translated from Spanish: Laura Grandinetti: “I never thought of any choice but to be an actress”

Wait in the dressing room, before you go on stage. He knows that his character is crucial in the play, his scene will keep the audience waiting, who will withdraw from the room with more questions than answers. Laura Grandinetti is more anxious than nervous.” It’s amazing, I enjoy this spectacular opportunity,” Filo.News tells her minutes before taking to the stage of Paseo la Plaza (Av. Corrientes 1660) to play Emi.

From Wednesday to Sunday, Laura Grandinetti joins a cast of prominent and celebrated figures such as Paola Krum, Julia Calvo and Jorge Suárez in “After Dollhouse”, a play adapted and directed by Javier Daulte, with version of Fernando Masllorens and Federico Federico González del Pino, general production by Pablo Kompel, and based on Lucas Hnath’s novel, “La Vuelta de Nora”. The twenty-two-year-old daughter of Dario Grandinetti and Marisa Mondino faces her first challenge on the commercial scene. However, his theatrical debut was in 2014 – also under the direction of Javier Daulte – as part of the cast of “Personitas”. His first film work came a few years later: “Paisaje”, Jimena Blanco’s debut opera premiered at BAFICI (Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival) 2018. The same year, she appeared on the big screen with two other films: “Acusada” (by Gonzalo Tobal) and “Rojo” (by Benjamin Naishtat).

Paola Krum and Laura Grandinetti Photo: Press Gentiles

“I never thought of any choice but to be an actress,” says Laura, who began to professionalize from her six years old: she studied musical comedy in the academy of Julio Bocca, and at the age of twelve, she continued her studies in the academies of Hugo Midón and Julio Chávez.” I always kept my drama classes to enrich myself from the professional. There’s no other way to train than by studying, reading, thinking, looking. I love going to see theater too,” says Laura, who started the CBC Combined Arts, although she couldn’t continue it for work. Today, he evaluates starting a tertiary career that can be adjusted to the times of his profession. Meanwhile, with the green scarf accompanying her in her dressing room, she prepares to face a career that grows and grows – building her personality as a woman and artist in the times that run – and to take the stage so that the work can begin. What’s it like working with rude people?
It’s spectacular. Although he had already worked with actors such as Héctor Díaz, María Onetto, Andrea Garrote in “Personitas”, “After Dollhouse” involved an opportunity to debut in commercial theater, which is another circuit, with another exhibition, and not to mention working with other fellows who are rude, people I admire very much since I’ve been very young. I met three fellows who, in addition to talented, are great people. We care a lot about the work and have a lot of fun in the dressing room.

The first time you got to the theater, were you nervous?
I know the Plaza (theatre) very well. My dad worked here and my brother at the Metropolitan, which is the same production. There are people in this place that I love very much, who I have known since I’ve been very young. So, the space didn’t give me a lot of nerves but a lot of anxiety and want to go on stage and start doing everything we had rehearsed for so long.  You’ve been on a rising race, you recently worked with Lali, how was the experience?
I recently worked with Lali. I did a part in “Accused,” the movie she starred in. I simply make a scene, in which I was selected by casting. It was the first time I was on a film set of that dimension, something very impressive. I also met a director who was very loving, Gonzalo (Tobal). Lali was very warm with me and very relaxed at work. Leo Sbaraglia was crossed, too, and he was super nice to me. It was really nice to be in “Accused”, a nice experience. 

Laura Grandinetti in “Accused” Photo: Instagram @laugrandinetti

2018 you had a year of big premieres, another of them was “Red”, where you worked with your dad. Remember what your film debut was like?
Two years ago I made my first film in cinemas: “Paisaje”, a debut opera by Jimena Blanco, which premiered at BAFICI last year. It was a very beautiful movie to start my career. Just as in “Personitas” my theatre debut was very careful, “Landscape” meant the same in cinema. Then came the opportunity to participate in “Acusada” and “Red”, which were spectacular experiences. “Red” is a film I’m very proud of. Having participated in it gives me enormous satisfaction because it is of a very high level and quality for Argentine cinema, which also tells our story from a very particular point of view: that of the director, Benjamín Naishtat. He is a very intelligent, brilliant person who knew how to preserve that very particular look that really highlights the national film industry.

