Calu Rivero: "I'll Never Be the Same" | After …

"I'll never be the same again," confesses Calu Rivero, with a choked voice and a visible emotional tension in his body. A few hours ago, the presentation of Campanas at night, the fiction that tomorrow at 22:30 opens Telefe and starring Federico Amador and Esteban Lamothe ended. Neither the passage of time nor the fact

Romantic thriller that is totally recorded seems to reassure the actress, who still assumes in her gestures the pain of a deep wound that does not heal. No wonder Bells marked the return of Rivero to a television after the experience of Dulce amor, the fiction that had to leave prematurely for having been – some time after – a situation of harassment in the name of Juan Darthés. "I'm a different person, a lot more conscious and present than the previous one." Which character do I want to interpret to project in society? This question is already part of my artistic choices, "acknowledges the actress.

Bells … is much more than the return to Rivero's performance. In fact, it is the first project the actress tries to capture on the screen with a personal and collective need: women's struggle against gender-based violence and equal opportunities. Besides the artistic, fiction seems to dialogue with the time, thinking not only of entertaining, but also of contributing to the social changes evidenced by society. It's no coincidence, then, that Campanas … has changed Rivero's plans to set out to work in New York as a model and actress.

"I was in New York and from Telefe they told me that I could star in this story and I could not refuse," says Rivero, who was attracted not only by the artistic but also by the theme. "I had gone with the idea of ​​working there, I had just set up the department, I had the representation agency and the VISA job, to make my career in the United States. And I just got this proposal that got me because I felt it fit the public message I was giving It seemed like a good opportunity to give battle from the performance, changing the rules of the set.It was my chance to come back with a message.The only protagonist of Campanas … is the story, emphasizes.

In Campanas …, Rivero plays Luciana, a woman whose past is present when he meets Luis (Amador), a man he saw as a teenager running away with his baby in his hands, accused of his father's death. woman Luis's past, which he thought he had escaped, pursues him and endangers everything he has, including the love of his daughter. Between the mystery of what happened and the attraction that both characters feel, is Vito (Lamothe), the husband who mistreats and submits Luciana, who seems willing to strengthen and change his life forever. A love story, told in a police code, where gender violence will go through the story of a woman who will seek to trust in herself and finally break the chains that hold her husband.

"That's why," Rivero emphasizes, "the choice to make Bells at night, that's why make a character like Luciana, who is a woman completely obscured by a boyfriend who manipulates her." The interesting thing about Luciana is that she she hits the bottom, but she does not stay there, but she tries to get out and search for light.This search process is very interesting because, however, he finds his own love, as well as that of another.The story tells a real woman, that for me today is the most important thing.There is a need for the TV to tell stories of real women, to remove it from the place of the object to which they normally locate it.Finally a woman who could wake up and realize her strength! My character will make many women feel challenged, because they lived in situations like this or because they know someone who has lived them. "

"While he played some part in Sandro of America, the truth is that with Campanas … he returned to the daily television set, after that siege situation he experienced. How was the return?

"I felt very free to play Luciana, not only in composition but also in raising my concerns. I felt heard and respected. Maybe my character had scenarios in which he had to cry and I thought the reaction should be that of indignation, it was put on and tested. We work very openly with the writers. We were all very aware of each other. With the actors there was a lot of previous work, to understand the links that were generated, crossed by situations of gender violence. They are characters crossed by the pain: Luciana, by its family and a couple that confuse it like woman; and the character of Amador, by the death of his wife and the suspicions that weigh on him.

"Did it cost you back to the set?"

"I do not know if what happened to me was that it cost me back on set, but I felt that my body was in a different state. I did not feel the tranquility and lightness with which I went when I began to travel by profession. There is a body and mental record that something has happened to me. Even when I know it will not happen again, I talked to my colleagues, I knew within myself that I would not live a situation like the one I went through, there is a record that remains, which is not erased. I'm very attached to my body and I can not separate. I had to give myself strength to trust because if it was not impossible to act. I ended up enjoying the work as the recordings progressed. We were able to form a beautiful group, in which we care about others.

– Did you feel that after the harassment you received, you would not work again as an actress?

"Yes, I experienced moments of great confusion, of hitting the bottom. When you are disconnected from your desire, when you are helpless, someone tells you something and you believe it. Female helplessness alters your self-esteem. Something similar happens with the character Luciana. I do not want to continue with harassment situations. My concern, like that of many other women, is to change these situations. And as artists, we have to ask ourselves what we have decided to say and do to make society better.

-A compromise that surpasses the artistic and that finds in the collective "Actrices argentinas" a social representation that manifests massively for the rights of women. You have gone from the loneliness of your complaint to being accompanied by many women.

-When I had the opportunity to make a march I felt embraced by the women, I felt that there I found the dispute of a second house. When one speaks, one notices that one is not the only one who experiences situations of harassment and encourages others to do the same. The company is very relieving, because if you do not carry it on your body and this body, sooner or later you become sick. Encourage yourself to talk about suffering, healthy. Without any encouragement, but to heal. It is not a war against men. The bond between man and woman is beautiful, it is restraint, it is companionship … Today we are at a time when women say "enough", it hurts us a lot. It is terrible that Thelma (Fardín) exposes such a situation for her to be created, she is created for me and Natalia (Juncos) and Anita Coacci are created.

– He recently stated that Campanas at night is a necessary project for this time and socially. You think that from the artistic point of view closed with Campanas … what personal need?

-I think so. What will remain for me, fortunately, is the awareness of knowing that each character I play projects ideas that condition society, affect the lives of the viewers. There is an issue that remains forever in me every time they offer me a project: what do my characters project like women? I did not ask before. I thought only of the character in terms of the story of fiction. None of them had many possibilities: it was "the villain", "the divine", "the bad" and "the poor". Now, after everything that happens to us, I realize that I felt a certain discomfort with these characters, but I did not question them or know what they were. Naturalized these characters. Now I want to be proud of what I do. As an artist, but also as a woman. Today I am giving this message of fiction, but tomorrow will be another. I like to say what happens to us. I want to be aware of what I mean.

"Before you accept things as they were, even when I was upset?"

– The situations of cheers that I never wanted to live gave me a force that today makes me stop somewhere else. I appreciate being able to stop today and say with confidence that I will not do anything I do not want to do. I have a security I did not have before. My shield was always love. Everything that comes from hatred or anger comes next. I am a different person, much more conscious and present than the previous one. Now I feel my voice being heard on the set. This possibility of being heard makes me feel a greater responsibility.

-When you are a protagonist, in addition to having a lot of participation in the plot, he is the leader of a work team. Could you change anything from the "naturalizations" that occur on the set?

One of the reasons I decided to go back, aside from the artistic attraction of the project, was to put the body in my commitment and give the battle from within the industry, which is where things happen. Do I stay outside or go back to the battle where things happen? It was a complex decision, but at the same time very safe. One day, we were just getting started, a technician in the middle of a situation said something like "how good you are". I suggested that I do not like this comment, that it was out of place. After a month, we had a conversation in which he told me "what a nice person" he was. There is a difference, in words and in tone. This technician can click. He could understand that. He understood that it bothered me that he told me about the physique.

-And in the script? Did you become too involved? Or the fact that Campanas … has on the author's team two female writers, like Lily Ann Martin and Jessica Valls, who exempted her from their plans?

"The story of Bells … is incredible. The complicity with the viewers that generates the plot is very attractive. The way the story is told is very powerful, which leaves the viewer thinking and hooked. There was a great job. We could also increase the need to be aware of female pleasure, as Luciana Pecker points out with her beautiful books, which women and men should read. The pleasure of women, which is always repressed on television, can be translated into plot and daily work. The desire to have sex is not just masculine, just as rejection is not female power. This has increased and we have reached an agreement. The writers did a lot. They were details. For example, change the idea that Luciana had her partner's credit card. Why would I have your card if we just dated? Why does the woman have the man's card and not the other way around? Or why do I have to go shopping if many women prefer to go to a bookstore? Small things to change a construction of female subjectivity that was given because we were not heard. Today we want to be heard and there is more openness to be heard. This is a big change.