Ana Rujas

This past year I’ve done a bit of everything. I’m training for a character role in a film, and I also took part in La buena letra, directed by Celia Rico Clavellino. On top of that, I’ve just finished shooting En el barro in Argentina  —  it’s a spin-off of El marginal, but set in a women’s prison. It was really cool, I’m super happy to have done it. I’m the only Spanish actress in the cast, and I play a proper villain.

I loved it, honestly. This year I’ve worked on projects that are all completely different from each other. I haven’t stopped for months — between the training, the trips to Argentina, and my own project, El desencanto, I’m totally burnt out, to be honest.

Honestly, I don’t really know. I’m going full throttle, non-stop. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m too hyped up, but then I think, well, that’s life. This is happening right now, and I’m throwing myself into it. But also, complaining about it doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not complaining, really.

It’s been amazing, though. When I think about everything this year has brought… Have the past few years been intense work-wise? Absolutely. I’ve been going full speed, like a maniac, but I’m happy. I’ll slow down at some point. That’s just life. Sooner or later, I’ll have to stop. I just don’t know when. I mean, it’s not like I want to stop, you know? Hopefully I won’t have to.

Well, El desencanto isn’t something that just came out of nowhere. I’ve been working on this project for two years. It’s not like I suddenly woke up one day and said, I want to do this, it’s already in motion. There are dates set, there’s a production company behind it: Movistar, Los Javis, it’s moving forward and I have deadlines. It’s not a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Do you know El desencanto by Jaime Chávarri? It’s a film from the 70s, about the Spanish Transition to Democracy. I saw it and it really struck me, but my film has nothing to do with it, really. It was just a starting point. El desencanto is also the title of my film, but it speaks to the disillusionment of now, of our generation. I don’t want people to expect some kind of follow-up to Chávarri’s film, because it’s not that at all. It’s a completely different kind of story, coming from a different place of inspiration.

No, this time I’m doing something different. Although I’ll be playing the role myself, of course, I always write with the idea of performing it. So yes, there’ll probably be something a bit wild in there, but I’m still deep in the creative process, and I don’t even know exactly what it’s going to be yet. I’m creating something I don’t fully understand myself.

I’m not really thinking that far ahead yet, I’m taking it one step at a time. Right now, I’m focused on making sure the script works. Everything else will come later.

Absolutely, it’s like my baby. I know it inside out. If I didn’t do it myself, I’d die. I need to direct it, because I know exactly what I want to say.

Well, I was quite detached from the book, you know? It felt like a separate piece, something that was already behind me. This new story, on the other hand, came about more recently, and from the start I imagined it as a film. With the book, the stage adaptation came from someone else. It was more like, “Hey, we’ve thought of this team.” It wasn’t something I asked for or planned; it just happened that way. And honestly, I preferred it like that, because I no longer knew what to do with the book. It wasn’t something I would’ve pursued on my own, I had completely put it aside. But in the end, I’m glad it happened, because it gave me a creative way to close that chapter. José [Martret] and Pedro [Ayose] picked it up in a really beautiful way, and for me it felt like closure. I’m not talking about La otra bestia as a whole, but the book specifically, otherwise it would’ve just stayed a collection of texts without a clear purpose. Now it has meaning, and that gives me a real sense of satisfaction.

Totally, and there comes a point when that material runs out. It’s great when someone else, someone creative, comes in and brings a fresh perspective to it. I don’t have an ego issue with that. I know the material comes from me, but I’m also very aware that another viewpoint can really enrich it. During the creative process of La otra bestia, we had loads of meetings, and I also wrote new pieces for the stage version, like Las manos de lija, which I love. We were building and writing as we went along, so it became a collaborative project. But the dramaturgy they brought to it was incredible. I wouldn’t have known how to do it like that. Honestly, it turned out really well and I’m super happy with the result. Did you see the play?

That’s great! I love it when something stays with you like that, when it sparks a conversation and doesn’t just leave you indifferent.

I was totally dissociated at that point, I had no idea what was going on.

Yeah, and doing it every night, it was long and intense. I was completely unhinged. But hey, one day something will happen to me on set and that’ll be it. I’ll die doing what I love.

Exactly! That’s why I throw myself into everything I do; if I didn’t, I’d be a mess. Honestly, one day something’s going to happen to me while filming, because I go to some pretty extreme places. But I need it. I love it. I’m saying all this, but truth is I’m fine.

