Being an actor is an occupation with a touch of magic that makes it possible to live a thousand lives to then go back to your own. It is not an easy task being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and feel like them like your own in a world where people get easily stuck in a rut. Managing to reach people enough to make them feel the same thing is not a piece of cake, especially when you need to make fiction seem so authentic that it feels like reality. The most important thing that an actor needs to achieve is, in the words of Casting Director Cristina Perales, persuading the public that ‘the character has come to life’ through him.
Perales, who remembers her time working with Guillermo del Toro dearly, in particular the casting of the children for The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, emphasises that the most important thing in any project is for the main characters to be able to ‘imitate reality and make us feel our feelings’. This, together with a good story and script to shape it, seems to be key for the creation of a masterpiece.
Having a career full of anecdotes, she insists that actors always ‘have something different to show and create’ while adapting to the filming. That is why she encourages young people to continue with the profession and to believe in themselves, advising them to ‘be constant and persevering, because the talent without work ends up vanishing’.
Cristina Perales, who is now working in Camino de la Suerte, debut film of director Jorje Alonso that talks about the love story of a 70 years old couple, confesses that the thing she values most in the candidates during the casting process is ‘that they come well prepared, having memorised the character’s lines and bringing a proposal without fearing it not being right’.
As a motive of this special day as well, casting director Eduardo Pérez tells us about something that happened during the time he was working as a Casting Assistant, specifically when working for a Spike Lee project in 2001: ‘During the session one of the actresses shined brightly during her performance. […] Spike Lee was so impressed that, even though she did not quite fit in the scenes, he created a character for her. And a while after he even asked her to audition for his next film’.
This experience helps to appreciate the importance of a good cast. Perez says that ‘it does not matter how impressive the location may be, if the artistic direction is eye-catching or that the special effects feel real, there is nothing in this industry more capable to make us feel something than a close-up of a sincere performance. […] That is the true magic of the cinema’.
By Ángela Moreno Vallejo.
