Pedro Almodóvar has been the latest guest on the La Pija y la Quinqui podcast, presented by Mariang Maturana and Carlos Peguer, the same one who managed to sit Pedro Sánchez, President of the Government, in his studio to talk about music and other issues, and who also had Rosalía and her sister Pili as guests a few years ago. Almodóvar has attended the podcast accompanied by his brother, the producer Agustín Almodóvar, and everyone has talked about the term “Almodóvar girl”, about current Madrid or Jacob Elordi. Here, five headlines we extracted from the almost hour-long conversation.
He didn’t like ‘I want to be an Almodóvar girl’
Almodóvar claims that he does not like the term “Almodóvar girl”, and remembers that he did not like Joaquín Sabina’s 1992 song ‘I want to be an Almodóvar girl’. “He, somehow, found out and I think it made him feel bad that I didn’t agree with that song,” says the filmmaker. Almodóvar claims that he was bothered by Sabina’s veiled “criticism” of his actresses (“she called Carmen Maura stupid”) and the implicit homophobia of her including Miguel Bosé in that group. “There was a bit of bad temper, although he will say that it is social criticism.”
AI to document, not to create
“AI helps me document topics that are unknown to me, but there is something that AI will never reach, and that is the pure process of creation,” says the director. “The formulas start from previous data and can do things with all that previous data, but they will never be able to write ‘Talk to her’, not because it is the best movie in the universe, but because it is impossible for AI to recreate that process.” Almodóvar explains, for example, that the AI will never be able to replicate the time he discovered ‘Cucurrucucú paloma’, by Caetano Veloso, and how the song opened a new dimension of the film that he was unaware of. Almodóvar indicates with humor that AI seems “very valid for creating memes”, like those that represent Trump, Putin and all those “diabolical leaders” disguised as “ladies.” Both he and his brother hate generative images and fear that AI will replace doctors in consultations.
«Madrid has been stolen from us»
The hostility of the center of Madrid comes up. Mariang says: “The urban fabric itself repels you; they are collectively prostituting the memories of an entire country; this year’s bells were from Stranger Things.” Almodóvar agrees and gives his neighborhood as an example: “I live in Pintor Rosales and the entire street is one terrace after another that takes up much more than half of the sidewalk. What was once an idyllic place to walk has become an infinite terrace with no space for the walker. It’s a shame; I’ve been in Madrid for 50 years, it’s my city, and I feel like it’s being stolen from us little by little.” Almodóvar says he will not allow himself to be represented in one of the reinterpreted Meninas on display in the city. “I’m not welcome in City Hall either,” he says.
He likes Jacob Elordi, but not ‘Wuthering Heights’
Jacob Elordi has said that he wants to make Spanish films and Mariang asks Almodóvar to direct the actor. “I see that his stardom is serious, I was doubting if he was just a sex symbol,” says the filmmaker, who, however, is not very in favor of ‘Wuthering Heights’, which he found “very bad.” On the contrary, he assures that Elordi “was very good” in ‘Frankeinstein’, but indicates that the role of a monster who speaks in a whisper “is quite comfortable for an actor.”
His next film will have “a lot of black humor”
When asked if he doesn’t feel like returning to the “horny” humor of his first films, Almodóvar responds: “In ‘Bitter Christmas’ I have recovered some of that humor in the first part of the film,” and states: “I will return to humor, I don’t know if at the level of ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’, but the next film will be full of black humor.”