Yeah, some people think it’s too much. I don’t see it that way at all.

Theatre and fiction make it incredibly tough. But I am like that in real life too. I live everything full-on, full throttle. I don’t know how I manage, but I do, you’ve got to live life that way.

This career is really hard, truly. That’s not a cliché, it’s just the reality.

No, not just intense. From the moment I made the decision, because I believe life is about choosing, about committing, in one way or another, I’ve never stopped trying. From the moment I asked myself, how do you actually do this? I’ve been pushing forward. Trying, doing, trying again. I’ve been like that for ten years now, since I was twenty-five.

No, I started earlier, but when I finished my training at Corazza, I was about twenty-five or twenty-six. I did four years of training, and then I just kept going, non-stop. Things don’t just land in your lap. Sure, there can be a stroke of luck, but do you remember that show called A Stroke of Luck? What a nightmare. Although of course, you’re very young, you might not.

It was awful. Honestly, like most of what was being made back then, it was pretty wild.

Yeah.

He called me directly. Well, actually, my agent called and said, “Medem wants to meet with you.” I couldn’t believe it. “La mesías” had just come out, and I’d been auditioning for other things that didn’t end up happening, so when I got the call, I was like, wow. I started crying right there on the phone. I said, okay, I’ll meet him whenever he wants. I remember in the meeting I asked him, Can I order a glass of wine? I’m really nervous. And he said, “Me too, let’s both have a glass.” And I was like, yes, yes, thank God. I was so nervous, because he’s a director I admire deeply.
He told me he’d seen “La mesías” and knew immediately that I had to do this. He explained the story to me, and even without reading the script, I said yes. Then I read it and loved it, but I also thought, I have no idea how I’m going to pull this off. But I just knew I had to do it. I got so emotional. I’m always scared before starting a project, I never know how I’m going to manage it. But I like that. The day I’m not scared, I’ll be scared of not being scared, because that would mean I’m doing something wrong. I’d rather be terrified, totally freaked out, calling all my friends and my mum, crying at night, I go through all of that, and then fly. And during the shoot too, of course. I cried, I suffered, I went a bit mad every single day, because the film doesn’t have a single calm moment.

Every single day was incredibly tough. If it wasn’t my son, it was my father, if not that, then something else. Everything was painful. And on top of that, working with Medem is intense because he’s a very demanding director. He wouldn’t let me change a single comma in the script. That was hard for me, because I’m used to working with more freedom. I had to stick to a closed script, but at the same time, he wanted me to be completely free in each scene. It was a huge learning experience, but also a really tough one.

He’s an incredibly poetic director, with a language that’s entirely his own, which I find fascinating. I think it’s so interesting to work with someone who has such a unique vision, whether it’s about love or anything else. As an artist, as a performer, as an actress, I love placing myself in the hands of someone like that. I really enjoy diving into the world of each person I work with.

It was incredibly difficult. Playing someone across different ages is a huge challenge because you’re taking on an age you don’t actually have. I was really scared I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. But what I did was commit to it fully. I worked intensely on the character’s look, her physicality, the energy she would have at each stage of her life. I wanted Adela to always carry her essence, no matter how old she was. Obviously, I’m not ninety, but cinema runs on conviction, on the belief in what you’re seeing. It was one of the hardest films I’ve ever done. One of the most complex characters. A massive challenge.

Yes, because he’s more concerned about the Second Spanish Republic than about her.

Well, she does have that moment when she walks out of the church.

Yes, but Julio has his own way of telling things. It’s different.

Really? Well, the film does have moments of humour.

That’s brilliant. So funny.

But people should laugh. I like it when they laugh.

Yes, that happens a lot with pain. When you put something real in front of people, sometimes they laugh. Because truth can be funny. Or because no-one really speaks that truthfully, and when they see it, it hits hard.

And that’s why I wish people would lose control more often. Stop getting so easily scandalised. We’re at a point where expressing yourself feels dangerous, people judge you straight away. We’re so obsessed with what’s acceptable and what’s not, that we end up constantly holding back.

Yes. It’s a film that captures something I really connected with when I read the script. In the end, Spain is what we’ve inherited. Depending on where you come from and what your roots are, certain ideas are passed down to you, things that reach you through your family line. And then you, in turn, pass something else on to your children. It’s like we’re left with this lingering aftertaste of what once was, a feeling in the body. It’s something intrinsic, unavoidable. Even if I didn’t want it, I have a background, a history I’ve been told, a root that’s shaped me in some way. In my case, I heard very different stories depending on which grandparents were telling them. And even today, that divide still exists. That’s why I loved the script so much, I really identified with that idea. I thought it was powerful that it presented both sides without judging, without pointing fingers about who’s right or wrong. In the end, it’s just something you’re born into and Spain is like that. It’s a reality that, more often than not, isn’t questioned, it’s inherited.

Exactly, because in the end, it could be your own brother. That’s what it’s about. Julio wanted to tell this story from that angle. There’s a really powerful reflection on how we’ve killed each other as brothers. Spain is a country that’s lived through that.

It’s still happening.

It was intense. Rubén Samos and his team did an incredible job. Hours and hours in makeup, but it was amazing to see how they transformed me. It really helped me build the character. We didn’t want to create some cartoonish old lady, we wanted to find the truth of Adela at every stage of her life.

No, not at all. In that moment, I’m acting. I’m in a different body, on a different wavelength. I’m not in creator mode, not at all. I don’t care about that side of it, I’m not thinking about how I look. What really matters to me is the work, because I’m very rigorous. What I care about is making sure that ninety-year-old woman feels real, you know? That I can actually do it, that I dare to go there. We also worked hard not to fall into clichés, not to play an old woman in some exaggerated, stereotypical way. I wanted the ending to have something a bit playful, something special.

It was a huge challenge. But it’s not that I didn’t care, on the contrary, being in that older woman’s body really helped me, how she walked, how she moved. But we were careful not to push it too far, because then it would’ve turned into a farce.

Exactly, too much of a caricature. It was more about capturing Adela’s energy, her essence. She’s a writer who’s lived, who’s done things, and now she just wants to go to the moon because, well, she’s done with it all. And when she says to the other character, “I’m not going to die badly, I’m going to die happy.” Ugh, it’s so sweet, isn’t it?

Well, I think she writes, doesn’t she? And, like Adela, I’ve also felt in my own life that creativity and writing have always saved me. Adela writes that novel, she tells the whole story. That’s her way of healing.

No, I don’t think so. I honestly believe that if she hadn’t written it all down, she might’ve taken her own life. Because it’s such a brutal tragedy.

Absolutely. Without them, it would’ve been unbearable.

This character was really special because I lived through her entire life. When I got to the part where she’s older, I truly felt the weight of having lost her loved ones. That scene of forgiveness, for example — it was incredibly intense. I want to give special mention to Mateo Medina, who took on a huge responsibility. He plays a character who kills someone very important to Adela and then, later, after a time jump, in full makeup, he also plays the forgiveness scene. We both really carried the weight of what we were portraying. It was a project we were deeply invested in, it felt almost like a constellation.

Not literally, but it felt like one. There was such a powerful energy during rehearsals. Mateo embraced his role in such a real, grounded way that it genuinely felt like we were representing something much bigger. Almost as if we were constellating the story of Spain itself.

This story touches all of us in some way. Mateo was embodying one of the many, those who in a moment of violence, can hurt someone without really thinking. And I, as a mother, though I’m not one in real life, took on Adela’s pain. It was incredibly intense.

Yes, I felt something. I don’t know if it’s mysticism, but something magical happened during that shoot, I swear to God, it felt like true forgiveness.

I wouldn’t call it that. I just work with what’s magical. There’s a lot of hard work behind reaching that place, but when it happens, it’s real.

Yes, and not just me — Mateo, Javi, María Isasi… the whole team felt it. That’s why you sense something special on screen.

I felt like a mother. It brought back memories of when we did “Blood Wedding” at school. I thought of Lorca, of all the mothers who’ve suffered loss. I thought of my grandmother, of my family’s stories. It’s something we carry in our DNA.

Yes, and it’s beautiful, but you also need to know how to handle it without losing your mind. I go home afterwards and get on with my life, but when I’m working, I like to go to those places. If I live it that deeply, maybe the audience will take something from it too. I feel a responsibility in that sense.

It’s hard to say. But now, talking to you, I’m realising all of this. I hadn’t done such a deep interview before. And yes, I’m glad I experienced it that way. Julio created a working atmosphere where that kind of thing could happen, and that’s really beautiful.

