“Without great goals, without great emotions, as if they were waiting to cross at a traffic light that is always yellow.” This is how Pepón Montero (Madrid, 59 years old) and Juan Maidagán (San Sebastián, 52 years old) define the main couple in her new series Little Faith. The minds of these creators, in which Monty Python, Rafael Azcona or Ren and Stimpy coexist in harmony, have concocted fifteen-minute episodes consisting of choral stories of ordinary people that end up making your jaws ache with laughter. A balm for tense times that are not lacking in the great debates of our time: from a father who somatizes his homophobia and gets sick every time his daughter gets married, to a couple crisis in which the woman is the one who asks the big questions. “We are not looking for the bright one, but we are in the world and deep inside, with couples the aunts are almost always right,” explains Montero between laughter.
Questions. Do you think politicians who speak to people of little faith get more votes?
Juan Maidagan: I completely understand people like our protagonists who get stuck and don’t know what to do in complicated situations. These characters make you think how close many people are to the brink of collapse. All these people held up by four sticks.
Pepon Montero: What I don’t know is whether they represent a social majority. When we created them, there was no political intent. We wanted to find two very boring characters just so we could get them through the most absurd situations possible.
Q In the series you see many very different models of family and living together. Your own real life living unit is bizarre…
JM: Yes, we share a very large apartment and he lives next door with his wife. [Mapa Pastor, montadora de la serie] and his daughter and I to another. There are those who freak out here, but maybe people in Iceland wouldn’t freak out so much.
PM: I think when my daughter was little she would look at both of us and ask herself, “Who’s going to take me to the bathroom?”
JM: Once, some of the girl’s friends came and started opening doors around the house, and when they got to my area, they said, “There’s a man.” [Risas]
Q Did you intentionally try to include so many culture clashes and identity debates?
JM: There was no such calling, but ultimately it is situations that we have experienced that have led us there.
PM: The story of Festus the migrant, for example, is based on a man I hired as a butler for a year to give him roles. Although we also laugh about that on the show, about the white male complex…
Q In one of the chapters they joke with a portrait of Franco in a very disrespectful way. Were you afraid to take that step?
PM: None at all. Note that this is a typical vaudeville situation that ends up taking on a political meaning, although it may not have it. But I hope that someone is offended.
Q The world has changed a lot since Camera Café they wrote. Are there many things from back then that you couldn’t have done today?
PM: I’ve had a policy of no harm ever since I was little. You gotta make it hard for bastards, but I don’t like cruel humor.
JM: In fact, the Camera Café scripts were scripts that came from Italy and that we supposedly had to adapt with the team. [Álex Mendibil, Santiago Aguilar, Jorge Riera y Álvaro López Quintana] but they were terrible. There was a character who hit his wife! Sure, we said, but how can we easily customize that? This needs to be completely crossed out and make his grace another.
PM: Although they asked us to adapt, we changed them all. They didn’t like it at all, but by the time they realized it, the series was already a success.
Q Do they argue a lot?
JM: We struggle a lot with the assemblies. Our paths crossed in the kitchen and we didn’t speak to each other. But without resentment, it lasts us two days at most.
PM: Well, as John Cleese said, he’s a rabbit, he wants to get to the point quickly and I’m a tortoise: I’m really enjoying the trip.
Q Imagine you are at a party like in one of the chapters where the modernists and influencers are on one side and the villains on the other. Which side do they fall on?
PM: In one of the villains. I have no doubt. But no. We’ve always been far more interested in someone who can tell us how the trout is caught than in those involved in cultural intrigue.
Q Do you think you missed the opportunity to be like this or vice versa?
PM: We’re not your typical names. We always had to carry things ourselves to get them out, but they came out because we never stopped looking for laughs in the end.
JM: We’re still renting or sharing a flat, but we want to share things we like.
Receive the TV newsletter
All the news from channels and platforms, with interviews, news and analyses, as well as recommendations and criticism from our journalists
REGISTRATION
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits