The two actors play the medalists Manel Estiarte and Pedro García Aguado in the film 42 Segundos, which revives the legendary Spanish team that made history in the Olympic Games from Barcelona 92.

On the day of the (virtual) interview, a couple of weeks ago, Jaime Lorente (Murcia, 1991) greets the camera with a still sleepy face: he has slept an hour, he says, after finishing the filming of Cristo y Rey, the series he portrays the turbulent relationship between the tamer Ángel Cristo (whom he plays) and Bárbara Rey (Belén Cuesta). He is in Madrid, already recovered from the corneal injury that he suffered in said filming, and in a few hours he escapes for the well-deserved vacation.

On the next screen, Álvaro Cervantes (Barcelona, 1989) smiles with a more relaxed appearance. Also based in the capital, these days he rests in his Catalan refuge, recharging batteries for the imminent promotion and the premiere of the film that has brought them together for the first time on screen: 42 Segundos.

They are two actors on the rise, they share a generation, they are thirty-something years old and therefore they did not experience in first person the Olympic milestone of Barcelona 92 ​​that their new film evokes. But they have passionately plunged into the personal conflicts, the sacrifice and the overcoming of that water polo team through their captain, Manel Estiarte (Álvaro Cervantes), and Pedro García Aguado (Jaime Lorente). That team that seemed to have few podium options a priori but to which the arrival of a Croatian coach, Dragan Matutinovic, who applied his military hand to the players, with cruel training, shook their game and their results, until an epic final, with silver medal.

Álvaro Cervantes speaks calmly, and looks like a discreet young man, with a point of surfer in vacation mode. Jaime Lorente seems more temperamental, he defines himself sensitively, and his career reveals him to be restless and versatile. Boxing, he has published a book of poems, A propósito de tu boca, plans to write and direct his own story (“I need to go beyond acting”, he has pointed out) and also composes and sings rap, with good reception.

Cervantes’ career has been progressive, without sudden media successes like Lorente, but solid and constant. Between his two Goya nominations (revelation for El juego del ahorcado and Adú) he has stood out in films such as Tres metros sobre el cielo, Hanna or El árbol de la sangre, with Júlio Medem, and series such as Carlos, Rey emperador or El tiempo que te doy.

Now they get into the shoes of two exceptional water polo players. Lorente plays Pedro García Aguado, a medalist who had to deal with his own addictions (“I missed the best moments of my life”), alcohol and drugs, which put his career in danger. Then Aguado has been able to take advantage of those experiences to help troubled young people as a coach on the successful television program Hermano mayor.

Cervantes plays Captain Manel Estiarte, the Maradona of water, the six-time Olympic water polo player. The film, directed by the prolific blockbuster Dani de la Orden and newcomer Álex Murrull, delves into the interiorities of that legendary water polo team, the rivalries and tensions, the Croatian coach who pushed them to the limit (Estiarte has come to say that humiliated them, subjected them to extreme training, such as ascents to the Andorran mountain), although it also injected them with the conviction that they could beat anyone.

For both interpreters, embodying Estiarte and García Aguado has required exhaustive preparation: they had to be convincing not only as fit actors, but also as elite athletes.

How were the trainings? Not as hard as the ones Matutinovic taught on his day, I imagine…
Jaime Lorente: I think that at our level it was as hard as it was for the real team with Dragan, because we started from scratch and we had to reach the level of elite players. The screen is not deceiving and we work very hard not to need specialists in any scene. We had a hard time getting to that level.

An extra pressure to that of the paper itself…
Álvaro Cervantes: Yes, it is the first thing you ask yourself when you receive the script. That your life is going to be that of an elite athlete. You change the chip and think about how you eat, how you sleep, the number of hours you dedicate to exercise to perform at your best in the water.
Jaime Lorente: There is no other way…
Álvaro Cervantes: They gave me the script on a Friday night and I spent the weekend thinking about what was coming my way, knowing that I wanted to make the film. From then until the shooting, five months passed and it was all training.

The rehearsals, in the water…
Álvaro Cervantes: The truth is that we end up more tired of water than we imagined a priori. At first we even decided to continue after filming in an amateur water polo team.
Jaime Lorente: It is clear that this was no more than an idea…
Álvaro Cervantes: It gave us the high, we wanted to keep that sport so hard that it cost us so much to achieve, but we have not fulfilled it. Apparently it is a sport that once you leave it, it is very difficult to return to it. When we both lived in Madrid, a former player began to train us, Rafa Fernández, a guy very dedicated to the film, who gave us a lot of power. Already in Barcelona, we had Tato, the official shooting coach. It was good because we reproduced that meeting between the actor-players who came from Madrid and those who were in Barcelona, just as it happened in reality and caused conflicts in its day due to the different way of understanding the sport. And that helped us situate ourselves in the script.

Were they already in shape?
Jaime Lorente: I am an athlete, I have always liked running a lot.
Álvaro Cervantes: I don’t, really, I prepare myself when it’s time, but it’s hard for me. Until now I was not interested in sport, I did not understand it. Now I understand what it means also on a mental level.

Do you see parallels with acting? In both cases, the rivalry must leave room for camaraderie, so that the result works.
Álvaro Cervantes: Dedicating your life to a competition seems very beastly to me, but the obsession that an actor can have in reaching an ideal of acting is actually something similar.
Jaime Lorente: Of course, there are points in common. They are two professions that depend on a human team, on how each element finds its place. That happens on a film set and on a soccer field.
Álvaro Cervantes: In this case, our physical training has also been our rehearsal and you rarely have so much time for it. The roles of each one in the team were forged in those sessions. And that complicity was noticed later on filming.
Jaime Lorente: A team was really created.

