Enrique Arce, third assault on Hollywood: from ‘La casa de papel’ to sharing the bill with Jennifer Aniston or Kate Winslet

We connected by video call with Enrique Arce. For us it’s seven in the evening, but for him, in Los Angeles, it’s morning. A few days ago he lived the North American premiere of ‘Criminals in sight’, the film where he shares the bill with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler, but now, he tells us, he has to do more mundane bureaucracies such as looking for an apartment and registering. This is his third attempt to settle in the mecca of cinema, although unlike previous times he is now backed by the global success of ‘La casa de papel’: “I have been lucky to have made a Spanish series that has hit so much that the producer and the director themselves were fans and they called me for that. I didn’t even have to test for this film, which is appreciated because I’m terrible at tests. I get very nervous ”, he assures.

And that his is not a small role in this high-budget Netflix production, which he defines as “a whodunit, which has existed since the days of Agatha Christie, mixed with the craziest comedy of these two cracks”. He gives life to a former soccer player, womanizer and seducer. “A scoundrel, but he is not as dandruff as Arturo,” defines Enrique Arce. “He is an archetypal character. In this type of comedies there are many clichés and they work. There is nothing wrong with him. It is not a film in which great depths are going to be made about the characters and what motivates them; It is made for people to have a good time with popcorn for an hour and a half. It happens very cool and with lots of laughs. Comedy allows you to enter into a game of exaggeration that other genres do not. To me, by the way, I love comedy, although it is not offered to me much. I’m waiting to see if this movie gives me the opportunity to offer some more.”

Did you imagine when you were making series here in Spain that one day you would be with two comedy monsters like Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler?

I answer this the same as with ‘La casa de papel’. They often ask me, did you imagine that a Spanish series, which on top of that failed on Antena 3, could be among the most watched series in the world? Obviously not. I knew I was going to do international things because I was fluent in English, but I always thought it would be as a guest actor who lives in Spain, because the shoots that go to Spain, which are more and more, need actors who speak English. I never thought that one day I’d be flying to Hawaii to start a movie or that I’d be on a red carpet like the other day, with Adam on the left and Jennifer on the right and me looking at myself with that down syndrome thing. impostor saying: ‘But if I’m a guy from the Cabañal de Valencia, what am I doing here, right?’. When you think about it, the numbers don’t come out and you think it’s a carambola of fate, but he tried to live it not from the impostor syndrome but from gratitude to the universe.

Did you live with pressure filming with the two of them?

I spent a very bad two hours. The first day when I got to the set and saw what he had put together, I shit. It was a level of deployment not seen in any movie I’d ever worked on, other than ‘Terminator: Dark Fate,’ which was on a similar budget. In those two hours, he told me what I’m doing here, how I got here, how nervous I am… So I went absolutely shitless to say hello to the set and I already met them. They were so warm, so beautifulhumble and affectionate that in the first rehearsal I was already completely devoid of everything that crossed my mind in those two bad hours of anxiety.

Your character boasts of having slept with over 10,000 women. Do you get to that level?

I am between Francisco and Julio Iglesias… (laughs) It is not a joke. 10,000 women? I a little less…

People may think that this is all the merit of ‘La casa de papel’, but the truth is that you began your training as an actor in New York.

I was a law student in Valencia, without any kind of artistic aspiration. I’m not like those people who have always been clear about it. Theater came across my life and, instead of doing a bit of what everyone else does (see if you like it, take some classes, then go to Madrid…), I went directly to New York to study theater. dramatic art career Thus, from the outset, I was a blow to my parents, because they paid me for it. There I began to feel a great affinity for American culture. I have done different raids. I spent three years in Los Angeles, from 2000 to 2005 trying to find projects here, but nothing came of it. Then, I came back in 2017 and the same thing, nothing came out.

So, it’s not a flash of a day…

It is not a flash of a day, although you tend to normalize it. He had done some things before that which are called “English-speaking actors” for productions that are shot in Spain. I did ‘Punto de mira’ with Jeff Goldblum, ‘Better Another Day’ with Pierce Brosnan and Aaron Paul, and then the one with Woody Allen, the one with Mel Gibson, this… And it’s starting to pick up a bit of inertia. That is why I have come here, to take advantage of the fact that I have a three-year visa and look for new projects. The last thing I’ve done hasn’t been ‘Criminals in sight’, but a very nice project with Kate Winslett and Marion Cotillard in which I play our great genius Pablo Picasso with a toupee and all. [se refiere a la película ‘Lee’]. And it has also been one of the reasons why I say ‘well, it’s no longer a coincidence, this is already taking shape’. I didn’t have to take a test for that either, Kate called me directly. That’s why I think I have to seize the moment. And since I don’t have a wife, or a family, or a puppy that barks at me…

You have very humbly commented on the “call me Kate”, but we are talking about Kate Winslet, with capital letters.

He didn’t call me, I’m lying to you, he wrote me an email (laughs). Very polite. She told me ‘well, it’s a role that I already know is small…’. They were few days in Dubrovnik. But of course, I was Kate Winslet, who is one of the producers. And I was like, ‘but this Kate is Kate from ‘Titanic’!’ And it turns out that yes and they are humble telling you that it is not much for you, but I would go and do a figuration with her.

We have recently learned that Itziar Ituño and Najwa Nimri will be in the series ‘Berlín’. Would you bring Arturito back to life or is it a closed chapter for you?

Me with ‘La casa de papel’, at the end of the world. He gave me tremendous envy. Ted Sarandos, from Netflix, was at the ‘Criminals in Sight’ premiere and we had a chance to talk at the after party, and he told me about it. I didn’t know because I’m a bit disconnected looking for an apartment and a car here and I hadn’t found out. I was very happy for them. I think that it is very good for fiction that there are more characters that connect with the first part of ‘La casa de papel’ and that Pedro is not so unprotected in that sense. Both with Najwa and Itziar, they could not have chosen better. And if they call me, I say the same as when they proposed the third: I even do it for free.

What is it like trying to break into Hollywood? Some actors who have tried their luck in Los Angeles say that it is a somewhat inhospitable city.

I’ve tried so many times… This is my third serious time, to come and look for an apartment, register myself… But this time it’s a little easier on a professional level. You no longer have to send emails to people, I’ve sent so many and nothing ever happened… Now I’m in other circumstances and I’m also of a different age, coming to 50 is also throwing a couple of flats at it. But I like this city because it is very oriented towards nature and healthy things, more than Madrid it is more whirlwind and I am always more involved. Here I enjoy my solitude more and the truth is that I am very excited. See what happens. And if nothing happens, then I will return with the smile of, at least, having been able to live a red carpet in Hollywood with a great project as one of the protagonists. That is no longer taken from me by anyone.

Do you have plans to stay long?

I’m going to see what life has in store for me. I’ll go back to Spain, my parents are very old, but otherwise I wouldn’t mind staying. The decision between my agent and I has been to bet on the United States and what has been able to come from Spain or Latin America we have decided to put it on hold because if you are not coming and going all the time. I want to focus here.