Four women in their thirties trying to be independent in the face of a state that doesn’t allow it. This is the storyline of Fácil, the new Movistar Plus+ series released on December 1st, starring Anna Castillo (Nati), Coria Castillo (Àngels), Natalia de Molina (Marga) and Anna Marchessi (Patri). “It’s the story of four cousins who live together,” he says in an interview with EL PAÍS Marchessi, who is making her debut as an actress. But Coria is the first to hit the mark: “When I read the script, I didn’t think they were functional.” The key to this fiction, according to her protagonists, is that disability takes a backseat. A plot that revolves around near-mandatory tubal ligations, the fear of being kicked out of the house and depriving one of the freedom to not sweep up the dust in the hours leading up to an inspection… all under supervision, often paternalistic. of the state.
The pilot chapter marks the path of a series that mixes the drama of the four young women with humor. The comic is an essential part of getting the message across, or so Coria, who is also a humorist, believes: “Giving up the comic means losing realism because not everything in life suffers. Even if the subject had been raised intensely, the viewer would have rejected it.” Marga, who has an intellectual disability, knows her body and desires to perfection, and apart from “showing her pussy in the first chapter,” like Anna told, she suffers from the order of the state to have her tubes tied off. “They’re women who are constantly being judged and who get the message that being who they are is wrong,” says De Molina. An argument against which Nati (Anna Castillo), who has a clear political and social will, repeatedly attacks: for her, they suffer a “legal kidnapping”, the same expression with which the actresses define the reality of the series.
Left to right: Anna Marchessi, Coria Castillo, Anna Castillo and Natalia de Molina in the Easy series.
They can’t sleep outside, smoke, bring their partners home, forget to go shopping one day or wipe the dust, have sexual relationships… “They’re restricted in every area of their lives,” Coria protests, “according to the premise um to protect them because of their disability, they don’t think about what to do with their abilities”. Despite this, De Molina defends that “they are not independent women, but they are free”. The actress would like her character to have freedom of mind: “She’s happy because she enjoys things that don’t cost money and that society finds very uncomfortable.” Although he also carries with him the sadness of realizing the problems this causes him.
It took the four actresses a month and a half to build the characters. They visited assisted living homes, Anna took dance classes and De Molina, who stars in the show’s most stunning transformation, visited the speech therapist to find Marga’s voice. “At first I thought I didn’t qualify, but something in my head opened up and my world expanded in such a way that all I saw were inspirations related to Marga,” she explains. The winner of the Goya for the best leading actress 2016 has found her muse: her name is Alma and she took over all the clichés (facial movements), absences and voice from her. A total change on screen that erases all traces of the actress to make way for a character who develops a life of her own and from which sentences slip through in the interview.
Meanwhile, Anna assures that creating the characters was difficult as no two disabilities are the same: “It was difficult to find someone who looked like Nati, but among the people we met I saw things Goya Lead Actress nominee Anna hasn’t stopped making women take up arms, and in this case, Nati’s disability is the most overwhelming of them all. “One thing about Nati makes me very jealous: not having a filter,” jokes the interpreter, who assures that it is indeed so, but reprimands him for being “nice”.
Àngels and Patri are the other two who complete the quartet. Coria has integrated into her life the way Àngels sees life: without prejudice and with peace. “It doesn’t ask why everyone is doing something, it lets them be free,” he explains. Patri is the hardest working and most sincere of the three, she has never broken a rule and demands it for the rest too. “He had to suppress his instincts to achieve what he has,” laments Marchessi. But the reality is that she leaves her hair down at the insistence of her sister Nati, who calls her “gently” or “capitalist”.
They were all afraid to face this series, “if it wasn’t like that, we’d be stupid,” blurts out De Molina to three nodding heads. With the exception of Anna Marchessi, all performers are normative people. The two veterans are clear: “We are actresses, our job is always to play someone else and show their reality.” De Molina also adds: “As women, we have a lot more in common with them than that, what separates us.” Marchessi downplays this fact because her process was the same as her colleagues’: “It’s not because I have a physical disability like mine that I had to work differently, Patri is in many ways the antipode of who I am .” Coria, who is making her acting debut in the role of Angels and still doesn’t know if she managed to play well, says: “Our maxim was to do it realistically and with great respect so that nobody would be.” could be offended by making a caricature”. It’s a touchy subject for De Molina because “it could be an injury to get a person with an intellectual disability to do some sex scenes,” although she hopes this series will open doors to people in the group who want to be actresses will open.
Controversy surrounded the premiere of the series. Cristina Morales, author of the book Easy Reading on which the series is based, wrote an opinion piece renaming fiction “Nazi” and complaining that Anna R. Costa, head of the project, sweetened the social services paper. For the actresses, the author has the right to complain, but she must understand that one sticks to the literary language and the other to the audiovisual language. “It’s frustrating that this is being compromised because we stop talking about what really matters: the characters. We give them a voice and want them to be heard,” Marchessi regrets. De Molina laments a little more: “We end up doing the most patriarchal and oldest thing in the world, which is facing two women when I celebrate them both.”
The path that the four protagonists will take remains open in the final chapter. Screaming “anarchy”, the young women embark on what appears to be their next adventure. Nati drives a stolen rickshaw and this is when they are at their most free.
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