Yeah, I don’t know, I’d say I’m quite spiritual. At some point, I started connecting more with that side of myself. I’m not sure I’d say it saved me, but it definitely made me more aware. Sometimes life puts things in front of you and you’ve got to be alert enough to see them. I know I might sound a bit mad saying this, well, not mad, but you know what I mean.

It’s just that when you start listening more to your intuition instead of only your mind, different things start to happen.

That happens to me too. It gives me comfort. But I also think there’s a part of spirituality that people avoid because it’s so strongly associated with Catholicism. It gets dismissed by default, but if we really understood Catholicism, if we truly grasped the religion itself, we’d be more in touch with its essence, with its story. People are quick to judge. “Are you a believer?” and they say it like it’s a bad thing. But yes, I do consider myself a believer. In my own way, but still, a believer.

That’s it, there are lots of currents. And I really believe everyone takes what resonates with them. That’s what it’s there for. I take what speaks to me, what inspires me. Even creatively, it’s inspired my writing too, in a way.

Yes, totally. And if you think about it, there’s something really deep there, you know? She’s always present: the good mother, the mother of the world. That ideal of being a good mother, a good wife, a good woman. But what does that really mean, to be a good woman?

Yes, totally. And more than it being about being a woman or a man, I think it’s something that runs through life in general, that constant feeling of not being enough for anything. Not them, not us, not anyone, in anything. It’s like nothing is ever quite enough. Everything’s so immediate now: I’ll buy this, I’ll order it here, Amazon will deliver it tomorrow. It’s madness. And I’m caught up in that too. I do a play and the next day I don’t even stop to reflect on what I’ve just done. I’m already thinking, now I have to write my film. The other day I thought, girl, can you just stop for a second and take in what just happened with the play? The other night I went out for a drink, and I was really moved when young people came up to me saying, “I saw the play. Wow, it was incredible.” I started crying. I hadn’t even realised the impact it had made.
The next day I called Pedro, one of the directors, and I said, love, do you realise this? You should be so proud! I was genuinely happy, what we created was beautiful. And I hadn’t even registered it in the moment. I thanked him from the heart, because it gave me hope, it lifted me, gave me joy and excitement. It made me want to keep going. Because sometimes I do ask myself, why do I put myself out there like this, on such a deep level? And then something like this happens, people come up to me and say something truly touched them, and that gives me strength. So I called Pedro and said, man, it was worth it. So many young people came to see it. And I love that, truly. That’s how this works. That’s what it’s all about.

Yes, although we also have to accept that we’re caught in the middle of this whirlwind. We can’t always stop, but at the very least, we can try to honour our work, to give it the value it deserves.

No, but it’s the same for you — I mean it. It’s about finding meaning in what we do. Like this interview, for example, doing it in person makes so much more sense than doing it over the phone. It’s about the small things each of us can do. That’s what it’s really about. Taking the time with love, with intention.

Exactly and that’s the beauty of it. When you really get that truly, from the heart, it completely changes the way you see this work. I’m not saying it like some empty motivational speech, or like I’m trying to be a life coach, I couldn’t care less about all that. But there is a part of this profession that, even if it sounds like a cliché, once you truly embrace it, everything shifts. Because we all come from the same place, and this is a profession full of ego, of being seen from the outside and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Or at least, I don’t buy it. I really don’t. But when you manage to make the most important thing, what happens in a class that no one else will ever witness, when you do something that feels magical or even just quietly profound to you, that’s what this work is really about.

Yes, many. Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, for example. I actually suggested her to present me with an award once, and it was incredibly emotional. Marisa Paredes, Penélope Cruz… I’d love to sit down with Penélope one day and just talk, understand how she’s experienced everything. I think we, as women, need to support each other more. When someone goes far, it means there’s been a lot of work behind it. You can’t just criticise without understanding what’s gone into it. My mum inspires me a lot too, she’s a social worker.

There’s too much exposure on social media, too many opinions about things that have nothing to do with the actual craft of acting. I feel like actors are overexposed in ways that don’t always add anything meaningful. And what it’s lacking? I don’t know if it’s lacking exactly, but what I try to bring is more love. More love in everything. More respect among us, less judgement, more acknowledgement of each person’s effort.

I’m not sure it’s just between actors, but in general, judgement is everywhere. That said, I do see more and more unity among us. There’s progress. We have to keep fuelling that fire, keep honouring the small things.