillote than Guillote,” mutters Coppola (the real one) after general applause that welcomes him to the spot. “I just need the perfume,” Minujín replies, in conversation with Clarionshares the feeling of having him in the front row between takes.

“Maybe with someone else it would be more intimidating. But what Guillermo has is that he is very open and hospitable. He always wants you to feel comfortable. He is a charmer who you love and captures your attention. He nor he had much visibility beyond being Maradona’s representative. And the truth is that he did not impose any restrictions on us. At a certain point I thought about interviewing the people around him, former companions, but I focused my attention on Coppola,” admits the protagonist, who had more than one meeting at Guillermo’s house.

“I saw it inside The marginal and I loved it. There was quick chemistry. In fact, we met in Europe with our respective families and I also invited him to my birthday. There I already met “Guillote”, because he was no longer Juan,” says Coppola.

“You can take a biopic, create a character and turn him into a doll, but I try not to do that. It’s still an interpretation a human character that is not an imitation,” features Minujín in a gray wig and an arsenal of cigarettes that he lights up and puts out to set the stage for the 1980s era of the day.

Which also includes the Italian actress Anna Favella – already remembered for playing Luis Miguel’s mother in the hit Netflix series Mónica Antonópulos (as “Yuyito” González) which add up at the end of the day.

“I love change. When I played against Marcela (Basteri), the Argentine fans wrote to me all the time. And they still write to me,” he says. Favellla, already camouflaged in her new skin: Coppola’s Italian secretary in the glorious 80sunder the fictitious name of Doménica.

Without the blonde hair that associated her with the Sun King’s mother, Favella manages to go unnoticed during her fleeting visit to Buenos Aires, where she filmed an Italian series ten years ago (Rebel Land) for RAI and I learned Spanish by ear. “Coming back here after so many years was a gift. There is a family atmosphere that energizes me,” he said Clarion.

Known for having recorded previous rehearsals to arrive on set more prepared, Winograd celebrates the dynamic achieved with Minujín that does not culminate in the filming. “When everyone is in their own situation, we continue to exchange messages.

“Wino” is a very alert and playful director, always looking for little things,” says Juan who, regardless of the screen that evokes him, immerses himself completely in the depths of the role in question.

“What I look for in a character is that he can reflect something of the human sensibility and condition,” he says of his underlying enthusiasm. “Even if I made a music video, if the project didn’t have an aspect that showed something of the soul of the character, I wouldn’t know where I stood or how to do it.”

More than a year after filming and installing the “Coppola costume” – which required at least an hour and a half of preparation – Minujín, now with grown hair, admits: “It took a long time because he had a long post-production. In fact, with “Wino” we have already done another series together. But unlike other trials, here there was a very intense coexistence with the character, who is always present in all the shots. Once finished, we had to clean it little by little. In fact, the first thing I had to tackle after Coppola was to lower the decibels.”

Fun and also darkness

The mix of recreated and real scenes (Coppola’s house was used as an exterior location) is another nostalgic ’90s revival. “We shot in El Cielo (a trendy album at the time) which is now called Mosca and we simulate Mau Mau, in a club called Cloche”, says Winograd who, in a tragicomic key, “because for me comedy is always dramatic”, will also tell the hardest moments that the emblem of the jet set has faced over the years ’90.

“On the one hand he is very funny, but at the same time his life has undergone very pronounced dramatic changes. With darker parts like the prison chapter“, says the chameleonic Minujín – who among his records played a young Jorge Bergoglio – alluding to the remembered Coppola case.

From more to less, Juan’s aesthetic characterization required countless costume tests that even included a fictitious nose and pear that were ultimately discarded.

“It was almost like another movie! We have photos that we share today as memes. There were also a set of teeth, but we were only left with the wig, which arrived a week before filming began. That depending on what it was, it represented each emotional phase, “reveals today” Wino “and Juan joins him, selected among other candidates, after a Photoshop test in which he had already outlined the resemblance of him.

“I had references of 100 pages per chapter. Of every car, of every ring of the era to be portrayed. There is a lot of world behind it and spectacular work by Natalia, the artistic director and the characters of “Loli” and Marcos”.

Already with the published series that took them on a fleeting trip to Naples (and, in Juan’s case, to learn basic Italian with private lessons) the Minujín-Winograd duo agrees that the best anecdotes, which they still laugh out loud at, remained outside the set.

“Naples was chaos, it’s very difficult to film there, but the series had to have closure like this. It is a city that Maradona breathes and we shot in a very guerrilla way because we had little light and a lot to film in 4 days. “They were the best and worst shots of my life,” decrees the director.

Given the possible controversies, which tend to fall around Maradona’s environment, they remove that weight and explain that the figure of Maradona does not appear on the scene.

“It’s not a series that seeks controversy. It goes the other way. This is what happens to a guy who has all the problems of being the representative of the best player in history. For me it is the representative of the 90s that is the main basis of what we are doing. A decade full of excesses, of every kind, of joys and sadness”, defines Winograd.

And with eyes closed, the authentic “Guillote” confirms it. “I trust. Trusting has been good and bad for me. But do you know what I liked? That when they said: this person will film it, we will consult him first. What they didn’t do with me in the Maradona series. And they missed it. With Diego we were Starsky and Hutch. We had fun in our own way. Maybe crazy, but without hurting anyone. And there’s good energy in this series. The point is: good vibes, good milk. I had my period, I know how I behaved and the answer is in the street,” he says.

The main cast is completed with Joaquin Ferreira (Poli Armentano), Maria del Cerro (Karina Rabolini), Adabel Guerrero (Alejandra Pradon), Alan Sabbagh, Augustine Sullivan, Santiago Bande, Mayte Rodriguez, Gerardo Romano, Maria Marull AND Federico Barone (Daniele Scioli).