Cordovan Fernando Tejero is one of the best-known actors in Spain thanks, in particular, to a couple of comic characters from two twin television series that made us laugh a lot: this is Emilio Delgado from There’s no one living here (2003-2006), concierge in the Madrid building at number 21 Calle Desengaño and Fermín Trujillo de the one who comes (since 2007), espetero, beach thief and amateur keyer at the Mirador de Montepinar.
But he also wanted to step into the shoes of dramatic characters like Coque de Willsfeature by Joaquin Carmona (2022), entirely produced in the Region of Murcia, where it shares the frame with Óscar Casas, Nerea Camacho, Adriana Ozores and Carlos Santos, and which is currently filming. “He’s a very different character from almost anyone I’ve done; well, everyone”, he tells us during an interview at the El Churra hotel in Murcia.
“His story is beautiful, and with a wide variety of emotions, many contours and a brutal emotional journey, and for me it was a challenge“, he continues to explain what pushed him to decide for this work. “Then, since I wanted to be a father so badly in life and I’m not, in the end this film is about just that, about the relationship between a father and a son who didn’t exist, and he wants that it exists.” Perhaps feeling so identified with Coque will help Fernando Tejero to embody him better.
Fernando Tejero’s introspection to create his ‘Last Wills’ character
“I think that, for an actor who does comedy, it is easier to do a drama than the reverse”, abounds the Andalusian interpreter. “It’s not the first drama I’ve done because this is five square meters [2011], for example. But it is true that it is a challenge and, curiously, I threw away a lot of my experiences, of the story I lived with my father; or that I live because, fortunately, he is still alive. And I tapped into that paternal instinct that I was talking about earlier, looking a lot within myself.”
“And I had plenty of time to prepare it; I had the script on my bedside table for a long time,” he continues. “AND I worked from intuition, common sense and heart, because it’s a character that, if you don’t put your soul into it, will never be able to work. It exudes sentiment, and I think the film is a love story. It’s a Thriller in Frenchbut I think ultimately it’s a love story, he moves mountains and we can do anything for him.”
“I try to create a pleasant working environment and I like to laugh with my colleagues and so far very few have complained. I try to to have a good time because, for me, the character is hard because life has gone very wrong for him and, in the end, it ends up affecting you and touching parts of you, even in personal wounds”, admits Fernando Tejero. “C That’s why I try to put a little humor in life; otherwise, this character would end up devouring me”.
Joaquín Carmona, a respectful and enthusiastic director
Joaquín Carmona and the original screenwriter, Salvador Serrano, thought of the Cordovan from the start to play Wills. “Six or seven years have passed and I thought the film would never be made”, says this one. “But how am I going to say no to people who are so excited about a project, who have struggled to get it off the ground and who I wanted tomy from the beginning?” Under these circumstances, it was impossible for him to refuse.
“Since we had so much time to talk about the film, I got to know it very well. [a Joaquín Carmona], listen to their expressions and live this great illusion that I had to make this film”, says Fernando Tejero. “And then there’s the knowledge he has of cinema. We kept talking and, in addition to having seen his work, I know that He is in love with this job and we have very similar tastes. And all of this gives me confidence. »
“It’s nice because he’s a guy who has a lot of respect for the profession and for the actors, and that’s fundamental, it’s very appreciated,” he admits. “He gives you your space, he listens to you, he lets you create, he asks your permission, he talks to you with great respect… It’s very easy to work with him. He’s a humble guy he lets himself be advised too for the fact that this is his first film”. And he concludes as follows: “I would like him to feel the same excitement and the same respect with the directors he works with that he has for and for the profession”.
“It allows you to change, for example, a dialogue that you find more difficult or unnatural”, explains Fernando Tejero. “I like that my colleagues who have a lot more experience advise me and teach me. Because it is a remote career and there is continuous learning in this profession; never leaves learn and it’s fantastic. And I would have liked, in each filming or theatrical function that I did, to have someone who would have advised me”.
References in interpretation for Fernando Tejero
“I love Eduard Fernández. Like Luis Tosar, Javier Gutiérrez… There are a lot of actors from whom I learn and whom I have as references. But, while others ask about them and say Marlon Brando, when I wanted to be an actor and started in that, I didn’t know who Marlon Brando was,” the Cordovan confesses. “My credentials were Jose Luis Lopez VazquezFernando Fernán Gómez, José Luis Ozores, José Sacristán, Pepe Isbert… I drank from these people more than anyone, and I wanted to be an actor for them”.
“And apart from that, I remember the year they gave me the Goya for Best Breakthrough Actor [por su Serafín en Días de fútbol, en 2003], they gave the Honor to José Luis López Vázquez, and he said something to me that I will never forget in my life”, tells us Fernando Tejero. “I came across him in the corridors of the Goya, and He said to me: “You are an actor like us, of intuition, of hunger”. And it’s curious because many of this generation have said to me: Concha Velasco, Juan Luis Galiardo when I worked with him at The spark of life [2011]…”
“And something will have to do with the fact that my biggest references have been them, that I wanted to be an actor because of what I saw in their work”, concludes the Andalusian artist, who could swallow up movies like The apartmentby Billy Wilder [1960]Where Rebeccaby Alfred Hitchcock [1940]. “These are films that I have seen, I don’t know how many times and they continue to amaze me Like the first time I saw them.” Perhaps, because of all he learned from Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Laurence Olivier or Joan Fontaine. Although these performers were not intuitive and of hunger.
