Laia Costa: “In ‘Cinco lobitos’ we flee from perfect motherhood, but also from mother courage”

When ‘Five wolves’, which hits theaters this Friday, May 20, became the big surprise at the Malaga Festival, where it won the Biznaga de Oro for Best Film, the word that sounded the most among critics and audiences was ‘maternity’. What if. Alauda Ruiz de Azúa’s opera prima touches on the subject, but goes much further. “That’s just the starting point,” he tells us. Laia Costa (Barcelona, ​​1985), who received the Silver Biznaga for Best Actress, jointly with her partner Susi Sánchez. “The film talks about the figure of the caregiver, about illness, about death, about inherited dynamics…” The actress plays Amaia, a young woman who has just become a mother and discovers, not only that things are not as she imagined, but that she is about to experience a reverse journey to what it means to be a daughter, this time from a much more painful.

They started shooting a year after Laia gave birth. By then, her view of her in what ways had changed. “I read the script when I was six months pregnant and there were scenes I didn’t understand. I read it again after having my daughter and I understood everything”, he tells us. Still without sleep for many nights, breastfeeding and “sliding emotionally throughout the day”, the actress took advantage of that energy to deliver it to the protagonist of the story. “Outside the shoot I took care of my daughter and, inside, of the five babies with whom we worked. I ate when I could, I didn’t wear makeup or go to the hairdresser’s and I kept the acne that came out when I was breastfeeding”, remember. “I had been out of work for a long time. The last thing she had done had been a series in London when she was pregnant and I felt this was the film she needed to come back to.” She discovered it after having a coffee with Alauda, ​​the debutant director, and realizing that her only goal in ‘Cinco lobitos’ was “total honesty, to tell a story without artifice”.

A maternity without epic

To do this, the filmmaker opted for resource austerity. “He is not afraid of rhythm or silence. She is not afraid that nothing will happen. On set we felt that in that ‘nothing happened’ everything was happening”Coast explains. It was the tone that was needed to portray the day-to-day life of a “very Basque family, which does not show emotions or say they love each other”, in a very brave and unusual way in cinema. “To me, who is very transparent with what I feel, all this was very far from me”, he assures. “But I immediately understood that routine that Alauda wanted to reflect, that loneliness that mothers feel, who stop sleeping for years and, even so, continue to function. And how much they need accompaniment and empathy. In ‘Cinco lobitos’ we wanted to flee from perfect motherhood, but also from mother courage. Two extremes between which there are thousands of grays and that, in reality, is where the majority is found”.

However, Amaia’s big change occurs when the roles are reversed: she goes from being a daughter to having to take care of her mother, played by Susi Sánchez. “It is something that, traditionally, has fallen on women. And that’s where my character’s identity crisis comes in.” A duel in life “I preferred not to judge. They are undulating and very complex processes that can accompany us forever”. For this hard trip he had the complicity of Susi. “She made me laugh because she arrived very nervous. But there is something precious in her: she keeps her enthusiasm and passion intact. And she allowed herself to be lost.” It refers to the moments of improvisation that arose while filming and with which Costa felt very comfortable. “We are two very different actresses. I find it very easy to play outside the text and then come back to it”. But Susi needed to know more. “Alauda asked us for A and, when it was done, he also wanted to shoot B. And there we had to trust the director and do a great exercise in humility. From that moment on, Susi began to have a great time. Each shot was unique, but the essence was maintained. I remember him telling me, ‘I never know what you’re going to do, so I just have to be there.’

From the Berlinale to the Malaga Festival

The formula worked. And this is corroborated by the success it achieved first at the Berlinale, within the Panorama Section, and later at the aforementioned Malaga Festival, where at the press conference, the media rose to applaud and, on opening night, there was a standing ovation of three and a half minutes. “That have never happened to me. I got very excited seeing all those turned faces with masks and their eyes shining ”, recalls the interpreter. With ‘Cinco lobitos’, Costa returns to shooting in Spain after recording the series ‘Foodie Love’, directed by Isabel Coixet in 2019. “I really like working in my country,” she says. However, the international success of ‘Victoria’, directed by Sebastian Schipper in 2015, was key for her agenda to be filled with international projects. “Outside markets took advantage and that’s why I started making films abroad.” Aware of the instability of the profession, the actress is clear that her work “is like surfing: you can spend a long time waiting to catch a good wave and then fall; or take the wrong one, or get on the one you think is not going to grow and then turn into something amazing. In the end, we actors don’t have as much decision-making power either.” The important thing, she assures her, “is to love your work, also with its expectations”. Of course, she admits to having some advantage. “But, as I once heard JA Bayona say: ‘I don’t want any more pieces of the pie. I want the cake to be bigger and for everyone to have their piece.’”