Did the real protagonists, Estiarte and García Aguado advise you?
Jaime Lorente: They have always been very open to talk with us and totally in favor of the film.
Álvaro Cervantes: They have been very generous in telling us how they lived through it, who they are without hesitation, in meeting us and chatting while looking into our eyes. Something very valuable, because emotionally there are things that when you meet the person you detect and make you understand what they are like, how they lived it. It’s a gift. It is impressive to embody one of the best athletes in history, whom I already consider a friend. There were days that I called him before shooting to ask him for details… Priceless, wow.
Jaime Lorente: I saw in Pedro a hyper-special sensitivity. He seems like a huge guy to me, with a lot of charisma and sensitivity, which is where I clung to, that emotional, fragile part. Luckily he was very excited after seeing the film, very shocked and happy.
Álvaro Cervantes: I, to be honest, until I spoke with Manel after seeing the film, I was not completely calm. The biggest spectator for me was him. And he liked it, he told me very nice things.

Did they tell you their opinion about the mistake that made that Olympic final get out of hand?
Jaime Lorente: There was a lack of communication or they just did what they had to do and it didn’t work out.
Álvaro Cervantes: If they had done anything else they would have disobeyed the coach. In the end, it is a team and you have to respect the rules. That coach, despite the fact that he gave them a hard time, led them there. In the final moment he indicated a type of defense that they considered inadequate. They looked at each other, clearly that order was out of tune, but Estiarte decided to go to hell with that instruction, even though he didn’t believe in it. Surely they regret having obeyed, but it is what they had to do.

A special moment of the shoot.
Jaime Lorente: For me, the beginning of filming, when we did the scenes in the swimming pools. It was like starting on top of a mountain, the most difficult. We thought: if we can get through these weeks, the rest will be easier. We all had to take great care of ourselves, it was a litmus test.
Álvaro Cervantes: I remember moments with Jaime of looking at each other in the water when we almost couldn’t take it anymore. We no longer knew if it was us or the characters, encouraging us to comply. And that hug between all…

How has this story enriched you?
Jaime Lorente: I would stay with the emotional journey that the film team has had, similar to the real one; the connection with everyone, who has worked hard to train. That pineapple that has been created I take with me forever; sometimes cinema and reality merge. This has been our cinematographic feat, also very hard.
Álvaro Cervantes: In the end, the film is about recognition, which in a more superficial way could be that medal, but above all how the characters end up recognizing the other, valuing the good that it brings them. It happened in the team and also between us. In the end, acting is just that: a back-and-forth job. You can’t work on this alone.

They faced their fears. What scares you?
Jaime Lorente: Many things, many, although fear has never paralyzed me. Stay alone, that something happens to the people you love. Fear has many sizes.
Álvaro Cervantes: They face their fears because the other is with them. Beyond overcoming, sports feat, it is when they accepted themselves and the other that success came. Nobody achieves anything alone.
Jaime Lorente: It’s still a love story. Acceptance is one of the reflections of love. When one loves what is next to him and what he does, things turn out well or at least if they don’t turn out well they are beautiful.

What do you think about this idea of success and failure? Winning is everything and silver is a failure, but it has gone further than ever.
Jaime Lorente: They are stipulated terms, but for me it is something totally subjective, hyper-individual, that lives within one. One can fail by winning a gold or succeed simply by entering the Games. It is very subject to what others consider of you. The movie recounts that journey, the realization that success lies elsewhere. And that with a silver in hand, when we hug, we say: “This is a success of ostia!”
Álvaro Cervantes: They explain that they felt pain in the heart for that silver medal, but that propelled them to win gold four years later. That preparation and that bittersweet silver was the learning, the real success. And that is something I share. Over time is when you understand things. It is necessary to give him the perspective that he needs at each moment, not to remain in the most instinctive perception.

What do they have in common with their characters? Jaime, impulsive like García Aguado? Álvaro, introverted like Estiarte?
Jaime Lorente: I consider myself a good guy, and I try to have fun with the things I do. And there are innocent things about me that I try to take care of and I think he has. My demons also sometimes come out with too much force, I don’t control them, although there is always a ‘little light’ there.
Álvaro Cervantes: I am not as introverted as Estiarte in the film, but he is many more things, the film shows only part of it. I do share his determination and I understand the emotion of his search, of his preparation.

How have you two connected personally?
Jaime Lorente: I think we agree on the love we put into work, we are both a little sick of this. I admire him a lot and if you admire someone, everything has been said.
Álvaro Cervantes: I agree with Jaime. It has been a great discovery, I admire his courage, his passion for the job. In this film I have experienced a sequence (I don’t want to reveal which one)… something that has happened to me very rarely. An instant of surrendering to the situation, the other, of flying as an actor, although it sounds cliché. A moment where the characters and the action took over us. For living moments like that I dedicate myself to this.

In sport the objectives are very clear: podiums, medals… In your career, what is the goal?
Jaime Lorente: Me, support my family, now I’m a father…
Álvaro Cervantes: Live more characters and stories like this. I started when I was 15 years old, now I am 32… More than half my life working, it has passed very quickly. My goal is to continue enjoying what this profession offers me and the life, of course, of the people I love, of those who are yet to come.

Jaime says goodbye, arrives late, goes on a trip: disconnection before the spotlight. Álvaro continues for a few more minutes in the telematic chat, explaining how much he enjoys the pre-shooting, the preparation of the character, that “getting into another world” and in projects that “I still cannot advance”. Now, he assures him, “what I need is to rest”. Cooking, “something I really like” and going to the movies a lot, which is difficult with filming. “I am seeing the entire billboard. And I will be in Donosti. I really want a movie binge”, he says.

Source : lavanguardia.com