Laura Madrueño (Madrid, 37 years old) switched from writing Telecinco news to the Cayos Cochinos. From the green background on which the El Tiempo clouds and sun maps are projected, to the beaches of Honduras. She was chosen to replace Lara Álvarez in Survivors, who spent eight years counting the adventures of the Honduran contestants. Madrueño, who is passionate about the sea and has a production company with which she has made documentaries to raise awareness of the need to take care of the seabed, has been at Informativos Telecinco since 2014, in addition to her collaborations in other areas of the chain . On February 21, he arrived in Honduras to completely change the third and become one of the visible faces of the channel’s reality star, with great hopes of conquering audiences. He answered the phone from Cayo Paloma last Friday after a busy Thursday gala for the team. In Honduras it was 9:30 am; in Spain, 4:30 p.m. It was his day off during the week.
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Questions. How did you get the suggestion to go to Survivors?
Answer. I was very shocked. It was something that many colleagues and friends had told me for many years, you have to go to Survivors. It wasn’t a specific goal for me either, it came naturally, but I was shocked and the challenge was great. I left a one square meter set on an open air beach with lots of cameras, in a different format, a reality show, and this reality show, the quintessential reality show on the channel. I wanted to try to entertain, I wanted to laugh on TV. It’s a program that’s very tailored to me, with that part of the adventure, the sea… So I’m very grateful to the channel for trusting me, but also very scared. I’m working very hard and the first couple of weeks were very, very hard but I’m very happy.
Q Did you talk to Lara Álvarez before you went to Honduras? Did he give you any advice?
R I spoke to Lara, she was very generous and loving to me. He told me not to worry I was going to be on a great team and now I realize how lucky I was because the team is brutal and I’ve learned so much in two weeks it seems , as if it had lasted three months. He told me to have fun and I think that’s one of the best pieces of advice.
I wanted to try to entertain, I wanted to laugh on TV
Q How to prepare to introduce survivors in Honduras?
R With a lot of training I swim almost every day and with a personal trainer. Here I train a lot more, every morning at least half an hour a day for strength training. Physical preparation is essential to endure a strong back.
Laura Madrueño (left) preparing for “Survivientes”.
Q And for the mental pressure, the comparisons and the expectations?
R You are never well prepared for that. I already knew that the comparisons would be there, after eight years it was already Lara’s program, we no longer remembered Raquel Sanchez Silva, Eva González, Paula Vázquez… The viewer was used to Lara, who was brilliant. On the day of the first gala, I felt like a Roman before jumping into the arena. Much fear, much dizziness, much nervousness. I felt like my heart would explode.
Q What surprised you most about the program when you experience it from the inside?
R All. When I arrived at the beach on the first day of rehearsals, you can see that you don’t get what’s going on here from home. On the beach, on gala days, more than 100 people, a huge array of cameras, everything is moving at great speed… It’s magical. It’s a film production, I’m not exaggerating.
Q Can you describe a day in your life in Honduras?
R Yesterday was gala day. I get up early, around 6:30-7:00 am, and the first thing I do is exercise for half an hour. I have breakfast, get ready and then warm up my voice. I prepare the scripts for the game and the day. At 9:00 am I take the helicopter that takes us to the key and once we got there we drove to the palapa [uno de los espacios donde se desarrollan las galas de los jueves en Honduras] to rehearse, then we rehearse the games and in between I study the scripts. Here we don’t use a cue [la pantalla donde los presentadores leen el texto en algunos programas] Because there isn’t enough light near a camera to see it, I have to learn the script. Around 1:00 p.m. I eat and go to do my make-up, my hair and get dressed. And at 3:00 p.m., your 10:00 p.m., the gala begins. Depending on the day, there are more relaxed stages for me, but that was a very intense night. Around 7:00 p.m. we were done, I take a shower, remove my make-up, eat dinner and at 10:00 p.m. I was in bed exhausted. And that’s yes one day and no another. And what remains between the galas, we work on the script for the next day, the game, the dates, the content… Every afternoon we meet with the editors who are on the beach and tell us how the contestants are doing .
The production control of ‘Survivors’, with Laura Madrueño on her screens.
Q And do you have free time?
R Today Friday is my day off. I’m in the key and now I’m going to take my fins, mask and tube to throw myself in the sea for a while. On Fridays I stay here to spend the day which is very relaxed, I love snorkeling. I stay alone but a quiet day is necessary and try to switch off a bit. The head must be clipped.
Q He said he’s had rough days with that boot. In what sense?
R The day I had the most dizziness was the first I was allowed to rehearse on the playground, I felt completely lost. I didn’t know how to move with so many cameras… I had to learn to move and communicate in this space. Then you get used to the heat, the humidity, your body feels like it’s been crushed. I’ll always remember that day because I said, ‘My God, I’m not going to make this.’ I worked tirelessly during the week of rehearsals to get to the premiere with all the strength we needed. I work a lot on the voice, the tones, and I didn’t want it to remind me of the news or previous presenters. I’ve watched this show many times with other presenters, other survivors from other countries… to refine the tone and get closer to what we were looking for. In the beginning I was more inclined towards the tone of El Tiempo, informative… and that has to be worked on in order to shape it.
I work a lot on the voice, the tones, and I didn’t want it to remind me of the news or previous presenters
Q So you’re looking at the screen to try and improve?
R Self criticism is very important. I do it myself and am very meticulous about my voice, tone of voice, how I move, attitude, how I interact with the participants… There are many changes for me and I think it’s a good exercise to do to yourself see understand how it works.
A rehearsal of “Survivors” in Honduras with Laura Madrueño.
Q To all this is added the pressure of viewer data, and even more so Telecinco’s star program.
R Not only do I have the pressure of comparison and that people see you in a completely different format, but also the audience that is always there. But here the team doesn’t feel that pressure, what they conveyed to me is that on our part the job is being done very well, there’s a brutal demand. This certainty that we leave our skin so that everything will be fine is real. Then sometimes the audience doesn’t need you, but if we have a good conscience that we gave everything, we can only hope that people will follow us and have a good time.
Q Are you watching the hearings?
R Yes, I look at them and they congratulate me when they tell me. I didn’t understand much about that, so far my program hasn’t been that dependent on the audience, but I know how television works and it’s important to me that people see us more or less now. The challenge is to win over the audience that Survivors has always had, or to surpass them.
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