Hard work equals success

I started my ca­reer in busi­ness, I stud­ied at Esade and I was doing very well pro­fes­sion­ally, but act­ing has al­ways been my pas­sion. I was al­ready 30 when I came into the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try and I soon re­alised it was hard to start a ca­reer in Barcelona. If you’re 30 but you are not a well-known face, haven’t been in films, or on TV since you were young, it’s hard to get into the in­dus­try. So I de­cided to try Los An­ge­les for three months to see how it works. I was im­me­di­ately hired to be in a music video with Bon Jovi, and I had many more op­por­tu­ni­ties, so I de­cided to apply for my work per­mit and stay.

When I ar­rived in 2010, there were al­ready a lot of for­eign­ers, so it was hard to get a role! But still, I soon started re­ally ex­cit­ing pro­jects, some of them in­volv­ing big celebri­ties. I got into the Ac­tors’ Gang, a the­atre com­pany whose artis­tic di­rec­tor is Tim Rob­bins. I also be­came a mem­ber of the Ac­tors’ Stu­dio; it is re­ally hard to get in both com­pa­nies, it takes a long time and the process is very de­mand­ing, but I man­aged it. These things do hap­pen here, if you work hard. I am also a coach and I teach act­ing, and I al­ways tell my stu­dents that tal­ent is im­por­tant, but suc­cess also needs very hard work.

It’s called the Brisk Fes­ti­val, and it takes place once a year in April for five weeks, here in LA. I’m in charge of 52 plays, all only 10 min­utes long, in Eng­lish and Span­ish, with more than 200 artists par­tic­i­pat­ing from many coun­tries. I tried to do this fes­ti­val in Barcelona, but it was all prob­lems, and too com­pli­cated. While here, they gave me the op­por­tu­nity. This is the main dif­fer­ence be­tween LA and Barcelona: here, if you work hard, you can be suc­cess­ful.

My first big role was in No way Out, di­rected by Héctor Echavarría, shot in LA and Paraguay. It was a major pro­duc­tion with big names, a great be­gin­ning. I also shot last year in Al­abama, with Bruce Willis, his last movie, which will pre­miere after the sum­mer. Also, the TV show Snatch, based on the fa­mous film by Guy Ritchie. I shot the sec­ond sea­son in Malaga for four months, with Úrsula Cor­beró and an amaz­ing cast and team. I also do com­mer­cials, which are very big here, such as a cam­paign for Dolce & Ga­banna with Scar­lett Jo­hans­son and Matthew Mc­Conaughey. It was amaz­ing, and it ap­peared all over the world. Again, op­por­tu­ni­ties like this can only can hap­pen here in LA.

I love being here, I am an out­door per­son so here the weather al­lows you to be out­side, it’s a sim­i­lar weather and ge­og­ra­phy to Barcelona; you have beach and moun­tain, it’s just that its larger, but the same con­cept. One of the things I love most is the at­ti­tude and en­ergy of the peo­ple: every­one is super friendly, happy about your suc­cess, it’s a place that em­pow­ers you to fol­low your dreams and be­lieve in your­self. Being an en­tre­pre­neur here is super easy, you don’t have to pay any­thing to be free­lance, which is great. It makes you be more prac­ti­cal and you can try new things; it’s so much eas­ier than in Spain. Not to men­tion that I got to meet and work with big stars from all over the world, and that is only pos­si­ble here. Such as bump­ing into Patrick Dempsey a cou­ple of times – peo­ple here con­fuse me with him a lot [he laughs].

LA is very chal­leng­ing and ex­pen­sive, and that can put a lot of pres­sure on you. For many peo­ple it is hard to focus on their act­ing ca­reer be­cause they have two or three jobs to pay the bills. An­other thing is that LA is such a big city that it’s hard to meet your friends if they live on the other side of the city. It can also be a very lonely city if you live by your­self, which is why many peo­ple share a house or a flat.

I’m a super fan of Barcelona, but when I was study­ing at Esade I had an ex­change pro­gramme in At­lanta, and I con­nected with the way Amer­i­cans live. Here it’s a good place for hav­ing a healthy lifestyle, being in na­ture, for sports; it just clicks with me. Ide­ally, I would love to spend half a year in Barcelona and half here, but that de­pends on the job op­por­tu­ni­ties I can get in Cat­alo­nia.