Ivn, If y Ainhoa They have been standing guard for a couple of hours now. Every time the barred door that leads to the luxurious garden of the Santo Mauro hotel, in the noble area of Madrid, opens, they jump and look out, to see if she comes out. Jos has “skipped” work; Ainhoa is making trouble and Ivn… Ivn had the day off. “We are real fans, we go to all their concerts. But there are people here who appear wherever there are famous people, to see if they catch something”. They look askance at another small group, much better equipped with cameras, tripods and printed photographs, and whisper: “They ask for signatures and then sell them on Wallapop.”
Iván, José and Ainhoa are here for the fatherthe Spanish pop singer with the most projection, a mass phenomenon whose last album, Alpha, was the fifth best-selling of 2023 and placed it at the top of the Spanish offering and with five nominations for the newly created Academy of Music Awards, our Grammys. However, the father He has not come today to talk about his music, but to present his first film, Wall with Wall, a romantic comedy in which he stars alongside Fernando Guallar and that premieres in Netflix on Friday.
It is not the Catalan’s first foray before the cameras. Already at the end of 2022 she starred, along with her then partner Miguel Bernardeau, in the series The last on Disney+, but now he takes a step forward and directs his first film. They are big wordsshe acknowledges, who attends to the press in a hotel room with a look futuristic leather that is reminiscent of the mythical Trinity of The Matrix. Of the Valentina that she plays on screen, as of the the father who rose to fame in Operation Triumph, you can recognize little more than the bangs, now dyed dark and surrounded by braids that frame two high bobs. And perhaps that extreme contrast is what gives the most meaning to this interview.
But let’s go in parts. First, the movie.
wall to wall it’s a remake of french comedy behind the wall (2015), which tells the love story between a misanthropic and grumpy inventor unable to concentrate unless absolute silence reigns and a recently separated pianist whose only mission in life is to pass a tremendously demanding audition. Between them, only a thin wall that lets every murmur pass through. Valentina and David hear each other live, they talk, at first they argue, then they flirt… And imagine the rest.. This Netflix feature film is a metaphor in pastel tones of so many relationships born on the Internet between people who fall madly in love before even having seen or touched each other. In the movie, it comes out well. And in life?
I suppose the key is in the expectations you generate, you have to have your feet on the ground a little to know that perhaps what you imagine is not necessarily in line with what you are going to find. You have to know how to navigate possible failure, analyzes Guallar, the gruff but tender David who falls for the charms of the sweet and innocent, but stubborn neighbor next door to him. In my case, I prefer contact, energies, but I think it is better not to get into people’s way of relating. There may be people who fall in love without even having met, why not?adds a much more diplomatic the fatherthe neighbor in question.
“People think they know me from what they see on social media, but sometimes I don’t even know myself…”
If there is anyone with the authority to rule on online relationships, it is precisely her. 3.8 million followers on Instagram; 876,000 in X; 2.6 million more on TikTok. At the time of writing these lines, her last post (formerly a tweet) reads: I’m that kind of person who always wears dirty glasses.. More than nine million people have liked it, and 350,000 have responded.
People think they know me, if sometimes I don’t even know myself…, she reflects, and explains: Everything I show about myself on social networks is real, but there are many things that I don’t show because I want to keep them to myself. Even my parents are sometimes surprised by the things they see. The problem, or mini-problem, is that I made myself known by living together 24 hours a day live. People ate with me, dined with me, and thought that it will always remain that way. But seven years have passed since that time and I have embarked on my own path.
We said that the strong contrast between the candid Valentina of fiction and the empowered woman with braids and leather who stands before our eyes contained the mother of the lamb of the conversation with the father. Well, there it goes. We will note, so as not to get lost, that the project of wall to wall did not reach its director, Patricia Font, until they didn’t have the singer as the protagonist. The rest of casting came later. It is a film tailored to Aitana, therefore. Only tailored to the Aitana from before.
Of course, Valentina picks up a lot of things from me, but she is taken to an extreme. She is very fragile and impressionable, I am tremendously stubborn and she doesn’t really care what other people say. People have formed an idea of mine over the years that does not fit reality, she says. His radical change of look and attitude on stage, much more aggressive, more sensual, raised blisters among concerned parents, who even accused her of sexualizing their daughters. I started when I was 18 and now I’m 25. I’ve simply been growing. It’s easyshe ditches.
“I am questioned a lot for work intrusion and other colleagues who have dedicated themselves to doing the same, no. I am always questioned more”
Nor is the stylistic shift slight. Patricia Fontwhich arrives at the premiere of this Netflix romantic comedy with five Goya nominations under its belt for a much less light drama, The teacher who promised the sea. She filmed both films practically simultaneously and that, she says, helped her: They were so different that, in some way, they helped me take a breath, he says. Faced with those who saw in her recent evolution an abrupt leap in quality, the director vindicates comedy; even romantic comedy. They are very difficult genres, much more than people think. I myself feel much more comfortable in drama but for some time now, I don’t know if due to prejudice, they are not valued enough, neither at a popular nor critical level when it seems to me that they do a very important job of disconnecting from reality. . They are a very interesting escape route.he states.
It hasn’t been released yet wall to wall and you can already hear the rurrrn of the haters. I understand that she is excited, they will have taken her courses and they will be helping her, but not this work intrusion, says an Internet user. This girl is in fashion and she is a marketing product, accuses another. I have not studied acting and I do not claim to be the best actress in the world, far from it. I understand that people see me as strange because they know my gestures and my way of speaking, they have seen me a thousand times in interviews or at the Academy. I guess it’s easy for them not to believe it. But I am questioned a lot for work intrusion and other colleagues who have dedicated themselves to doing the same, no. I am always questioned more. I have done it with all due respect and now I am going to continue with my life. I’m not going to dedicate myself to being an actress, I’m a singershe resolves.
While Guallar admires the humility with which her partner has faced the challenge, the director praises her qualities: She has an innate ability to transmit emotion. And her fans? There they remain at the door at the end of the interview, increasingly impatient. It’s good to watch it on TV, but it’s better to focus more on the music. What we like are concerts, they say. There is no mercy for a pop diva. Aitana started the week with a mysterious publication. The video of her shows her dissolved in tears against a soft guitar background. Her foot, a lament with ellipses: Seven months without releasing music…. Along with the message, an ice cube.
He is unable to explain why, but that little cube is key for Ivn, the boy who spends his day off waiting for his favorite singer to come out and give him a smile. I think it means that things are coming and I get the impression that it will be a ballad. Let’s see if there are more collaborations and some of her music arrives, we miss her, he implores. She, meanwhile, remains silent. There is no way to achieve spoiler. He came here to talk about his film.