Patria, the adaptation of the novel by Fernando Aramburu that HBO premieres on the 27th, has been a challenge for a young woman from Vitoria, Susana Abaitua, who plays Nerea. “Playing a character from almost 16 years old, until late thirties has been very difficult,” she explains.
Abaitua tried her luck in Madrid and her energy, demand and effort for her interpretation has led her to work in eleven films, series and plays with secondary roles and protagonists. Until now, her best-known role was in the series I know who you are, but without a doubt, Patria will mark a before and after .
“When I read the book, the character of Nerea was the one who judged the most,” says the actress, who did not understand that having her father been murdered, Nerea did not want to attend the funeral. “But after playing him, my perspective on him has completely changed. She is a very beautiful character, one of those who pose a challenge to interpret because she suffers a lot, but the truth is that it has been wonderful to get into her skin”, highlights the actress.
Patria tells the story of the Basque Country over three decades, marked by ETA terrorism, through the eyes of two families divided by this violence. The series has been involved in controversy over its first promotional poster.
Abaitua points out that this fiction, made up of eight chapters,“It is not a story of good guys and bad guys, it is a story that has really happened, that tells that violence hurts everyone”. The young woman had to document herself previously, despite “having the advantage” that she is Basque and having “family and friends” who know the story first-hand. What helped her the most was the work she did with a psychologist to “come to understand the shock that the character is going through.”
Tanned on stage and in front of a camera, whether doing movies or television, the interpreter is not very clear about the modality in which she most likes to develop the story of characters, she affirms that each one has “their special things”.
“I love doing theater. I have worked a lot and toured with several companies and I love it. He has that drug for the ‘here and now’ actor with a lot of truth, but I also love TV and movies. The series have a wonderful thing that is that they allow you to develop a character much more than what the theater can allow you or what the cinema can allow you”, he points out.
Although the genre in which the actress works the most, and the one that she “likes the most”, is drama, the Basque is very keen to try new things, roles with characters that catch you from the beginning: “I’m very attracted to psychologically complicated characters speaking. The cloudy, with many emotional problems, that’s what I would like to do, “he says.
However, what really decides the actress when choosing a role or not is that the character has “something magical that catches her.” “I look for scripts that make something move inside me and to be able to say ‘I want these words to come out of my mouth,’” he concludes.
