Pedro Almodovar
Pedro Almodovar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter, producer and former actor. He came to prominence as a director and screenwriter during La Movida Madrileña, a cultural renaissance that followed the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. His first few films characterised the sense of sexual and political freedom of the period. In 1986, he established his own film production company, El Deseo, with his younger brother Agustín Almodóvar, responsible for producing all of his films since Law of...
NationalitySpanish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth25 September 1949
CountrySpain
There's something about uninterrupted singing that just doesn't work for me, because at some point, I need my characters to talk. Without meaning to offend anyone, a musical like 'Les Miserables' would be the last thing I'd ever be interested in.
When I'm writing, I don't put faces on the characters. When I finish the first draft of the script, I start visualizing, and sometimes then I think about one actor.
As a woman Penelope Cruz has changed as she has become an adult. But, as an actress she has not changed that much. She has something great, especially in comedy, and she hasn't been exploited as much as she could be in comedy, but particularly in that mix between comedy and drama. She's got a very special quality about her. You can place her in very extreme situations, especially very painful situations, in terms of how her character interprets it. And sometimes, the deeper and more human that pain is, the better she is at it.
Maybe it's the culture, maybe it's the cliché of Latino machismo, but the Mediterranean male character is more dull than the female character. Women are more surprising and they have fewer prejudices.
All my movies have an autobiographical dimension, but that is indirectly, through the characters. In fact I am behind everything that happens and that is said, but I am never talking about myself in first person. Something in me - probably a dislike of cheap exhibitionism- stops me from approaching a project too autobiographically.
You can make a thousand different movies about the same subject.
Broadway musicals, where you sing the whole time, I really don't like; I like alternating dialogue and music.
Of course I want my films to look really good, but every single element is chosen for a reason. It's telling something in the story.
But, although these films express many similar ideas from my previous films, I think they express these ideas in a different way.
Already when I was very young, I was a fabulador. I loved to give my own version of stories that everybody already knew.
With this silent film, I wanted to hide what was going on in the clinic. I wanted to cover it up in the best cinematic way and in an entertaining manner.
I remember myself at 10 years old telling stories to my sisters and brother. This is something I did through my adolescence and even through my twenties.
In fact, it was the women in our house who were in the saddle. If men are the gods, women are not only the presidents but all the ministers of the government.
Before shooting, I prepare with the actors much more like it's a theater play than a movie. Apparently, that way of working is very unusual.