30 · 11 · 17

La consolidación de talento: entrevista a Nahuel Pérez Biscayart

Ira Franco

De origen argentino, el actor Nahuel Peréz Biscayart tiene ganado el respeto del público francés desde su papel en Je suis á toi (dir. David Lambert, 2014) donde interpretaba a un joven gay que se enredaba en un romance por internet con un hombre europeo para salvarse de la pobreza. Pero lo que en aquella película fue apenas una revelación, en 120 latidos por minuto (dir. Robin Campillo, 2017) es ya la consolidación del talento de Nahuel para interpretar personajes frágiles, instalados  en el vacío.

En 120 latidos por minuto –ganadora del Gran Premio del Jurado en el Festival de Cannes 2017-, Nahuel es Sean Dalmazo, un joven parisino activista político que vive con VIH en los años ochenta, cuando la enfermedad, parece mentira, era desestimada por algo que sólo le ocurría a los gays y a las prostitutas. Para representar este horror de ser invisible en el París de aquellos años, en medio de un epidemia que nadie entendía muy bien, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart tuvo que dejar de comer y de dormir; tuvo que ponerse muy cerca del horror de ser joven y no tener futuro.

IF: It is a film full of contrasts in structural terms but also in how you act each stage of the character.

NPB: That contrast was what gave me all the necessary material to know what the character constructs of himself in front of others and what he experiences intimately. If you look closely, in the first part of the film, the character is exuberant, he is consumed in life, he is very angry. The hatred also gives him the strength to fight. It is a combination between the intimate and the public that in the second part of the film feels like the absence of that life that he won't have, an emotion that invades the space. Here the director said to me, "we can't act, we have to let the whole absence of that life invade us".

IF: How did you prepare physically for such a demanding role?

NPB: You have to lose touch with reality, assume vulnerability and understand the impossibility of the future. It is also there when the possibility of a love story gains importance because he abandons himself to the other. I lost weight, like 7 kilos in 15 days, and there was physical work that also contributed to emptying my gaze and enabling a kind of vulnerability that allows the character to look fragile.

IF: You interpret this character in perfect French, how does the change in language work for you?

NPB: In this case, the foreign language works for me as a kind of wardrobe, it is a cloak that I wear. I try to think of it not as a restriction but as a freedom. There are emotions that perhaps in my mother tongue would not arise because the mother tongue is very embodied in the body and prejudices are also in the body. When you speak in another language it is like playing an instrument and there are emotions that circulate more instantaneously and physically. In fact, you learn to have another personality, because it is not the same to be French than to be Argentine. You do not have the same gestures and you do not feel the same either.