María Isabel Díaz: I Always Wanted to Return to Work in Cuba

July 29, 2019

One day he arrived at his house and his sister told him: "A film director called you." It is not surprising that the now impressive María Isabel Díaz, who has just won the Acting Award for "The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste García" at the 15th International Film Festival of Gibara, would have believed at that time that someone was "pulling her leg," that someone from school was playing a heavy-handed joke on her, but before the next morning had progressed much, Orlando Rojas was already calling her.

"Ah, yes, yes, I said incredulously. I wasn't very sure until he came to see me and we talked for three hours or more. From that moment on, a very special bond was established, even though he still hadn't announced to me that I would play Ofelia. A long time passed before I found out, but he was always by my side, watching me, I told him stories from my life... A kind of father confessor-daughter confessor relationship was established between us...".

—When did you find out?

—When he asked me to help him with the casting to choose David and the rest of the characters. "And Ofelia?" I asked him. "Ofelia is you," he answered me... "A Bride for David" marked me tremendously. I remember that scene that didn't appear in the original script in which I sang in Plaza del Cristo and then I made a fool of David by telling him I was pregnant and had to raise the child (she smiles). It was a show that I kept putting on for my friends on the street, in a park, anywhere... and that Orlando wanted to capture, who asked Rapi Diego, when he was preparing the film, if he knew some chubby girl. "A girl lives in front of my house, and she's also an artist," he assured him, because he had known me his whole life".

And it's true that María Isabel was always an artist. "I fell in love with acting as a child. Of course, at that age I couldn't even imagine that I could live from something you were passionate about, however, the adults around me noticed. In fact, my father's friends advised him to enroll me in the National School of Art, but he didn't think it was a good idea. In my childhood I was marked by events like having seen "The Holy Innocents," Mario Camus's film, which led me to think that acting was what I wanted for myself. At that time, the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) was not in my plans. It appeared when I could make decisions about my career. I took the exams and passed.

"ISA was a wonderful place, a magical school, where art was breathed at all times. We received many theoretical and practical subjects, in search of comprehensive preparation. I graduated in 1987 and didn't return there until 1995, but it had changed a lot. Imagine, the Special Period! Everything was boarded up, the accesses that were like passageways... I sat on a staircase and cried, I felt a lot of nostalgia".

"A Bride for David" came while I was studying. That turned out to be her first opportunity in film. "By that time I had already done my first work in theater: "Where Love Will Grow," the opera by maestro Armando Suárez del Villar, which had Hugo Marcos as musical director. I was 18 years old, but I looked like 14. I remember my mom telling me: "Girl, take off those motor scooters because you look underage". However, they gave me the role of the mother, because at that time I was a soprano dramatic by tessitura. Armando had to work hard with me on the acting, because it wasn't just about singing.

"Since there were several casts, Mercedes Arnáez, Corina Mestre, an opera singer whose name I don't remember, and I played that character. On opening night I was scared to death. Armando had told me: "Well, if they applaud you at some point, don't leave the stage, stay and bow, as happens in opera," and it was very beautiful because when I finished my first aria they started applauding and stood up. I took two steps toward the edge and returned two, I spent the whole time doing a zigzag on the stage because I didn't know how to react".

I was in my second year of studies when the filming process of "A Bride for David" began, which was shot in my third year. "I was a little girl who didn't even know how to stand in front of a camera, however, I took it very seriously, as if it were a Youth assignment. That experience allowed me to understand that you could be disciplined, responsible and enjoy to the maximum, as if it were a party. I learned it and it hasn't stopped happening to me in television, in cinema or in theater, of course".

—It was supposed that after A Bride... movies would rain down on you in cinema, the leading roles...

—I certainly didn't stop working, but there is not always a leading role for a chubby girl. I acted in "Hello, Hemingway," by Fernando Pérez, where I played Larita's cousin, which turned out wonderfully for Laurita de la Uz, an extraordinary actress; in "Secondary Roles," also by Orlando Rojas, which I loved, for me it's among the great films of Cuban cinema. I was also part of the cast of "La vida en rosa"...

