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Natalia Fisac Actress from Madrid, Spain |
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The road to an acting career is not the same for everyone, some you read
about living in their cars, before fame found them, some are discovered
while they are children and others toil for years in obscurity, prior to
getting their big break. For Spanish film, television and theater
actress Natalia Fisac the pathway to becoming an actress was far removed
from any of those scenarios. The very personable native of Madrid, Spain
has a law degree and she obtained it while earning very high marks. She
always had a passion for acting, but it was not until she came to a
crossroads in her life with the death of her boyfriend after completing
her fourth year of university that Natalia Fisac made the decision to
pursue her dream of becoming an actress.
She explains, “I always wanted to be an actress. The first time I
remember wanting to be an actress I was seven years old. I was playing
at home all of the time. In school I participated in all of the plays. I
even wrote and directed some of the plays. I was also a very, very good
student and you know there is this idea that you have to study something
if you are so clever. You are meant to get a degree in something and
that was my mistake. I studied law and I could have studied
communications or become a journalist or something that was more related
to my skills and the things that I liked.
When I was in my fourth year of the five years of university my
boyfriend died of cancer. We went together for just nine months, but
being at that age and with those circumstances you never forget that.
When he died I said okay Natalia what do you want? I had talked to him
about this. He was a poet and he was also a magician. He said to me what
do you really want to do? If you love the theater then you should do
that. I said no I have to finish my studies blah, blah, blah. Well he
died. I almost quit, but I decided to finish anyway. During my last year
I joined an amateur theater group and after that I went to a private
drama school for three years. I never practiced as a lawyer. I kept
studying and I joined a classical theater company and I worked with them
for eight years.
My boyfriend’s death was the beginning and I opened my eyes. I said
acting was my vocation. I thought I would go for it.
One of my friends said to me at that time about my boyfriend that I had
been very unlucky, because of his death, but I thought just the
opposite. I was really lucky, because he was a very special person. I
was lucky enough to meet him, to love him and to be loved by him.
Although, it was very painful, he is inside of me now and with no pain.”
We are publishing this Riveting Riffs Magazine interview with Natalia
Fisac in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis that gripped the nation during
the first part of 2020 and like so many performing artists worldwide her
regular gigs were canceled. She had been performing in and producing two
plays per week at Madrid’s Plot Point theater,
Las Negras De Shakespeare, in
which she co-stars with
Arantxa Fernández de Moya on Friday evenings at 22:30
and Las Cuentoaventuras De
Sherlock Holmes at 12:00 noon on Sundays. Both productions are
seventy minutes in length.
When that was no
longer possible, “The Council of Navalcamero in a small village (in the
region) of Madrid contacted me to provide them with videos of my
stories, because they met me last year and they loved my work, so I
began to record at home. I am recording sessions of one-half hour with
one or two stories depending on the length of each of them.
Until today I had stories to record, but from now on I have to
invent them, create them or find them somewhere. This morning I had two
stories about Africa that I told many years ago for a special event. I
had forgotten about that and I had to review the text and I had to
invent some songs, because I always sing in my stories, even though I am
not a singer and I am not a musician, I still always sing. Often a
melody will come to me and I have to record it with my mobile. I have
many melodies and when I do a story I listen to see which ones go with
the stories. With these African stories I had to do that and I had to
learn everything the day before,” explaining that they fall under the
greater title, “La Maleta de los
Cuentos (Suitcase of Stories).
The stories are always for children or as I say for families, because
parents are usually with their kids. The parents have told me that they
really enjoy the stories as well.
There are three things that I always use in my stories, songs and
everybody loves that. Everybody loves music. Secondly, I use objects and
sometimes it is many objects and sometimes only a few, but I always use
something to help me tell the story and to give some color to the show.
The third and most important thing is the participation of the audience.
When I am in the theater performing I receive the feedback immediately
and the (audience) interacts with the stories. At times I improvise. I
tell them to come with me on the stage to do some little things or I ask
questions. There are all kinds of participation, so in that way all of
the family is in the show, not just the kids. All of a sudden the adults
begin to behave as children. For them it is like going back into their
childhood. That is happening even online. I try to imagine that they are
answering and they are doing the actions. Parents have told me that they
begin to jump and sing. Of course the stories are for children, but I
know the (entire) family enjoys them,” says Natalia Fisac.
