✔️ 2022-12-07 08:31:30 – Paris/France.
A phone call ignited the spark between Álex and Bruno, the protagonists of smileybut also the beginning of the adventure of Carlos Cuevas (Montcada and Reixac, 1995) and Miki Esparbe (Manresa, 1983) in this Netflix story. Friends before the project, the first called the second to tell him that the Guillem Clua play they had both seen was going to be adapted into a series, and they were so excited that they ended up directing the casting. That's why we're not surprised to find them side by side on the other side of the Zoom screen.
Carlos (who became a phenomenon thanks to Merli) and Mike (night kings, The innocent) They respectively embody Álex, a sociable and hedonistic waiter, and Bruno, a cerebral architect with glasses, who, despite all these differences, have one thing in common: they want to find love. We chatted with them both about what it was like to wear smiley on TV 10 years after the script became a theatrical sensation.
How did you get the project? smiley and what did you like about him?
Carlos Cuevas: The project came to us by the conventional method, by casting, with several rounds of separate ways and then a final confrontation. But we knew it because smiley It's a ten-year-old play, which we both saw at the time, albeit in different theaters, because it has a very long running time. In other cities it was very successful, but in Barcelona it was a phenomenon. What we were most interested in was that we knew it worked really well, people liked it a lot, so there was extra motivation when it came to wanting to be a part of it.
Miki Esparbe: The nice anecdote is that Carlos discovered, I think via Twitter, that the production company was preparing the adaptation of smiley to the series and he told me. He joined his representative, me with mine, and we went our separate ways. We did several rounds, because the cast was very large, with many actors trying to be there, and we feel very lucky to have made those cuts and found ourselves in the home stretch.
So you were the one who was initially interested in the project.
Charles: Exactly. It is not synonymous that they will give it to you. This happens often. We know actors and actresses who pick up the phone and deliberately want to do a casting call, and in the end it doesn't come out. But in our almost yes, so imagine the joy.
In the second episode, when your characters, Álex and Bruno, meet, you can already see that you have a lot of chemistry. Did you read these scenes together at the casting?
Mike: One hundred per movie Pretty much all of the footage from the date, which is chapter 2, the meeting we have at the bar, we did at the casting. They were very long sequences, with a lot of dialogue, but it was the best way to check if there was harmony, if we understood each other, if the couple could work. And it went very well. They selected me a little before Carlos in the final stretch, and that day I did tests with three different actors. I think the third was Carlos.
These scenes are very theatrical, with a lot of dialogue, and you need a lot of connection between you, because you flirt but at the same time you fight. How did you work on this alchemy? Did you rely on the directors, did you do rehearsals in your spare time...?
Charles: There was a bit of everything. You have to take into account that Guillem Clua [el creador] He has been working on this play for ten years, he has done it in different seasons, in many countries, with different actors, in different languages… He has polished the show and knows what he has to tell us, what works and what doesn't. We also work a lot, with a lot of overtime. Being friends allowed us to meet after hours. Added to this is the direction of the directors, but also Guillem and his precision when it comes to directing us… If we went too far or offered something that didn't work, he knew it in advance. It's like someone playing the piano and giving you a note. But we also felt quite free when it came to composing our own characters, because I imagine that Guillem, having worked with several actors in the same play, didn't want to be super totemic either. When a text is cool, intuition tells you where to go. It's when a text is very bad that you don't know what to do.
SOURCE: Reviews News
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