"On television I was carrying out a leading role, "The Hour of the Witches," but I also participated in other children's shows: The Mischievous Cook, Pocholo and his Gang; in the series For Love, in telenovelas…, while continuing with the Teatro Estudio group (Yerma, A Doll's House, Tales of the Decameron), the Rita Montaner (The Beloved of Enramada, Bourgeois, To Whom It Fell, It Fell, Sibila, My Love), Teatro El Público (The Cave, The Deer, The Wedding)... I was at full capacity...".

—How did you manage to make your way in Spain?

—I arrived in Spain invited to a Film Week in Mallorca and then I was able to participate with a small show in a kind of theater fair that was held in Barcelona —it's no longer organized. Later I wanted to see the snow and I also wanted to stay and try. It turned out very difficult to start from scratch —when I could start—, because there were at least five years in which it was impossible for me.

"Only after that period did small roles appear that I took on as the greatest leading roles of my life. There I learned that, which sounds so much like a cliché, that there are no small or big characters, only good or bad performances. I learned to give a lot of value to war, to the battles one must fight daily. Nothing was like in Cuba, where everything flowed and I never had to work as a waitress or cleaning houses to be able to pay for my studies or to work as an actress. So I faced the real world. It was hard, very hard".

—How do you survive five years like that, especially after you are already a recognized actress?

—Having very clear what you want. Even if it's not intellectually in your head, emotionally you must know why you are betting on it. Then you have to be very humble and be grateful for those complex moments, because they teach you about life, but also for acting, to be able to know that type of degraded, depressed, needy characters. I think I should be grateful for that bad time when I cried a lot, I won't say I was happy. However, I decided not to throw in the towel".

—When did you start to see the light?

—The light already illuminated me with those very tiny roles, from which I thought I wouldn't get out, but I felt happy. One day they called me for a permanent character in a series, "Javier No Longer Lives Alone," directed by Emilio Aragón, who also starred in it. Emilio is a partner, truly, impressive, but I was very scared: it had been five and a half years since I had been in front of a camera and I was very ashamed to be "normal," as if I didn't deserve to be there; it was something psychological, a bit strange. And, of course, in the second season they didn't use me. Then another setback came, I was already living in Madrid and was working doing surveys on the street, putting stickers, doing whatever appeared.

"It was Luis San Narciso, the casting director of "Javier No Longer Lives Alone," who called me again for the film "Volver," by Pedro Almodóvar. They selected me and I also put pressure on myself, I was super scared. You have to be afraid of fear. Fear is paralyzing... I filmed Volver, but nothing extraordinary happened, although it did put me in the sights of many directors.

"Then came the crisis in Spain and I went for a few months to the United States which turned into a few years in Miami. Another difficult experience. I am convinced that I will not repeat it: professionally I had a very bad time despite having no shortage of work as an actress. I returned to Madrid to become Sole from "Vis a Vis," a beautiful character, a bombshell that I defended in four precious long seasons. I am very grateful to the creators of the series, to the screenwriters, to the directors, because it was a luxury, truly".

—"The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste García," Best Fiction Feature at Gibara, has meant your grand return to Cuban cinema...

—I fell in love with the script when Arturo Infante, the director, and Claudia Calviño, the producer, sent it to me. Then I came to film in Havana and I loved the experience, working with young, super talented guys that I didn't know. They spoke to me with "you," and I thought: "Could it be that they see me as very old?" It's very nice to be part of a special creative environment.

"Since 2003 I hadn't filmed here, after "The Nights of Constantinople" (Orlando Rojas) and "Fruits in the Café," by Humberto Padrón, the first independent film made in Cuba, a project in which, together with Jorge Perugorría, we played a scandalous couple".

"The Extraordinary Journey... has done very well at festivals, has won very important awards, the most recent at Gibara: best film and best female performance… It has been tremendous, I am very grateful to Claudia, to Arturo, to the team. I filmed it under somewhat complicated health conditions, because I had had surgery 33 days before, but everyone took care of me with love and care. Without a doubt, I am an excessively sensitive person, but now I know that I am also very strong, very capable.

—Do you think "The Extraordinary Journey..." will be the door to other projects? Would you like it to be that way?

—I would love it. I have always wanted to work in Cuba. When I would run into Laura de la Uz in Spain or I would come, and she would tell me she was making a film, I would invariably ask her: "Wouldn't there be a little role for me, even if it's small? If you find out, let me know," but it didn't happen. It's just that it's so fantastic, so pleasant, it's like returning to the womb, and that makes me feel especially happy.