The one thing you notice immediately about Natalia Fisac whether in
conversation or watching her perform is the intensity and energy that
she brings to her theater performances and her work on camera. There is
little chance you are going to become distracted and start focusing on
other people in the scene. Considering she juggles being a mother with
an acting career the sheer amount of energy that accompanies her
performances is quite an eye-opener.
She says, “I am really surprised sometimes and I have to confess that
after every show I am exhausted and nobody can imagine how my body
aches. The other day I was doing a recording and I was really stressed,
because I wanted to do it well.
I do not have the time now to make some of the stories perfect, so I am
worried and that creates stress, but when I start to record again that
energy (returns). I am really enthusiastic and I love what I do. It is
in my character (no pun intended).
Everybody thinks that I am much younger. I am almost 48 and watching me
you would think I am thirty-five or something.
I don’t know where that energy
comes from.
I prefer to act with (an audience), to feel them and to talk to them.
Whenever I finish I go to the theater door and I say goodbye to the
people and I say to the kids high five. I love that the parents can
share their feelings with me and the kids embrace me.
As for the online show that depends on the council. What I want to do is
to organize that by myself. I love my job and I want to earn money with
it. I am not thinking about doing it freely. I am thinking with these
little stories I will put them on my YouTube channel and I will eave
them there after everything is finished. After that I don’t know if I
will prepare things online unless the council wants to pay me to do
that.
I know this can reach other people. For instance I have a friend who
lives in Italy who teaches Spanish at university and the other day when
he saw my recordings online he asked me if he could use it for his
classes. He would add some questions in the bottom part of the video, so
that the students could answer. That is so great. I loved the idea. I
thought great more people can watch me and maybe someone in Italy wants
me there and they want me to go there to perform. It is a great
opportunity to reach more people thanks to technology.”
We should also point out for filmmakers out there that Natalia Fisac is
completely fluent in English and even though she is Spanish when she
speaks in English her accent is very British.
She could easily be cast for an
English speaking role.
Our conversation
circles back to the two plays that will hopefully resume soon at Plot
Poin, “We will continue with Las
Cuentoaventuras De Sherlock Holmes. It opened last September and we
will come back on Sundays at the same time 12 (noon) and that is for
families. I am very happy with this last production of
La
Maleta de los Cuentos,
because the box office was going quite well. It was the best of the big
three productions with La Maleta
de los Cuentos, which were
Alice in Wonderland and
Around the World in Eighty Days, but told by Nellie Bly.
Sherlock Holmes has been a
real success, so we will continue. My guess is we won’t come back until
September, because the virus has affected the theaters a lot. I don’t
think we will come back earlier. Whenever it happens I will be there.
With the other production Las
Negras De Shakespeare, I am not the director nor I am I the
producer, I am just the actress. It is about Shakespeare’s love affair.
The (two women) meet after Shakespeare dies. Centuries ago people got
together with candles to say goodbye to the corpse. Anyway, that night
they meet for the first time and in the beginning they are angry. Little
by little you find out they wrote most of the plays by Shakespeare. They
gave him the stories and the characters. They begin to like each other
and the end is really surprising. There is a funny scene almost at the
end of the play.
That (play) is on Fridays at night. It is late at night, because the
language is quite obscene at times and so that was the best time to
program that play. I hope
we will come back with those two productions and continue for a very
long time with both plays. I am talking about years. (When we express
our surprise she says) Why not?
Sherlock is going very, very well and it is true that I should think
more of marketing and a way to reach more people. I will think about
that and I know I can do it better.
Las Negras has just opened
and why not stay there for two or three years with that.
With that theater, Plot Point they do that. They trust and they
bet. They say let’s stay here even if there are bad days and of course
there are always some bad days. Some of their productions have been
there for eight years. They continue having a full house. It is a very
small theater, so it is not the same as having a full house in a very
big theater. Las Negras can
be there for three years maybe,” she says.
Our conversation segues into the two previous productions of
La Meleta de los Cuentos that
were presented at Plot Point,
Alice in Wonderland and
Around the World in Eighty Days.
