Pilar Gamboa: an actress torn between success, motherhood and mourning for her mother

For two months the actress Pilar Gamboa has been going through one of the most intense moments of his life: in July his second daughter, Ana, was born and all that happiness was clouded, just a month later, by the death of her mother. In the middle, 30 nights with my exthe film in which she stars alongside Adrián Suar has become a box office success that has already surpassed 700,000 admissions.

In addition, Pilar Gamboa is preparing the return to the theater of another event on the bill in recent years, Petróleo, together with the actresses Lava Skin Group, Laura Paredes, Elisa Carricajo and Valeria Correawith whom they will perform in five shows at the Metropolitan Sura, starting Wednesday 14 September, and then on tour in Spain.

“It’s all very strange. I’m in a moment in my life where I don’t know what to think. I give the breast to the baby and I cry and suddenly I look at her and her tears flow. I miss my mother and at the same time something comforts me in this bond with my daughter. But I don’t know how to do it, I explain to him that I’m sad but who knows … “, she says.

What belongs to each one

-How do you get over this special moment?

-I think about Anita and the story of each person, what each person is born with. The first month we were calm, but then my mother died and it was terrible. All the procedures that need to be done when someone dies, in the midst of pain, is very complicated and bizarre. and she had to live it because I take it everywhere with me.

-And then you have another two-year-old son …

-Yes, Manu is small and something else happened with him, to tell him ‘Grandma Meche isn’t there, but she’s a star now. ‘ Y he accepted it and looks at the sky and believes in it. And in a way I cling to that too. I mean, fiction will always save us: It feels broken and I don’t know how much it helps to play the character of joy for children, because they realize it.

On the other hand, very good things are happening to you on a professional level, like the success of the film and the return of the show. I guess it will be very mixed feelings.

-I have an image of myself, returning at night from my mother’s house, in the car, crying and seeing the city papered with my face on movie posters, which premiered a week after my mother died.

-How sad, he couldn’t see her.

-No, I was very excited. What would you have done there? he told me, she was my number one fan. The day of the premiere my partner accompanied me, he stayed with the girl further back and I saw the film next to Suar. But it was all very surreal: I was thinking of my mother, I felt that my dress would be stained with milk, something hormonal and uncontrollable and, at the same time, I thought,‘I played that scene in a strange way’.

-When time passes, maybe you can find meaning in this painful and special moment.

Yes, it’s all weird now. Grief and childbirth together are difficult to deal with. Luckily I have the couple’s refuge with Ingu (N.de la R: the playwright and director Ignacio Sánchez Mestre), which is very present. But the system prompts you to type: “Tyou have to be strong “,” you have to be fine“. Yup, I am strong, but I also need to release sadness and pain. It is not automatic.

-There is anxiety and denial to cover up the pain.

– Uh, a lot. One believes it a little, but it’s not good, sometimes you just can’t do it and cry.

How did you imagine the return to the theater

-I suppose your return to the theater will have a very special function, with all this emotional baggage.

– Absolutely not, especially because my mother was a fan of it Petroleum. For the girls it is also a blow, they will miss a mother of Lava Skins. She has been a great companion to all of them and they are broken too. So it’s cool to come back.

-Surely it will change a lot of things about the characters, right?

– I feel like I’m someone else. For me, the death of a mother is something terrible, no matter how old you are and whatever relationship you are in. My mother was Spanish, Basque, and she always cooked for us, she was very present, attentive to details. of the newspaper. That lack is felt, I think you have never been prepared for this.

-Decidedly. What things now help you navigate better right now?

-I have a very rich inner world, a lot worked by psychoanalysis, but I don’t know if I am very emotionally intelligent. I’m 42 and there is something about forty that seems a bit hinged, at least symbolically, like middle age.

– Now you have added to your career closely related to theater and cinema, this film by Suar which is more related to the popular. How do you choose your projects?

