Ernesto Laguardia slipped so much into the skin of one of his most famous characters that he was emotionally touched off screen. (Photo by Jaime Nogales/Medios y Media/Getty Images)
BY Alejandro Peregrino-. When he learned that “Rómulo Ancira” – the villain from “Corona de Lágrimas” – was going to be murdered, Ernesto Laguardia was so sad that he wept inconsolably on the following nights after his death on screen.
It’s not that he doesn’t deserve it; In fact, it was hard to imagine any other ending for this ruthless and dirty lawyer, capable of hurting or killing anyone who crossed his path. But the character was so important to Laguardia that his ending weighed on him a lot more than he thought.
“I didn’t want to die, I have to admit that. I said to him: ‘Güero (José Alberto Castro, the producer), güero, why does he have to die? I don’t want him to die! Die!’”
“The day I ‘died’ I cried at night. My wife told me if I was okay and I said ‘I don’t know’ and she hugged me. I cried but was desperate and it had to do with being in your situation. “Character and fun, living different lives and different deaths is the father of acting,” he said.
“Rómulo Ancira” was so bad and Ernesto Laguardia’s acting so good that the villain ended up being a lovable antagonist.
“I miss him a little but you have to bury him or you’d go mad. I have challenged myself to be miserable but to be worshiped. I leaned on someone who was a rascal, he was his mother’s son, but “You adored him,” he said.
Who was Romulo Ancira?
Known for taking part in the first season of “Corona de Lágrimas”, this character rose to fame as the major antagonist of “Corona de Lágrimas 2”, the sequel to the melodrama in which he put his heart and soul into destroying the Chavero family.
The “Licenciado Ancira” was himself a screenplay villain. But “Güero” Castro – who knows Ernesto very well – allowed him to improvise in many scenes, especially those in which he shared the set with Victoria Ruffo, who played the character of “Refugio”.
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“It was very tiring,” the actor admitted, because you have to own the character to enjoy it and be able to say things the way he would say them. They gave me permission to improvise a lot, sometimes the directors are very sticky to “lyrics”, but then I had a chance to improvise once and it was a very good scene,” he confessed.
“Then Güero gave me permission to improvise and a lot of the scenes were like that, and working with Vicky was a pleasure because she answered me,” he says.
His integration into the character of the “Licenciado Ancira” was so great that Ernesto had to make great efforts not to “take” him home. More than once, he recalled with a laugh, his wife Patricia Rodríguez suffered the consequences.
“You have to come home and take off your character costume, be with yourself for a moment, and then start playing the role of father and husband. You have to do it, because imagine that ‘Rómulo Ancira’ arrives at your house right now.” Yes, it happened to me! (…) Suddenly I screamed Patricia! and she said to me, “But what’s the matter with you, are you alright?” she recalled, laughing.