“When I had my son ten years ago I decided to quit this kind of life
(being an actress). I thought this is a very difficult life and I cannot
live like this any longer. It was impossible though and when my son was
almost a year I decided to start again.
Until the time
when my son was born I used to play classical theater in a little
company and when he was born I only had the energy for children. I never
before thought about performing for kids and I didn’t like it. Suddenly
my body and my energy changed and I decided to create
La Maleta de los Cuentos.
In the beginning it was just short stories that I made up myself or some
popular tale. That was the beginning of everything. I had a very old
suitcase that belonged to my grandparents and I also used objects and I
began to sing. After threre years of doing that, suddenly a council
phoned me and they wanted me to prepare either
Alice in Wonderland or
Harry Potter to celebrate
The Day of the Book, which is
the 23 rd of April in Spain the day that Miguel de Cervantes and
Shakespeare died (Editor’s note:
Cervantes one of Spain’s most famous playwrights actually died on April
22, but close enough). I said I can’t do
Harry Potter, because I would
have to pay for the rights, so I said no I will do
Alice in Wonderland.
I didn’t like Alice in Wonderland
from the time I was a little kid, because the story frightened me. It
was something that the council wanted, so I began and it was the origin
of that first long story with La
Maleta de los Cuentos. It
worked very well, so I thought let’s do another one. In the online
(presentation) of Alice in
Wonderland I wear a red wig and I turn into the Red Queen. In the
online (presentation) it is a very short version. It is a reduced
version of my story, which (normally) lasts for seventy minutes and this
one was only forty minutes.
The next one was Around the World
in Eighty Days, but it all of these stories I am the narrator. In my
storytelling I am myself or a character, such as Nellie Bly or Fibi a
poor girl who works for Sherlock
Holmes and I begin to narrate the story. Sometimes I turn into a
different character to continue with the story and I use objects, dolls
and costumes. With Sherlock I
am a very funny character and I change my voice, as I change characters.
I am a feminist, but not aggressive. I try to incorporate my feminism in
my storytelling with little things like this with the narrator being
Nellie Bly. She was a journalist and she was the first person, not only
woman, but the first person to travel around the world in less than
eighty days. She had that record. She made it in seventy-two days. In
that time she was a celebrity all around the world and many people don’t
know that (today). She was also the first woman to go to the wars in
Europe and report about them. She invented a new kind of (investigative)
journalism. She was the first person who infiltrated certain places to
report about them afterwards. She went into an (asylum) for women in New
York for ten days, so she could tell later how horribly the women were
treated in that place. She was really brave. It was amazing. At the end
of her life she was an inventor and she worked in her husband’s industry
inventing things.
In my storytelling Nellie Bly is a little girl and in the future she
will be Nellie Bly. Nellie Bly
was not her real name, it was Elizabeth Cochrane. (Editor’s
Note: Nellie Bly was the pen name for Elizabeth Cochrane who later in
life became Elizabeth Cochran and then Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman when
she married). I tell
the real story (Around the World
in Eighty Days) by Jules Verne, the one that we know, but Nellie Bly
is the one who tells everything. I don’t talk about her life very much,
just a little bit at the beginning and at the end. I suggest to kids to
investigate about her. The rest of the play is the story that we have
always seen in the movies or that we have read in the book,” says
Natalia Fisac.
As for any challenges that may have been faced in adapting books written
in other languages and for other cultures into Spanish to be presented
to audiences in Spain, she says, “I don’t think the difficulty is the
(two) cultures. For instance
Alice I read it in English and I adapted it from the English and
Around the World in Eighty Days
I read it in French, because I can read French. I prefer to always go to
the original language. The problem is not the difference in culture or
language, but the difficulty for me is to turn a book into a play,
because they are different languages. I am very happy that you put that
question, because few people give a thought to the work of adaptation.
It takes a long time to cut and to know that (some things) will not work
on stage. First of all I know I have to cut some parts out, because it
is usually very long. Imagine
Around the World in Eighty Days is a long book, so it is impossible
to put everything on stage. While I was reading I was thinking okay I
like this part very much and this is a great adventure. This could be
funny for the kids. I always think of the kids and what would be best
for them to watch on stage.
