How are the days before a premiere like this Friday at the Teatro Principal?
It is a week of tension, of concern, of the fears of an artist who is going to expose what he has prepared during months of work. You spend the previous days in the chapel, concentrating on the work.
As the son of the historic Zaragoza striker Joaquín Murillo, how did he end up as an actor?
At home everything was football, soccer and football. They told me I had to play like dad. He was obliged to games. La Romareda scared me because people screamed a lot. They would go down to the field to take a photo with the team, I dressed as a footballer and had my hair done. Arrúa or Ocampos would hold me in their arms. I can’t help being a Zaragoza fan because it’s in my blood, but I’m not a football fan.
Where was the connection with interpretation born?
My mother, Gloria Ramón, was a great artist. He played the piano, wrote … He loved theater, music and literature. It struck me especially that every Christmas the whole family got together to do a play at my grandparents’ chalet on Avenida de Navarra. The days before we did intensive rehearsals. My grandfather, who had a work clothes store in Las Delicias called Ralan, was in charge of the scenery. He would also build you a wooden car from the 30s that would make you the interior of a 19th century house. I started with three years and my mother recorded it with a tape recorder in case I didn’t say my part. The theater has been inherent in my life.
Did that vocation spring up in adolescence?
I was a textbook teenager, very rebellious from 14 to 17 years old. I resisted everything: to study, to dress as a baturro, to soccer. Until I entered the Theater School at the age of 17. I started working as an actor very early.
What was the moment when you communicated your decision to your parents?
It was terrible. I have never told it. I enrolled in the Drama School without my family knowing. They thought I was studying COU. They found out after a few months and it was a tsunami at home. There was some disappointment that he did not face a university career. But they were not long in supporting me. My father was reluctant at first, he was not amused that I was home late after rehearsals. But when he saw me in the theater, it was a turnaround. Both mom and dad were unconditional and supported me. They never failed in the stalls to see a premiere of mine. I had the misfortune to lose them very soon and I have them very much in mind.
What has this four-decade journey been like in such a special profession?
I like to claim the normality of our trade. Sometimes some add an eccentricity with which I do not feel identified. It is a special job, but like any other that is tackled with the utmost passion. Everything has happened to me in these four decades: successes, failures, company changes …
But the feeling of performing every night before an audience is not normal at all.
There is a tremendous dichotomy in me: sometimes I am passionate about theater and sometimes it makes me sick. I don’t enjoy the ailments of the premieres at all. I would like to go straight to the 100 gig. I have many insecurities but I am overcoming them, facing very complex characters like this Mosén Millán from ‘Requiem for a Spanish Peasant’.
How has working with this character created by Sender been?
It has been surprising to me, one of the most complicated I have faced. I thought it would be simpler, I sinned in confidence, but what Sender offers in the text is more complex. I have enjoyed the process of creating and experimenting with the character. The greatness of the theater is that you never finish the job, there is always a new show.
– .