What’s it like working with your dad?
Barbarian. In “Personitas” we had already worked together. It was beautiful. I was 15 years old, I was very young, and I was with Javier (Daulte), who is like my family. At that time, amid so much familiarity, it did not take much dimension yet of the scope of the play and of what it meant to be in theatre, although I knew my responsibilities. For me it was an exercise of a lot of learning and enjoyment. In “Red” (a few years later) I was a little more confident with my performance. It was a movie that also excited my old man, we were both looking forward to telling that story. We had a lot of fun on the set. My old man is very quiet to work with and so am I. 

Laura, as a child and with her father Darius Grandinetti Photo: Instagram @laugrandinetti

Resuming your participation in the play “After Dollhouse”, how was your character’s songwriting work?
Emi appears at a very important moment in the play: he arrives to put a mirror at Nora (character of Paola Krum), so that he sees that woman he was. That, if you will, is the great weak point that the “new Nora” has, to have abandoned her children. Emi is a very rich character. It is the only one who has only one scene in the work but has an immense arch to count. It’s something that a lot of people say to me: “Until you come in I think one thing and all of a sudden…” In that sense – beyond my performance and everything I could work with Javier – there is something very clever from the material. When a text is well written, you don’t have to do much more than turn on it. Emi’s written and I’ll put the body in it. It’s the first time I’ve done a play from Wednesday to Sunday, which allows me to create new things every day: try and why not, celebrate what happens on stage.

Cast of “After Dollhouse” Photo: Press Gentiles

Do you manage your mood day by day to do the work? What if one day you get a little slumped?
I’m happy. If I have a half-bad day and I know I’m going to the theater, I lift my spirits a little bit. And if I have a great day, it’s even better. Coming to the theater always improves everything, both in my life and in my day. As for the preparation, I am not to be locked in my dressing room, but more to share with my companions. Isolating me doesn’t help me, but being present and forgetting about the worries outside. Be there to strengthen and enrich these characters who are beautiful. How do you internalise the work in your body? Your character knows her mother’s gone, she comes back for a favor, tells her they’re alike, she doesn’t see the same thing.
The play is very controversial. Beyond that logically, one defends his character and has generated an emotional and psychological journey, “After Dollhouse” is designed to generate questions, rather than to solve them. The viewer leaves with a lot of questions that will later be answered. In particular, one of the scenes that drives this issue the most is the encounter between Emi and Nora. In that scene everything is put in check between the two, where everything they think begins to be questioned. Regarding my character: I think I’m going to meet my mother, who actually tells me she’s my mother – because I don’t have a memory that ties me emotionally to her. I know I have a very deep wound, which costs it to come out. Emi is a woman from the late 1800s, raised in a way and with certain customs. I think it’s important that none of the characters are judged in the play. All four have their views. There is no truth, neither good nor bad.  In the play we see different classes and characters of women. Today, a lot of things have changed. How do you build yourself as a woman?
It’s a very important moment for me. I am almost twenty-two years old and I belong to a generation that has a much more paved road thanks to an earlier generation that has been doing a very important job. From my place I feel i have to go as far as I can. There are basic issues for me. No one has to tell me that the woman owns her body, that I don’t have to explain any private and personal choice, that I have to understand that the other one lives as he wants and that he never feels that he has to ask for some kind of permission. All debates help one understand and know why, but I am aware and grateful, to belong to a generation in which everything is much more internalized and (un)d. We must continue to work so that women stop dying for our decision, so that the state takes responsibility and that once and for all our leaders think of the people. I have the green handkerchief always and this is a struggle that is just beginning, the law and all the necessary measures. We’re already on the street. Yes, of course. It seems to me that the non-feminist is against life. I work consciously with my bonds and close people so that everyone feels free, equal and enjoys life however they want. Judging is vintage. Playing a little bit with the motto of The work, how much is it worth to be faithful to oneself and how faithful you are?
It’s worth the happiness of your life. I’m walking a road where I try to be true to myself. I’m wondering where I’m doing things all the time: whether it’s eager or compromised. While I am a kind person and I am always for others, I try not to disconnect from my desire. Luckily, my reality is quite tied to that desire. Laura Grandinetti forms the cast of “After Dollhouse” with Paola Krum, Julia Calvo and Jorge Suárez. A must-see and recommended staging from Wednesday to Sunday in Paseo la Plaza (Av. Corrientes 1660) from 20 hours.

Original source in Spanish

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