–I am not moved by prejudice, but rather by desire, I choose for the characters, for the challenge and the risk. Whoever produces or directs them comes later. Obviously, economically you also live on this, but I feel quite privileged and have done two or three things that I did not like, only out of economic necessity.

– Were you surprised that they called you?

– They called me from the production house Patagonik. And I thought, why me? Because there are other better known and very good actresses, and I said, I’m sure Valeria Bertuccelli has said no or she can’t. Although I had done things in Polka, I had never acted with Adrián, much less in his directorial debut.

La Loba, a character tailored for her

-Is the character very attractive, did he generate fears or doubts?

-As soon as I read the script, I liked it a lot, it made me laugh and it moved me. And it felt like a super challenge, to do a comedy with a character who has mental health issues. I am not a methodical actress, I did not lock myself in a psychiatric hospital for a month to prepare the character, but I talked to the psychiatrists and then I indulged in the playfulness of acting.

– The problem is how to do it without disrespecting people who suffer from a similar situation.

-Of course. I am against the art of becoming politically correct, it seems to me that art must always keep thinking, but I am not interested in laughing at madness. Also, I’ve had close cases of family and friends related to mental health issues, so the topic has never been foreign to me.

Did this give you more tools to tackle your character, the Loba?

-Yes, because I remember that in certain situations you could laugh with delirium, but at the same time see the suffering eyes of that person. And that crossover was what I wanted to achieve in the film and Adrián agreed. the wolf is a vulnerable character, with many edges and very unpredictableas well as madness.

And what exactly is scary?

Because you can’t control it. The character also had to generate empathy, so it was really difficult. The good thing is that Suar gave me all the freedom to workand knows how to put together good teams that you feel safe working with.

-After the pandemic, the mental health issue became more visible in general, right?

-I think so, somewhat covered situations have come to light. That’s why it was very nice for me to shoot the film, and also to show what happens with a person’s entire environment in those circumstances.

-What repercussions did you have for this character?

-I received many messages on Instagram, you don’t know how many, what they thank me for being identified or because they can talk to someone about it, from the movie. It’s wonderful.

-Do you think you gained popularity from this character?

-I don’t know what it means to be known, I think there is also an attitude. I am half devastated by the road, beyond what happens to me now, I always put on my jacket and look down. My face often sounds familiar, but they don’t know my name.

– They saw you once, but they can’t remember where from.

– As it is, I’m one of them. Some see you, you look familiar but that’s it. But I think it’s great, it’s great when someone tells you something, but even if you go unnoticed. For me, acting is what touched me in life as something else could have touched me and that’s why I don’t think about the rest.

-And now that you shared moments with Suar, what was it like?

-They recognize me more, but the doubt remains. ‘This will be?’. One day we went to the cinema, without warning, to see the film and the reactions of the audience. And when he finished, everyone was crazy, talking to him as if they knew him, as if he was part of their family.

-As for “Petróleo”, who traveled from San Martín to Corrientes Street, how do you deal with the new stage?

-They have been together for many years with Piel de Lava, more than twenty years, and what happens is what has materialized from so much work. We fight, we argue, as in any group, but it is a web of love, of a project that continues to unite the four of us, despite everything that is happening: couples, children, everyone’s work. We rely on each other and what happens to one affects everyone else.

-They know a lot and have already generated their own dynamics.

– We know the miseries of each, We’ve been together in the best and worst times and during creation it is very strong. Everything happens in an anarchic way, because we don’t have a boss, but at the same time everything is very responsible. The group waits. For the desire to be and to create. Therefore, it is a total joy for everyone to get back to work.

-Now a first tour with Petroleum for Spain, what are the expectations?

-It intrigues me a lot how this proposal will fall there, we are nervous and anxious. Actually, also because I have to travel with the baby and I don’t know if I’m such a cool mom. Luckily the girls will help me, we are like family. Everything is so new. My character, Carli, she has already gone on stage pregnant and will now go out after giving the baby the breast. That time will be good.

wd