Maribel Verdú delves into horror cinema with ‘Under Your Feet’: “It humanizes me to know what is happening around me”

The actress Maribel Verdú has changed his traditional roles in drama and comedy for horror films, starring in the feature film ‘Under your feet’directed by Cristian Bernard. The film tells the story of a mother who moves with her children to a new house, where the community of neighbors shares silence in the face of what is happening.

“I need to know the reality no matter how painful it is, no matter how much it hurts. I need to live in this life and know what is happening around me, because it humanizes me, it makes me a more supportive, more empathetic and better person,” Verdú explained in an interview with Europa Press about the parallelism of that “shared silence” of the film with that which exists in reality.

In this regard, she has assured that she does not want to live in a “globe” far from reality and has explained that being close to the “pain” of others makes her able to bear her own.

“I refuse to live in a little globe and say ‘oh, no, I don’t want to read this because it’s so hard, why see those images?’ But it’s reality, honey. If you don’t face it, living in Yupi’s worlds is fine for anyone who wants to. I can’t do it,” has added.

‘Under Your Feet’ combines thriller with terror and, as Bernard explained to Europa Press, also “a political subtext”, which is criticism of the housing crisis.

“When I decided to make the film here in Spain, I perceived that and said ‘it has to be in the movie’. Because if not the movie is going to be generic. It can take place in any city in the world but specifically the problem that is happening in Europe with housing seemed very interesting to me to include it as well.“explained the filmmaker.

On the other hand, Verdú has recognized that, despite having played female characters “very on the edge” who have to “be able to handle everything and fight against the visicitudes of life”, on this occasion she plays a mother who has to allow herself to be taken care of by her children.

“In this case I let myself go because when you don’t sleep and your sleep is stolen, you literally go crazy, your life stops making sense. And they (the children’s characters) are the ones who protect me, take care of me and act as a mother to me. It had never happened to me“he explained.

The actress carries the weight of the feature film alongside Sofía Otero, who at the age of 13 makes her debut in horror films. “Each director has a very different way of working and each genre is quite different. This film has terror and a slightly more maternal side. She is very pretty and I have also learned this, I didn’t know how scary movies were filmed“, he acknowledged.