When I adapated Sherlock Holmes
I only took two of the stories, because
Sherlock Holmes is huge. (At
first) I performed for my son and some friends of his to test the
adapation that I had. In one of the moments a character talks about
printing photos and the kids were like what?
They didn’t know what I was talking about. Why is it necessary to
have a dark room to print photos? They didn’t understand and I thought
oh my god yes for me that is not a mystery, because I have printed
photos, but for these kids who were so young that is pre-history. You
have to be aware of those things that kids nowadays can understand.
Instead of talking about printing photographs I talked about
mindfulness, because I needed to talk about a dark room. That they
understood. It is fascinating. I have to be in their minds in order to
rewrite the text. I love that part.”
In 2019 Natalia
Fisac was the cover (similar to an understudy in theater) for the
character Blanca in the opera
Carmen and then she received a pleasant surprise, “This was a
project organized by a friend of mine, an opera singer. She is amazing.
She used to work in Italy. In Italy they had this opera in Italian of
course and she brought it to Spain with another singer. For this project
different schools hire them to give workshops for three months in their
schools, so the kids learn the plot and the characters. They make some
of the costumes and they learn the songs, because the goal is to go to a
performance of this opera where they will participate on stage in the
chorus parts. They can be a chorus
of gypsies or soldiers.
They prepare the kids to understand and to learn to enjoy the music and
the story and at the end of the course is when I appear. This was my
chance. My friend called me, because the actress was sick and it was not
intended that I was going to be that character. I was the cover. When
she phoned me I was available and I just participated in a double
performance, one morning. I
went to three rehearsals. In this performance the adaptation consists in
cutting out some text and nothing else. They sing the same songs and the
story is the same. There was an orchestra and a professional, high
quality singer. It is incredible. My part was to join one scene to
another like a narrator. It was great, because it was a very big theater
in Madrid and it was filled with more than a thousand people. I felt at
home with the kids. Wow, I was moved when I was backstage and listening
to the kids or when I was on stage and they came on stage singing. It
was amazing. It was lovely. I loved it.
Everybody likes music and the more music that you listen to the more
open you become to listening to other kinds of music. I am really
ecclectic with my music. I like many different kinds of things. For kids
I think it is very important to let them approach music in a very
playful way and (to learn) that it is not only for elitists and experts.
Everybody can listen to an opera and if you listen to that when you are
a child then you are very likely to keep on listening to it. It is
great.”
In 2019 Natalia Fisac also appeared in a lower budget film that had
limited cinematic release, “The story was great and I liked the script a
lot. I was a detective and my name was San Gil. I was the boss and
really hard, but not angry. There are some very funny scenes, some of
which I used in my videobook (demo reel). I am happy with the work that
I did. You never know someone could see it and think oh this actress is
great and hire me for a bigger film.
Many of my friends told me I was amazing. I know on the screen I am
photogenic. It is just something that I have. I know when I act people
keep watching me, because I have something. I know I work very hard, I
am responsible and people are happy with me, but I never jumped to (the
next level up).”
Natalia Fisac may not have jumped up to the next level yet, but it is
only a matter of time. Earlier in her career she had a recurring role in
the popular television series Hospital Central and she appeared on the
television series, Centro Médico,
Cuestión de Sexo, and
En practicas, as well as in
the films Mi Héroe,
El Manuscrito
Vindel and
Azar.
You can view some
of Natalia Fisac’s work in film and on stage at her
YouTube channel here.
#NataliaFisacActriz #NataliaFisacProducer #NataliaFisacFilm #NataliaFisacTV #RivetingRiffs #RivetingRiffsMagazine #PlotPointMadrid #MadridEspanaTeatro #ActricesEspanola #ActricesDeEspana
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I
had spoken to one of my uncles who and he was a lawyer who spoke very
highly about (a career in law). That is why I ended up studying law.
I
am telling the story as the narrator and suddenly I change into Nellie
Bly to tell the story and make it more interesting. It gives it more
color and more variety. Nellie Bly is a historical person. She really
existed and I was amazed when I found out who she was, because I didn't
know. She was amazing. She was an American woman and it is surprising
what she did. Just like many other women in history have been erased
from history and I don’t understand why.