Born into a family of actors –her father is the renowned Carlos Iglesias, and her mother is the extremely talented Eloísa Vargas– Paula Iglesias has had at home, from a very young age, the face and the cross of a profession as difficult as it is exciting. “Neither of them wanted her to be an actress,” she assures LA RAZÓN. However, last Sunday she premiered her latest work, “Extreme”, with which every Sunday she will be on the stage at the Teatro Lara until July 23. “In a way, I understand it, because I have been able to see what success is, but also the fact that they don’t call you, of not having a job.” Something, she assures her, that she has little to do with talent. “My parents studied acting at the same school, and my mother was one of the best in the class, but her careers have been totally different,” she continues. «Sometimes you have to be lucky enough to be in the right place and time, meet the people… In a casting many people decide and for very different reasons, and maybe you don’t fit in simply because they are looking for someone with other characteristics, But having your job depend on this is very hard.
For this reason, she has a “plan B” that, in reality, is one more tool for her work. “Acting leaves you with a lot of downtime between jobs, so during that time, I’m studying psychology, which has helped me a lot not only in understanding the characters more deeply, but in my way of getting into them.” Despite everything, Iglesias wants to continue acting, because it is something that “gives me life.” In fact, in recent years she has been making her way. Among many other works, in 2021 he was in the series “By Ana Milán” (Atremedia) and “Dos vidas” (TVE), and in 2022 he was part of the film “Si todas las puertas se cerrar”, which, under the Directed by Antonio Cuadri, it tells the story of the founder of a religious congregation, the Oblate Sisters of the Most Holy Redeemer, whose work is based on working with women in prostitution or victims of trafficking and which began in Madrid in the 19th century and continues to the present day. . A theme, that of sexual violence against women, to which she is especially sensitive and to which she has had to face again with “Extreme”, in which she plays the roommate of a young woman (played by Claudia Galán) who suffers a rape.
“What we try to show with this work are the different reactions to a sexual assault,” explains Iglesias. “It’s very interesting because it brings to light the need for the environment as well as the system to be aware of the entire emotional and psychological process involved in having been a victim of something like this.” What she is sure of, she says, is that the viewer will not remain indifferent to this story. “To carry it out in as realistic a way as possible, we have met with associations, with real victims of sexual assault who have told us about their experience, not only before the fact itself but everything that has come after.” “Through being aware of all this is how change really comes, because it prepares us to provide support when victims feel safe to denounce, to end the stigmatization.” And it is that, as can be seen from his experience speaking with these women in the first person, Iglesias emphasizes that “even today there are many women who do not report for fear of not being believed, of being judged by where they were or how they were dressed , and even because they feel guilty, but, above all, because of the whole process that comes after making the complaint, which is also very painful and, sometimes, they prefer to pretend that nothing has happened, which is the only way to self-protection that they find at that moment”. “Through the work we want the viewer to ask questions about all this, to reflect,” she says, although she is aware that it can be “a delicate subject.” In spite of everything, «it is very nice that the viewer comes out questioning himself, and, above all, verifying that beyond what is debated in politics, where things change is in the street, in society, and that art has and it has always had a fundamental role in this.
The debate between justice or revenge
“And you, would you take revenge on your attacker?” In this way, “Extreme” challenges the viewer, before which a fast-paced thriller is presented that raises an important and profound moral debate in a society in which laws on sexual violence are constantly changing and are part of the political agenda. And social. And it is that Marjorie, the victim and protagonist of this story, in fear of not being believed, she considers taking justice into her own hand. However, her roommates appear on the scene and try to stop her, although this removes events from the past in each of them that will make the situation more and more complex.
